Newbie question

[Andy wright]

Oh yes. It forms the end of the Subframe. This is Toyota remember . There is a bracket that bolts on to provide two further bolt holes , making four in total, but the main part is definitely part of the subframe . 

[Lithopsian]

OK.  I was thinking of the bolt-on bit.  If the subframe itself is bent, that's not great.  I wonder how much of a mess the clam was for that bot of the subframe to get bent.

[Andy wright]

Surprisingly the rear clam damage was slight and was repaired rather than replaced ( though the latter would have been better ) The main subframe is undamaged: the exhaust hanger sort of sticks out from one end . I will upload a few photographs when battle resumes tomorrow .

 

[mattb130]

I suspect the mounting points were welded as part of the repair as the Toyota s2 cars use a nut plate in that area. 
 

https://parts.lotusnewlondon.com/a/Lotus_2009_Exige-S2-Cup-240S-240/62881977__9108157/Exhaust-System/Elise_B120T0325D_04-11MY_4501.html

[Andy wright]

Nope . Definitely part of the bracket with the first two captive nuts is part of the subframe. A bracket secured by a single bolt then provided the second two captive nuts. 
First picture is a general shot of an empty lotus Elise rear end. The next two show the said  mounting point on the offside which is undamaged, and the last one the nearside, with the bolt on bracket removed and the bit thats left straightened out as best as I can. It does need moving upwards very slightly but I will use  a Jack and the cars weight to do that . The bolt on bracket now fits and lines up .

I could simply cut the bent bracket off and make a new one to weld on , but welding onto galvanised steel is not possible, without first removing the zinc coating to reveal clean steel. Then it’s weld- through primer etc etc ……..

I will sleep on that one. 

[Andy wright]

Afterthought.,There may be another repair option. Remove bent bracket from the subframe with an angle grinder. Then make up a new bracket that bolts to the subframe . That might end up being a neat solution that avoids the need to weld on the car . 

[Lithopsian]

That does look ugly.  Maybe the exhaust itself just bent that bit of the subframe.  I'd really want to remove that whole bent bit and start again, even if it is only for hanging the exhaust.

[Dave-hp]

On 03/10/2025 at 10:42, Andy wright said:

Morning. Job now complete. To configure shift lights and to get the indicator box to work, Racestudio3 software and a  laptop are required. The indicator lights were quite hard to see as they are very close to the top of the display, but fortunately the MX2E has 4 user defined dialogue display boxes that can be enabled and populated with ecu/ expansion channel/ track / display / other data , so I populated two of them with the indicator data . The shift lights are going to be a bit more tricky. I have configured them but will have to wait until I drive the car to see how visible they are. However, I do have two more spare display boxes so I could make them indicate rpm change points . We will see. Overall, the installation was more time consuming than difficult. I wanted to keep the supplied switches which are critical for setting up, and they needed to be in the upper cowl. Locating them in the lower shroud would have been much easier but then installing the lower cover whilst the switches are connected to the back of the dash in the upper cowl would have been a real pain. I did get some miniature push button switches and miniature  two pin connectors to enable the lower shroud to be used, but ended up extensively modifying the supplied switch housings and fitting them in the cowl. My cowl is cracked and not great , so I was prepared to experiment as I found out a second hand replacement on eBay just in case I made a complete cock of the job. Fortunately I did not need to hit the ‘ buy it now’ button as my system works, though not massively pretty . I may well still buy said cowl, modify it more to make the shift lights more visible , relocate the buttons and re do that bit of the job. 

IMG_8648.mov

I hope with all this simplicity Andy, you have added a few ounces of lightness too. I mean you have got rid of the speedo and rev counter motors and hands lol  😉 

[Dave-hp]

On 27/10/2025 at 18:14, Andy wright said:

Next job. Exhaust upgrade I have a 2ubular manifold,msports cat and silencer. And today was the day to fit it.. Correction, today  was the day that I spent 5 hours getting the old system off. The principle is straight forward. Jack up the car and support securely. Remove nearside rear wheel and arch liner. Remove upper and lower manifold heat shields. Remove the manifold to CAT clamp bolts. Disconnect and remove the wiring to both  the pre and post cat lambda sensors. Support the exhaust , remove the silencer support braces and lower the silencer and CAT to the ground. Then remove the five nuts securing the manifold to the head and remove the manifold.

Just about every nut and bolt put up a fight, and in the case of the heat shields and manifold to cat bolts, they didn’t get dropped to the floor until round ten. Engine mount needed to come out ( and yes, the through bolt was seized in the mounting )

But in the end, they didn’t get exhaust was on the floor( and it’s a heavy piece of kit )

 Then I thought I would check out what was underneath so removed the heat shield. Hmm. Interesting ( slight aside. I bough the car and year ago with a list of faults as long as your arm and light damage which resulted in its CAT N status in 2022. I knew that the rear clam had been repaired but could see no other damage .:Now I have found it in the form of the nearside rear hanger mount for the silencer. It’s a bracket that is welded onto the subframe, and in my case had inherited an S bend that it really didn’t need. It took a couple of hours to properly straighten out said bracket so that it properly lines up again.) But now everything is out of the way, I think I will insert some bling in the form of gold coloured self adhesive heat shield to go on the fibreglass behind the aluminium heat shield .Pictures to follow, but here is one of the manifold complete with ‘Funk motorsport ‘ titanium wrap and I have a matching jacket for the CAT 

I take it they are the old shock/springs? Theyve seen better days. 

[Dave-hp]

Youve done some serious work on this car Andy. Do you know how many hours you have totalled? Fascinating watching the progress. Hats off to you having a go at pretty much everything it has thrown at you.  

[Andy wright]

I am not quite sure why Lotus designed the subframe this way. It would have been much easier just to have made the whole exhaust hanger location part of the frame . Instead, they welded on an additional half bracket, cantilevered off the and of the frame, and then fabricated an extra bolt on piece

Anyway, they did and I agree, my semi straightened exhaust hanger now ‘ works ‘ but looks like a dogs breakfast . I am considering making up a full bracket that has four captive nuts for the exhaust mounts and then simply bolting this new bracket to the end of the frame. I will  need to do a bit of cutting and grinding to remove the bent bits , and then drill a few suitable holes through which the new bracket can attach to the frame . 
A job for tomorrow I think . 

[Andy wright]

Hours . Hmm. I have not kept a tally of how long I have spent on it, just exactly how much I have spent on it . I have driven it about 5000miles. At an average of 40mm h, thats 125hours of driving. Conclusion: I have spent far longer fixing it than driving it . But most of it has been enjoyable and it’s always interesting learning about a new car ( well, new to me) . What makes the Elise special from  this perspective is that it’s built in an almost unique way , which makes things ‘ different ‘ For example, on other cars , I would not have hesitated to fire up the welder by now but on the Elise , the combination of galvanised steel and its close proximity to fibreglass means plan ‘b’ becomes plan ‘a’ . I could of course remove the rear clam , and had I done so first, the exhaust removal would have been very much easier , but that battle has been won, so the clam is staying for now . 

[Andy wright]

28 minutes ago, Dave-hp said:

I hope with all this simplicity Andy, you have added a few ounces of lightness too. I mean you have got rid of the speedo and rev counter motors and hands lol  😉 

Oh yes. 120 grams lighter and and that has such an impact on the way the car responds. ……….😀😀More seriously, the weight of the  silencer is huge. As soon as my new one arrives I will weigh the full Toyota system and compare with the new full 2ubular one. That will be interesting . 

[Lithopsian]

There is a newer subframe design that has a simpler flat square nutplate for the hanger.  Not sure why they still need a separate plate. 

Edited October 28, 2025 by Lithopsian

[Andy wright]

1 hour ago, Lithopsian said:

There is a newer subframe design that has a simpler flat square nutplate for the hanger.  Not sure why they still need a separate plate. 

That makes much more sense. How it should have been .