Newbie question

[Andy wright]

No traction control on my version but good point about the legal requirement . Having slept on it, I will leave it for now but may modify the feeds from the master cylinder to the ABS to -3 stainless hose as it makes moving the master cylinder without disconnection so much easier . 

[Andy wright]

Checked up on the ABS requirement.Jan 1st 2004 all new cars registered on U.K. roads must be fitted with  ABS unless production numbers are below 500. So TVR didn’t bother..In 2007, my model sold 389 units in the U.K. I think that is a technical loophole so, if it’s fitted, it has to work, but if it’s not present on the car , then it would meet the MOT requirement. However, in the event of an accident, any insurance company would break out the bowl, water and towel and wish one the very best of luck when the court case comes up. 

[LotusPanelRepair]

I think it will be 500 of a type where the type is Elise and Exige under the one homologation with the 1zz being a variant.

[Andy wright]

And on the brake front, the rears now fully blinged up th match the fronts . Interior sort of out  complete with gear shifter in readiness for some ‘ improvements’ . 

[winthattt]

S2 abs is very good, works well, you can threshold brake with it in situ. Bleeding with the abs can be tricky, I think you need the correct scan tool to get the abs to purge itself. 

[Andy wright]

Yes. I understand that bleeding the abs can be tricky. Effectively the ABS needs to run through some activation cycles so that the pump runs and the valves activate . Another way is to find a quiet road and try to get the ABS to cut in and out a few times . I will just have to wait and see when I get the new M/C installed along with the Calipers and take it from there . 

[LotusPanelRepair]

On top of the well documented rotate the calipers when bleeding which you shouldn’t need to do with the side entry. I struggled for hours trying to get a good pedal. It was only when I got someone else to press the pedal could I see that there were bubbles in the reservoir to master cylinder white push fit connectors which where trapped because of the pipe routing. So if you can disconnect the reservoir and straighten the feed pipes first you’ll save a lot of fluid and one headache. 

[Andy wright]

And yet another aside. My heater controls didn’t light up. Note the use of the past tense here. I happened to comment on this a few posts ago and Matt( Lotus panelrepair) offered advice and then to fix the problem. Panel posted to him on Monday. Repaired panel arrived back this lunchtime and now fitted .

Astonishingly good service . Thank you  Matt. And if anyone else here has a heater panel that heats but doesn’t light, Lotusrepairpanel is the place to go. 

[Andy wright]

And yet another aside as I play another round of ‘ take bits off the Elise , fiddle about and put new bits in ‘ . Anyway, trigger pulled on new coilovers . And I have bought……….I will let you know when they arrive. At least I will  have a set of Bilsteins in really good condition to sell to make a small dent in the cost . 

[Andy wright]

And while I wait for the coilovers, a bit of progress on the HPE shifter. Lovely bit of engineering . And very helpful and comprehensive instructions. I thought I would start by fitting the shifter baseplate to the floor . It is held down by 4 bolts. Except my car only had three rivsert nuts in place so first job was to install the fourth. Then plate bolted down . And then the snag . Or at least I think it is. The nuts into which the baseplate bolts screw are not captive nuts. They are rivserts. So they  have shoulders which protrude above the surface of the ‘ ribbed’ floor section. So in effect the baseplate is not in contact with the floor, but sits on four ‘ pillars about 1.5mm from the floor. Front to back , thats nice and rigid, but laterally it isn’t . So, thinking cap on, and some metalwork to do. Pictures to follow to show what I have come up with to eliminate the ‘ problem . 
As the photo shows, the baseplate is bolted to the floor on a quite ‘ narrow’ footprint laterally . The shifter base is then bolted to the baseplate but offset to the left. Fore and aft, that is fine, but moving the lever sideways makes the baseplate tilt on its ‘ rivsert pillars ‘ ( Just like the O.E one does to be fair ) . My trusty CAD tool has come in handy and metalwork is about to begin. 

[Lithopsian]

Isn't the base plate just so you can use the original holes in the floor?  Wouldn't it work better fitting the shifter directly to the floor?  Those holes look wider apart.  I haven't heard people complaining about this, but I'm not sure how many are using the adapter plate.

[Andy wright]

49 minutes ago, Lithopsian said:

Isn't the base plate just so you can use the original holes in the floor?  Wouldn't it work better fitting the shifter directly to the floor?  Those holes look wider apart.  I haven't heard people complaining about this, but I'm not sure how many are using the adapter plate.

They are. But the four symmetrically placed holes in the base plate are threaded . So if I used those I would  need to put 4 new rivserts in and use studs to hold the shifter. Then the extension plates would be 5mm too low at the back where the seat frames mount . Anyway, my compromise is to make a larger baseplate adding two new rivserts and making use of two redundant ones that are further back . To make my plate sit flat on the floor, I have machined a recess in each bolt hole to take the flange of the rivsert . This creates a ‘ flat’ base onto which the HPE baseplate sits and then bolts though in to the floor . Ideally I would have ordered some 5mm aluminium plate and made a new shifter baseplate which looks a bit like the one I have made in thinner aluminium . That would have been a much better and more elegant solution. 
Having said all this , HPE have clearly sold a number of these units without complaint or difficulty . How many of them have gone to 5 speed S2 Toyota Elise’s is harder to know. I did contact them to check that their shifter would work with the five speed box  and they confirmed that it should do (!) . 
Anyway, this is where I have got to. 

[Lithopsian]

I was thinking no base plate at all, just the bracket bolted to the floor.  Would solve a number of problems.

[Andy wright]

15 hours ago, Lithopsian said:

I was thinking no base plate at all, just the bracket bolted to the floor.  Would solve a number of problems.

Well perhaps.. That solution would require 4 new rivnuts and then then the problem of the rivnut shoulder standing proud has to be fixed via machining a recess in the baseplate.,Then there is the problem of the baseplate footprint. The bolt centres are 61mmx64mm . That’s a small footprint . I have ordered a piece of 10mm thick aluminium . Having trialled my ‘ extra ‘ aluminium sheet which was 3mm thick, the arrangement was better but the HPE baseplate still moved relative to my baseplate slightly so I plan to discard the HPE baseplate and make a new one, with a much larger footprint onto which the shifter bolts directly . Thats going to be a couple of hours on my mill ( which is exclusively manual ) . I will add photos when it’s done. 

[Andy wright]