Southern Motor Works

[ZEEROLLA]

Hi guys i spoke to the owner of Southern Motor Works (16 years in business, Albion Park Rail, NSW) today and saw his Orange Lotus Exige in the flesh and it looks awesome. I spoke to him about the Sportivo and guess what, he can do some serious engine work to the 2ZZ-GE to make it output 55NM more torque and much more power. His Lotus Exige runs a 1min 6sec at Wakefield Park! Try to beat that time with a 2ZZ-GE powered car.. In comparison, i see Ferraris doing 1min15sec and Porshe GT3 do 1min13sec. A heavily worked TypeR DC2 and a Mirage Cup car did 1min12s.

The mods on his Exige include close ratio gears (improved performance dramatically), stroked engine to 2000cc, light weight valves, pistons etc. all working with the standard ECU. He also has a more agressive rear LSD installed allowing him to maintain power drifts! The rear slicks i saw tell the story.

Jason is the man to speak to and he knows the Bates team and Lean Ferrier. His Exige has been used as a show car for the Chance of a Lifetime challenge. They will be racing the 141kw Exige next season instead of the 88kw Elise. His workshop has a Toyota mechanic with 10years experience and has an AWD dyno. He does mostly WRXs everyday, turbo Mirage, Lancers etc and of course his own toy the 2ZZ-GE Exige.

If anyone wants his number you can PM me or check the yellow pages. But don't go ringing up and annoying him. Ring up only if you are serious as he is very passionate about the 2ZZ-GE but he is also a very busy man working on many other hi-performance cars, even power boats! He even has a spare Lotus tuned 2ZZ-GE engine on the workshop floor with TOM's flywheel and h/d clutch. That engine will be his next project.

Zee

[rollagrl]

baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa *wipes drool from bottom lip*

[eddy_torrezz]

that sound excellent what type of cash are we talking about for this type of upgrade?

[ZEEROLLA]

that sound excellent what type of cash are we talking about for this type of upgrade?

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I don't have prices with me but it won't be cheap once you get to engine components. But if you are serious about extracting every killerwatt of power for track driving, then this will be the ultimate NA tuning and costs come second. This is serious stuff, no bolt-ons. He ported and polished the 2ZZ-GE and basically replaced every major engine componet except the cams. His engine is like a TypeR engine, hand made stroked 2liter 2ZZ-GE!

The thing is the 2ZZ-GE has great potential if you are willing to spend the money. The cams in the 2ZZ-GE are bigger than the VTEC cams so there is no need to upgrade in that department. The one drawback is that the 2ZZ-GE's valves can be damaged easily from over-revving during downshifting. So if you are serious get the valves changed before it pops otherwise you can risk damaging other engine components.

[influx]

just remember though the exige weighs about as much as my chow chow puppy

would be reallllllllllll nice to get the vavles and springs done though- all the money spent on doing all that you could sort an elise.

i currently want to layby the yellow and black exige at rick damelian's we're in discuss about a buy will you drive system its not going to well though :D :P

[CAP]

Does the stroked engine have a reduced redline ?

[qkslvr]

Does the stroked engine have a reduced redline ?

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I don't imagine it would. He said it had the stock ECU which means the limiter would be unchanged.

235Nm of torque to play with...There goes that mid-range gap :D

I wonder what the power output would be

[8400rpm]

Well assuming the 235Nm is made near the top of the rev range, say lets say 7,800rpm then you would have approximately 183kw B)

[ZEEROLLA]

Well assuming the 235Nm is made near the top of the rev range, say lets say 7,800rpm then you would have approximately 183kw B)

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The Exige has a higher redline than ours to start off, i think around 8500rpm and their gear ratios are also different.

It also does 0-100km/h in the 5 sec range stock, imagine what it would do now!

Also, Jason drove my car to have a feel of my shifter and his comments were "Its bloody horrible" :( He was shifting at 7800rpm and he's quite good at it landing almost in Lift each time but he says its too notchy and stiff. He says he needs 110% concentration to shift right and the driver has to be quite brutal to get the gear shift in the right slot. He even crunched the gear once when making a U-turn...

He is really passionate about the car and say he can do great things to it, like his own Exige. The best would be the close ratio gears allowing the car to stay in LIFT no matter how slow you shift.

Edited December 17, 2004 by ZEEROLLA