MENUWe review 2-Eleven tuning and provide tips on the premier upgrades. Lotus 2-Elevens really good project cars and with carefully picked modified enhancements you can improve your driving fun.
"Tuning guide to the best Lotus 2-Eleven modifications."
The 2-Eleven is a great car modification project to take up your weekends. We see car enthusiasts wasting money on their 2-Eleven doing the wrong mods and then having to start over. Follow our guides to avoid making the common mistakes
Handling/Suspension upgrades
Handling modifications are high on the agenda for the 2-Eleven.
Fully adjustable suspension allows you to fine tune the handling of you 2-Eleven radically improving your drive.
We would go to a maximum drop of 22mm - 43 mm. on most models. You risk handling compromises if you go lower than this.
Don't just look at the peak power figures, you need to see the whole torque curve when determining if a mod is right for you 2-Eleven.
The best power gains come from larger engine sizes. The more you start with the bigger the return on investment so engine swaps are good value mods for small engined cars.
Tuning modifications.
Typically these sports modifications are usually carried out by our members, decide how far you want to go before you get started.
Getting the correct grade of motorsport upgrade kits for your planned usage of the car is vital. Stage 3 motor sport parts just don't work well on the road hard to control in slow traffic.
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How to tune your car
- Improve the handling
Focus on Suspension improvements, such as coilovers and make sure the bushings are in good order and that the alignment is correct. Then focus on improving the brakes, with a big disk brake conversion kit and fast road brake pads.
- Remove restrictions
Focus on the intake and exhaust with filters being the common point of restriction in a tuned car. Intercoolers may also become restrictive on turbo engines so this may also need to be uprated.
- Burn more fuel & air
Increase the fuelling so it matches the air coming into the engine. The ratio is important so you need to improve the fuel pump and injectors, so the head mods, big valve conversions, fast road camshafts and forced induction upgrades extra supply of air is adequately met.
- Test and replace any weak parts
Weak areas are commonly the clutch, the turbocharger and pistons and crankshaft in a highly tuned engine. Makes sure these components will cope with your power aspirations.
- The Tune or Remap
A cars ECU controls the fuel, timing, spark and even the turbo in some cases, so to fully extract your gains you should remap the car last and this will fully release the power. Some cars are easy to map, and others require piggyback ECU's or aftermarket ECU's but this is the most vital step of your tuning project.
Modifying to Stage 1:
Lighter flywheel, Alloy wheels, Remap, Panel air filter, Sports exhaust, Suspension upgrade (drop 22mm - 43 mm.).
Modifying to Stage 2:
Ported and polished head, Power/Sport clutch, fuel pump upgrades, Fast road cam, high flow fuel injector.
Modifying to Stage 3:
Internal engine upgrades (pistons/head/valves), Competition cam, Adding or upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger), Sports gearbox, Engine balancing.
You really need to keep as much low end torque as possible and aim to achieve a long power band across the rev range rather than a narrow top end power hike.
In this article we shall give a brief overview to the best upgrades for your car, but we'd encourage you to spend some time on the site looking into the details of each type of performance upgrade.A fast road camshaft typically is one of the best NASP power mods you can do mechanically to your engine.
It maximises the intake and exhaust flow and increases the power if done right. Ideally you'd add other mods and finish up with a remap. We'd also caution you not to go with a competition cam as this affects the engines idling and general town driving characteristics.
When pushing up the power you will need to increase to the fuelling. More power needs more fuel.
Using higher octane fuel is another option if you find you are suffering from detonation or premature ignition on your Lotus project after fitting other performance parts. Upgrading the injectors is another beneficial modification and will deliver sufficient fuel.
A fuel pump will only deliver a finite amount of fuel, so you may need to uprate this if your injectors are demanding more fuel.
Intake and Exhaust Tuning.
Breathing mods are usually next up. Please note that WE DO NOT RECOMMEND INDUCTION KITS, unless you have tuned your car with over 30 percent more power and are finding that the standard air intake has become a restriction.
For most 2-Eleven engines TorqueCars would suggest you just go with a washable panel air filter. On heavily tuned engines and turbo vehicles an induction kit will help release the power providing you address the problem of needing cold air.
Do not go with the widest exhaust you can find this will reduce the exhaust flow rate - the best for power gains are usually between 1.5 to 2.5 inches. It is the shape and material more than the bore size.
Airflow through the head can be dramatically increased with some professional polishing and ported. These should match and be setup to take into account any other engine mods. A good heavy duty fast road upgraded clutch will help to keep that power going where it should. Never make false economies or think that a standard clutch to cope. The best mods we recommend for your 2-Eleven are Remapping or piggy back ecu, fast road cam and air intake and exhaust.
Remaps offer impressive power gains on all turbo charged cars. On NASP engines the benefits are doubtful. However a flashed ecu on a NASP engine will help unleash the potential if you have done a lot of mods.
We've also seen some tuners toying with twin charging conversions and making some very high power gains.
Adding forced induction will see impressive power gains but this is usually too expensive to be cost effective. Turbos are generally harder to add than a supercharger. With a turbo the power curve is related exponentially to the engine speed making it more challenging to map.
It is more straightforward to map a supercharger because the boost is directly proportional to engine speed on a linear curve. Decreasing the engines compression ratio will allow you to add forced induction, water injection may also help prevent detonation.
Alloy wheel upgrades.
Alloy wheels can help the brakes cool down and are generally less heavy than the steel ones. Don't forget that your choice of rubber greatly affects your cars grip and handling. It is not worth compromising performance with cheap tyres when you can buy directional tread pattern performance tires.Large 2-Eleven alloy wheels can decrease performance. If you get big alloy wheels you will be changing your final drive ratio.
For this reason aim to keep the overall rolling diameter of the wheel the OEM setup. In all cases avoid going over 16 inches.
For more information on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss 2-Eleven options in more detail with our 2-Eleven owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Lotus tuning articles to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks of each modification.
Please help us improve these tips by sending us your feedback in the comments box below.
We love to hear what our visitors have got up to and which mods work best for them on each model of car. Comments are used to improve the accuracy of these articles which are continually updated.
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