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Rob
Ellis'1998
Currently
for Sale
Rob Ellis from Leamington Spa, UK owns a 1998 V8-GT in New Aluminium, with a Black/Silver Alcantara interior.
Model:
Year: Colour: Interior: Driving Style: Miles per year: 10,000+ Owned Since: Purchase from: Serviced at: Other Cars: Previous Lotus': Why an Esprit: Upgrades: Magnesio five spoke wheels. Moto-concept exhaust. Problems: Info:
Its
a 1998 V8-GT, New Aluminium with black/silver alcantara colour coded sports
seats.
Fitted the moto-concept cross drilled disks and porterfield pads (with help from Rob C) over the weekend… Here’s a pic of the fronts
The pic of the esprit on the way to le mans was taken just before we got on the ferry - the 360 modena is owned by my mate, who's name bizzarely is also Rob.. :-) The esprit is every bit as fast as the 'dancing donkey' and in fact attracts MORE attention from admiring foreigners... I guess they see ferraris more often than esprits. For that trip my car had a sports exhaust fitted that had a hole in (now replaced) - sounded AWESOME going thu the tunnels around the peripherique in paris on the way back :-D
My newest addition are aluminium rings for the buttons on the dash. Available from www.race-speed.com
The esprit is no longer my only means of transport. After 3 years of running esprits as my only car I have finally got myself some ‘sensible’ wheels for day to day use, commuting etc. I have a mk3 golf gti so I can reduce the mileage on the esprit to just ‘fun’ stuff. The esprits were expensive to run as daily transport, but completely practical and surprisingly reliable. Biggest issue is the depreciation I’m suffering with the v8 – everyone who hears that it has over 64,000 miles on it seems to think this is a pretty high mileage for a ‘98..!
Other updates: I now have PAGID RS-14 pads all round. These have much better ‘bite’ than the porterfields. The porterfields are good pads, and definitely and improvement over the stock OE lotus pads and they are MUCH cheaper – like half the price of lotus. The pagids are a similar price to stock lotus pads and although they are much grippier they do squeal a bit and work best in ‘hard’ useage situations – for track or hard road use they are ideal. I think I’ll stick with the pagids until I can afford an AP upgrade to sport350/2000 spec brakes.
I’ve recently upgraded my exhaust too. I have had several systems on my car – initially it had a stock lotus exhaust. I’ve then run a custom box that Rob C made with ‘straight across’ cross over pipes within the silencer. This was an improvement over the regular box, but not as nice a sound as a sports exhaust. I then had a lotus sports exhaust, followed by some quicksilver style ‘straight pipes’ ie no silencer box at all. These sounded fantastic but were just too loud. The spool/pickup is much quicker with these, but you have to be aware that taking that much weight off the rear or the car will affect the rear ride height and hence the geometry. The car is much more tail happy with straight pipes on unless you lower the rear back to the factory height. I took the straight pipes off after about a month as they were just too loud. The lotus factory sports exhaust is actually a very good system. Its got a great sound, and crackles and pops on overrun – makes you feel like you’re driving a seventies le mans car J
Downsides of either of the two lotus exhausts is that they will all crack eventually and the tail pipes will rattle, and the tail pipe trims will tarnish. I’ve had my sports exhaust welded up and its fine, but I decided I’d try something different.
I investigated Esprit V8 exhausts from D&T (Australia), TUBI (Italy), Stebro (Switzerland), SW European (Arizona), Quicksilver (UK), Yoshimura (Japan) and Moto-Concept (Germany). Many pros and cons for all of these, and considerable price variation. Final choice was the “supersound” stainless system from Moto-Concept. Its essentially the same design as the lotus systems, but it has additional bracing for strength, bigger tail pipes (76mm vs 64mm) and also has a ‘resonator box’ like the Tubi does to improve the sound quality and it also reduces back pressure when compared to a lotus sports exhaust.
As marcus says “.. it is designed for max free flow and best torque and high rpm performance. Its not just free/straight pipes hidden in a for-show-box. It has a resonance box with very little dampening (=restriction) inside. Thats why it is popping and crackling a little bit on the overrun. And what is very important its reinforced so that it does not crack like many exhaust systems do.”
Please contact me via email if you’re considering buying an exhaust from Moto-Concept.
Midlands Lotus Run (Feb2003)
Lots of fun, good guys, good roads and good weather
Supercar Sunday 2002
My Esprit next to Rob C's Sport 350 (also on the owners pages here at Lotus Esprit World) at Supercar Sunday in Mid 2002.
The running costs are all documented in pistonheads -
www.pistonheads.com
its quite scary when you see it all in black and white. N.B. I have not told my girlfriend exactly how much it adds up to!
My Esprit's in the Snow
My V8 and GT3 in North Wales
My First Esprit
1998 GT3
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