lotus m100 elan se my first impression

When you test drive the Elan you should try the car with the roof up to check its fit.Its too easy to be impressed by the car to not notice that there are problems with the hood....The fabric is no more expensive than a normal convertible car to replace...But all of the rubber seals ..and the metal frame are quite expensive..The gearchange in my car is so smooth you can almost change gear with 1 finger.Engine sounds nice and hard.i find the car very comfortable .But 1st impressions i didnt like the feel of the car...Theres areas of the front that you cant actually see you have to get used to the car.Acceleration 1st -2nd-3rd gears blast through the rev limiter..Its so easy to drive fast.with absolutely no wheelspin whatsoever...The handling is superb.whatever you can do on the road it can do better.The brakes take a little getting used to..when they are cold they do not stop the car at all.Once warmed up they stop the car.well...normally about 3 stops at junctions .The brakes have a solid pedal.but the pad material doesnt seem to have any effect till warmed up..All the elans are the same.Unless people have upgraded their discs and pads...It took me quite a while for me to get used to how quick the engine will rev from 4000 to 6000.once the turbo spins up.the combination of this and no wheelspin whatsoever had me paranoid that there was something wrong with the clutch...Its a year later ...same clutch..What else surprised me was the lack of rattles and noise from a fibre glass hand built car...Well most people wouldnt even know it was fibreglass...And porsches that try and race you on rainy days.and on bendy roads no problem ....This car handles like a dream in the wet once the tires are warmed up...

So the gauges..on the dashboard..A healthy car will show 14v on the voltmeter..3/4 on the oil pressure gauge..when cold going to about 1/2 way when warm and when warm its quite normal for it to tick over around the 1/4 position...The Turbo when boosting should show 0.5 on the gauge ....If the cars been modified this could obvoisly differ...The temperature..My engine runs very cool..it would have to tick over forever before the cooling fans come on..... This is a good thing to do ...force the car to heat up and check that the cooling fans run...

The Power steering has a serious lisp.....it sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssteers...at every turn of the wheel ..another thing which took a little while to get used too....but is completely usual.....Somebody on one of the forums described it as sounding like a pit of snakes......