2005 Lotus Elise VW 4.0 W8 Twin Turbo Swap

In this section we will be going over the axles, they are not in final form at this point so it will get updated as time goes on. With the length of the drivetrain there was no question this drivetrain was going to require a fairly aggressive angle on the CV axles. As the drivetrain sits, with a a hard set goal to not stretch the Elise or modify the body in anyway we ended up with about 5-6" of forward offset from the axle to the hub. With the length of the axle that translates to about 17 degrees...

The space, as with all of it, is tight but luckily with the use of dual throttle bodies I am able to keep the charge piping short and use dual filters to save an extensive amount of plumbing. Each side has a filter with a 180 down to the turbo inlet:

Each turbo outlet has a 90 degree bend in silicone to a 90 degree aluminum pipe to a final 90 degree silicone elbow right into each throttle body:

The throttle bodies mount to a CNC flange with a tight 90 into the intercoolers:

With the turbos mount and flanges cut and ported to match the turbos we started in on downpipes:

Turbo placement couldn't be perfectly symmetrical with the location of the accessories and clearance is a little different side to side but both downpipes started in and at the point above were clearing everything perfect. The motor is solid mounted but given the potential of expansion from heat flex sections were added to the downpipes. From there the driver pipe ended up with a much tighter fit and had to oval the pipe out at the axle a little,...

At this point a lot of the hard parts were done, sorted, and placed. We knew where the major components would be and where we needed space for things to come so naturally we tore it all apart leaving us with about half a car:

A friend of ours has a power coating oven at his business so we loaded up parts and went his way to make things pretty and came home with this:

Quick reassembly and things look pretty good:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/wuxDJK362GvKBpt46

A few engine bits got some powder as...

As we've talked about some of the known problems with the W8 one that has to do with the coolant system is the thermostat. Now most thermostats are simple and cheap, they use a brass cylinder filled with wax that prevents a spring from pushing on a plate that prevents coolant from flowing when its cold. Some motors these days use a cast housing and have the thermostat factory installed into the housing and are not considered rebuildable or serviceable item. This is where we sit with VW on the W8 but it gets even better, VW decided that they...