La Dolce Veloce

The 190hp, Toyota powered Lotus Elise is fast. Real fast. 0-60 in under five seconds, and over 1g of cornering force. Could it be made any better? ForcedFed in Livermore, California thinks so. First, they designed (and are now selling) a turbocharger kit that bumps up power to 275hp, while only adding around twenty pounds of weight (this low gain is mostly because they’re replacing heavy stock parts with lighter custom ones, like the exhaust manifold). Now, they’ve finished development work on a 400hp version of that turbo kit. The car recently completed testing for an upcoming Car & Driver comparison test, and while that test didn’t go as well as hoped (the engine was severely damaged by operator error), the concept of 400hp in an Elise is mind boggling. My stock Elise is fast enough, I can’t begin to imagine what doubling the power (and almost doubling the torque) will do. Naturally, they also have an upgrade solution for the brakes and suspension to go along with the added power. I was at ForcedFed’s shop the other day and had a chance to check out their work. Really nice stuff, and I walked out of there with a new air intake for my Elise.

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