Hood up/Hood Down vs Elise

Anonymous · May 20, 2004, 10:18

Okay, my buddy at work has an Elise and has just put the soft top on it for the summer. We both turned up for work this morning in 'hood down' mode. After about an hour at work it has begun to look extremley gloomy so we went down to put the 'hoods up'. I jumped in the car, pushed the windows down and pulled the hood up in about 30 seconds. By this time my mate in the Elise next to me has only opened the boot s:shock: :shock: s:shock: ! I then proceeded to help him put the roof up and it took the best part of 5 minutes. Afterwards he was saying how jealous he was of the MR2 softop and how easy it was, which I was chuffed about so i replied "yeah but it aint an Elise!".

I cant believe how cumbersome the hood is on the Elise it is like something out of the dark ages! I am so pleased ours is up and down in seconds. I was also chatting with this lad at work who owns a MGF (tsk!) and I was saying how nice it is having the hood down at the moment. He said "yeah it is but I really can't be arsed with all this zipping and un-zipping of the window etc" and he was amazed when I told him that I just throw mine back without any silly unzipping s:P

s:P .. another bonus of the 2!

I now have 2 people at work wanting an MR2 and I am taking the lad with the MGF out for a spin @lunch ... he will instantly be converted when he sees my interior hasn't been taken straight out of the old Rover 100 s:D

s:D s:D

s:D

Darth Paul · May 20, 2004, 10:24

Quote from: "floater"I jumped in the car, pushed the windows down and pulled the hood up in about 30 seconds.

You need to get some left arm exercise (f'nar). That's far too slow. s:wink: :wink: s:wink: Windows down an inch – 1 second, hood tab pulled – 1 second, hood up – 2 seconds, fasten both catches – 5 seconds, windows up – 1 second. 10 SECONDS MAX!

Do 2 sides of lines, A4 and not the stuff with wider lines.

'I must try harder to put my top up more quickly'.

s:lol: :lol: s:lol: s:lol: :lol: s:lol:

DP

Anonymous · May 20, 2004, 10:28

LOL s:lol: :lol: s:lol:

I've got this image of you now Paul in a comedy speeded up sketch routine of a lightning fast top raising s;)

s;)

floater, nice to see a mature chat and appreciation of different vehicles between yourself and the elise owner s;)

s;) Don't scare the MGF owner s:D

s:D

GSB · May 20, 2004, 10:36

I had a Merc SLK following me in a traffic jam the other day. The sun came out, so within 3 seconds the hood was down and stowed away, the "pull" tab had flown into the passenger footwell again, and I was basking in 40 watt british sunshine.

Cue the woman in the SLK behind me thinking, "Oh, thats a good idea", and pressing the button that causes 100 kilos of otherwise useless hydraulic and mechanical jiggery-pokery to start doing funny things to her boot lid and lowering her roof. Unfortunatley this process takes considerably longer on the Merc than it did in my car, and by the time the bootlid was up and the hood unlatched from the screen frame, the traffic started moving again. Now, it would seem that the SLK doesnt like being driven while the hood is in motion, meaning that she held the outer lane of the A12 up for a good while as the hood folded up, but bottled out of finishing the job because the abuse and horn blasts got to much for her. She drove the next mile and a half with the bootlid sticking up in the air...

Darth Paul · May 20, 2004, 10:44

Quote from: "GSB"She drove the next mile and a half with the bootlid sticking up in the air...

Funny! s:lol: :lol: s:lol:

So when the Merc starts moving the hood operation stops? s:? :? s:?

DP

Bongo · May 20, 2004, 10:48

Pretty much so - I think my boss' old CLK could move the hood upto 10 MPH.

One of his GF's friends apparantly tried to lower her BF's hood at 50 and uncliped it from the windscreen (it had a manual catch and lowered by motors) and ended up completely bending/twisting/shafting the roof and a new one was needed s:o

s:o

Anonymous · May 20, 2004, 10:48

mate I love these electric hoods they are pish poor. There is a lday with a 206 CC here and its a nice car but "oh my god" it takes a lifetime to drop the hood. By the time she has done she would be covered in my dust!

Yeah I was amazed how the MGF owner was quite civilised about owning a clearly inferior car s;)

s;) .. The lad with Elise is a good bloke actually and he is my boss so we are constantly talking about cars anyway and he was the one who told me to go and testdrive a 2 as I was going to settle for the MX5 (shame on me), but as soon as I had been in it for a bit I was sold!

Anonymous · May 20, 2004, 14:01

This, and the lack of a/c option at the time of purchase (late 2001) were the 2 reasons why I didn't buy an elise (an why I don't have a softtop).

And re: dropping the windows to put the top up - get an alarm with closure, that makes it even quicker - leave the windows down when parked....when you need to raise top, 5 seconds, then bleep the alarm and up scroll the windows as you walk away.

Anonymous · May 20, 2004, 14:14

Jonny Turbo now your talking! That would improve the time by a good second or two.

at the next large meet I think there should be a timed race to fully put your hood from up to down and back again and run 10 metres to a line and arm the alarm ... the winner ultimatley earning the respect of every other MR2 owner.

We could make our very own MR2 olympics. The 100 metre sprint could be another. If we had a hump backed bridge anywhere we could do a bit of long jump!

Anonymous · May 20, 2004, 15:20

You are talking about a car that is designed to be open roofed (ie NO roof).

The soft top on the Elise was really not in the front of the designers mind. The Elise is designed to be raced with no roof, it produces more down force this way and handles better with the roof gone.

The VX220 and then the S2 Elise both had re-designed hoods which don't take long at all, (I managed it quite quickly after my accident yesterday in busy traffic) but they are still performance aimed and not too up on function.

At the end of the day the Elise is still only JUST a road car I guess, Lotus knew what they where doing when they gave it a roof, think how many people bought a single Elise instead of a road car and a track car.

Humble Jim · May 20, 2004, 15:35

Picked the wife up in the '2 last night from town. While I waited for her, a Honda S2000 - hood down - parked up behind me. I watched its hood go up electrically. It didn't quite close. Owner then just had to close/clamp it. Neat as our system is the S2000's looked easier still I must say, though I didn't get to see the hood get stowed.

Anonymous · May 20, 2004, 16:18

Quote from: "WoodenDummy"You are talking about a car that is designed to be open roofed (ie NO roof).

Wooden Dummy exactly my friend at works sentiments ... he openly admits that normally he is okay coz the car is kept in a garage over night and only used in summer so he normally is roofless all of the time anyway. He also said that the the car does drive better hoodless. Althought he would just like it if it was a littel simpler, but as you say this has already been addressed by the designers at Lotus.

With the MGF driver he was really impressed with the car .. even took it to a large open carpark to let him have a quick spin as well. He loved the driving posistion and the feel of quality that the car delivers .... RESULT

Anonymous · May 20, 2004, 16:20

Mental Note for next Meeting!.

An official roof up compo!.

I win, I press a button and it does is all...oh no, I dont have a roadster.

Actually on the subject, a friend of mine has a Z4...yuk!. Well anyway, I was particually impressed at how bloody quick it drops it roof...however, whilst it does this in less than 6 seconds, it actually takes around 10 seconds to "think about it".

Anonymous · May 20, 2004, 16:22

cstevens .. I assume you have ast in the Z4? My next door neighbour has got one and he took me for a spin and I liked it. I think that it looks awesome from the exterior but I was really disapointed with the german blandness of the interior, it really let it down in my opinion. It felt quality inside, but was just really bland!

Anonymous · May 20, 2004, 17:34

Hello folks,

Took an S2000 out for a test run the other weekend, the electric hood is not bad, however when in the down position there is a lot of sharp metalwork sticking out - exposed ( unlike the extremely neat MR2 that folds in on itself ) if the hood is to be down for a while Honda issue you with a tonneau cover - not too convenient. The engine is great above 6K revs but a bit bland below, also IMHO the steering / handling are just not as sharp as the 2.

Has any one got any gen on the Toyota production MR2 with Celica engine fitted as standard ?

Cheers Greg s:)

s:) s:)

s:)

Anonymous · May 20, 2004, 22:42

Quote from: "Darth Paul"
Quote from: "floater"I jumped in the car, pushed the windows down and pulled the hood up in about 30 seconds.

You need to get some left arm exercise (f'nar). That's far too slow. s:wink: :wink: s:wink: Windows down an inch – 1 second, hood tab pulled – 1 second, hood up – 2 seconds, fasten both catches – 5 seconds, windows up – 1 second. 10 SECONDS MAX!

Do 2 sides of lines, A4 and not the stuff with wider lines.

'I must try harder to put my top up more quickly'.

s:lol: :lol: s:lol: s:lol: :lol: s:lol:

DP

true! 10 sec is MAX for the whole process, however you shouldnt really count windows within that time frame, since you can roll them down before traffic stop and up afterwards... I say it takes me around 3-4 seconds to pull it up and 4-5 secs to pull it down, if it is warm...

Of course, as long as it is warm and the strip doesnt get caught anywhere s:)

s:)

Darth Paul · May 21, 2004, 00:45

Quote from: "cstevens"Mental Note for next Meeting!.

An official roof up compo!.

I win, I press a button and it does is all...oh no, I dont have a roadster.

Please stay on topic – this isn't Chit Chat! s:lol: :lol: s:lol: AND you don't even have a soft top anymore! s:wink: :wink: s:wink: Touché! s:lol: :lol: s:lol:

Just kiddin'

DP

markiii · May 21, 2004, 01:23

Quote from: "SIPEY"Hello folks,

Took an S2000 out for a test run the other weekend, the electric hood is not bad, however when in the down position there is a lot of sharp metalwork sticking out - exposed ( unlike the extremely neat MR2 that folds in on itself ) if the hood is to be down for a while Honda issue you with a tonneau cover - not too convenient. The engine is great above 6K revs but a bit bland below, also IMHO the steering / handling are just not as sharp as the 2.

Has any one got any gen on the Toyota production MR2 with Celica engine fitted as standard ?

Cheers Greg s:) s:) s:) s:)

there isn't one.

Tem · May 21, 2004, 06:18

Quote from: "markiii"
Quote from: "SIPEY"Has any one got any gen on the Toyota production MR2 with Celica engine fitted as standard ?

there isn't one.

Well, Celica does have the 1ZZ-FE as well...so I guess we all do s:roll: :roll: s:roll:

Anonymous · May 21, 2004, 10:35

There are plans to bring the MR2 and the Celica together as one car by 2007. Maybe he was refering to this?