The VXT suffers form a high heat environment and this has direct affect on the cars longevity and power delivery. Larger intercoolers are only any use if you have the airflow to them and short of hacking the side sill apart to get some extra flow its a pointless exercise. The use of water cooler air (the air used by the engine is passed through a water jacketed radiator to cool it significantly) is the most efficient way to cool engines sat in compromised airflow areas (ie in the middle of the chassis)
We retain the standard intercooler and run the charge cooler in line so the air is cooled twice, once by the intercooler (which Lotus designed to be nigh on perfect) and then through our charge cooler – it really is an unbeatable system dropping intake temperatures down by 50-60%
We were the first to pioneer the use of charge coolers in the VXT and we are the only tuner to test them to the limits in a racing environment. What we designed was a simple (read less to break) system that relied on a high volume of water pumped at a high flow rate (we use the highest rated pump available). The system is tried, tested and fit and forget, we use the exact same system in our 375bhp race car – if it can handle racing in that car then it can deal with other VXTs with ease.