Elite Plus

Alter the default game you start of with in ELITE.EXE itself
with a hex file editor of your choice. The defualt game you
start of with starts at offset 11366 (At least it does in my
version. 
Scan the file for ‘100.0 credits’ to be sure). Look for the
bytes 03 e8 00 (100.0 credits) and replace them by 40 42 0f.
Now you have 100000 credits whenever you start a game from scratch.
About half of the future save file can be found in elite.exe
and you can alter some other values to change name, hyperspace
system selected, missiles etc. However I just flew my ship from
Lave to Leesti (Tech level 10) and bought my stuff there, with
all the extra cash I had.
I seem to have found the bytes that correspond to your rating. 
They’re the four bytes before the name (e.g. JAMESON).
Strange enough, they’re there twice. In elite.exe at the
beginning they’re set to 00 00 00 00, and setting them
to ff 00 ff 00 gives you a deadly rating (I think).
00 04 00 04 makes you ‘elite’.