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'.