Mark Huffman's D mod S2 Elan - Not for the purists

[garyeanderson]

If you have been reading Elan.net you may have read about Alan Thomas's (Spyder fan) new S4 Coupe that he is going to modify for a bit more power and a top chop. He emailed me about it and said he was going to do one of those tried and true oh so boring, dead common Zetec Ford swaps. It seems Spyder Cars is involved with it a bit and they like the Zetec because it fits and they have it down to an art. The Zetec is ok but it's nearly as old as a Twin Cam. A slight exaggeration but I think its was introduced in 1991 and that's nearly 20 years. Well I posted some photo's over in the "Elan Flair?s, the good the bad and some ugly ones" topic Last March that my friend Chris Tchorznicki sent me of Mark Huffman's S2 Elan
viewtopic.php?t=16400
I'll post them here as the before pictures so you don't need to follow the link to the hundreds of pictures at the above link. Anyway I sent them to Alan so he forwarded them to Spyder and they looked at them and said "too tall" or something like that. To me it looks perfect, no ugly bonnet bulge or anything. Anyway yes it's drysumped and it will cost a bit more but so what, it's a road toy and toys aren?t cheap for anything that can blow away 99% of all comers on the street. Anyway I did some looking around and emailed Alan again to contact Mark and see if he could offer a bit of assistance on the project. Elan owners are great folks and most will offer what you need just for the asking. I looked around on the Internet and found an email address for mark and said to contact him. I don't know Mark and we have never met but I just knew he would come through for Alan. Anyway what Mark has built is an Autocross D modified racecar, this is one of the quicker classes with rules almost as good as "we don't need no stinking rules" but there are a few.
1) It needs to look like the car you say it is
2) The engine needs to be in the same half of the car it was in originally
3) 1800cc or 2000cc engines
4) Weight 1230 or 1330 with original chassis, add 40 pound for tube chassis
5) Passenger compartment same size as original except for engine and exhaust relocation
6) Driver must sit to the left or right of the centerline of the car (no center seats)
7) Engines, suspension, brakes are free (anything you want to pay for)

I didn't look the rules up so they may be slightly different then the way I stated them but you get the idea.






Well I guess you are wondering where the hell I am going with all the spew that I just posted above? Just as I thought, Mark sent some new pictures of the latest changes for this year?s car and I guess it must have been pushing a little. Not wanting to leave anything on the table Mark has done a few changes to better take advantage of those 7 golden rules. Rule number 4) is actually the stock chassis needs to be in place for the length of the passenger compartment so you can, if you want, chop the chassis at the front and rear firewalls and tube it like a Jaguar XKE. Well Mark didn't tube it (at least I don't see any tubes yet) but he did manage to remove 10 inches of backbone and slide the whole chassis rearward. So I'll stop with the word crap and get on to the how to section.













Tools of the trade Milwaukee "SAWSALL" tm



"Cut and Paste"



Shifter location looks to be a bit rearward but with and estimated 260hp and and a 85 mph top speed (guess), not sure you need to do any shifting, maybe there will be another add-on shifter addition to move it forward a bit.



Looks to have excilent engine access to all the major components



Now I guess this is just a strange coincidence that back in January 19th 2002 while doing the last job I had as a computer room baby sitter. I had a bit of time on a Saturday morning and was thinking on how to get through the morning at Leasecomm in Woburn. I had been reading the Yahoo group on the Internet

http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/SC ... =165716782

I had been thinking about the rules that were in place at the time and started looking at the S1 factory service manual and noticed the overhead view of the body with all of the major components drawn in. We had a nice Xerox machine and I got the scissors out and a bit of tape and with a couple trips over to the copy machine I had the following by noon. I think I had an 18-inch setback, as that was the max I figured the rules allowed. Paper is a lot easier than steel.

[twincamman]

that car was a cover photo for 'Sports car mag --the SSCA epistle --ed