The Elan is home

[Backmarker]

Container delivered this AM.

Some new images from the engine bay.

For the later cam covers, it appears they used the same mold but filled in the “LOTUS” over each cam?

Plate has engine LP/13244LBA, a little cleaner block image has LP13214LBA. Right side: The “L” is under the right side mount, “T4” just aft of the chain cover. Left side: “8F20” aft of the chain cover, “20IE6015” just forward of bell housing. (That should be 681F, when I have a better light or the engine is out we’ll have a proper look at the casting number)

And… paint code is “L06”. Good thing I have matching short pants.

Cheers,
Jim

[The Veg]

Awesome Jim, let the fun begin!

[Backmarker]

And, the head is off…

Matching number to the block, unfortunately a bit of a mess in the cylinders.

And the casting number is 3020E6015. The Lotus Cortina site shows it’s a MkII Lotus Cortina Engine.

In an unrelated bit, Andy at Lotus imparted this about the chassis/subframe - “LR1818 was supplied to Bell & Colvill here in the UK in May 1985.”

Cheers
Jim

[Craven]

Interesting cylinder head number, the Lotus Cortina heads I’ve seen start LF

[Elanintheforest]

Sometime in mid 1968 Lotus changed to having the prefix system, so LP or LF was changed to 'C' for S/E Elan, 'D' for standard Elan, 'E' for Lotus Cortina, etc.

Before that you're right that 'LF' was stamped on many engines destined for the Ford Lotus Cortina, but not all of them! Before the single character prefix system was introduced, many Lotus Cortinas seem to have had the 'LP' prefix , and I've seen a few Elans with 'LF' prefix.

It's a similar story with the ground-off 681 casting on the block, and the subsequent stamping of the '3020' over the ground off area. 3020 was Ford's internal code for the Mk2 Lotus Cortina (as per 105E for the Anglia), and that is on all the original Mk2 Lotus Cortina engines I've seen. But I have seen it on some Elans as well !

The inventory management system employed by Lotus at this time defies logic, especially when you examine the unique number of the engine by dispatch date. Some of these can be a couple of hundred different on cars dispatched just a day or two apart.

I did read a long time ago that Ford bought 'the rights' to the Twincam engine, sometime around the time that Lotus moved to Hethel an autumn 1966. I can't find any reference to that now, but it makes sense for Ford to secure the engine for their forthcoming model, the Mk2 Lotus Cortina. And of course, Lotus found the cash at the same time to build an engine machine shop and assembly shop at Hethel. I'm wondering if this was the time that the 'LF' designation was introduced on some of the S/E engines.

Mark Kempson

[ncm]

If the P.O. has managed to fit the head gasket the wrong way up ( ) it will be interesting to see how well the rest of the engine was built...