Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Er, Richard of York I think.

Mark,
I run my 2.0 Litre Zetec on 45 DCOE's, no trouble at all, starts & runs sweet as a nut. All the bits needed are readily available.
John

Mark
why only Dellortos or Webers,what have you got against fuel injection?
John

Looks like we have a few Zetec strings running at the same time,maybe we can join forces and post in the elanmods??
John

the sound..... . . .the glorious induction sound of the webers..

(and I personally think injection is just straying too far...)

That's one of the best reasons Thor. But I also like the Webbers for their simplicity. I've spent the last few years sorting out fuel injection and associated problems on Jags...itentifying problems with crank, water temp, ambient temp and pressure sensors, faulty injectors & pumps, ignition amplifiers and a whole host of other things besides. Dirty connections and bad earths contribute a fair bit to the woes. They are great when new (usually) but once a few years have passed then fairly complex and compounded problems often show up.

In going through the items on Zetec in the archive, it seems that a lot of folks think that replacing carbs with fuel injection is a fit and forget operation. I don't think so.

Add to this the need on an Elan to add the swirl pot, return fuel pipe into a modified tank and different pump arrangement, and I think that I'll stay with carbs. And of course Elans never have earthing problems, eh?!

The old Webbers, points, coil and condensor have never let me down yet! And I've a couple of spare pairs waiting for a new home.....maybe that's the main reason

Mark

Elanintheforest wrote:it seems that a lot of folks think that replacing carbs with fuel injection is a fit and forget operation. I don't think so.

If it is engineered and installed properly it is. A friend with a Caterham did it properly when changing from his crossflow. It gets about a day's servicing and care a year and gets driven hard for 6 months while the others are pissing around balancing carbs, rejetting and cleaning fouled plugs.

One bloke getting it sorted in a seven doesn?t prove a lot!
My M100 had to go in a couple of times?once to get the ECU replaced and the second to get 2 injectors replaced. All before it had passed 1 year old. My XKR has been back 3 times in 9 months for fuel injection problems. An XJR-S had to have it's injection system rebuilt twice in 2 years....a Zytec system used to win Le Mans! All engineered correctly.

In 30 years and 300,000 miles in Elans I've never had a problem with the carbs or ignition.

That doesn?t prove that carbs are perfect and fuel injection is rubbish. They are certainly both fallible, but when one goes wrong it?s fairly simple to put right. With the other it can be a lot more complex. But at the end of the day one or two successes or failures are irrelevant. There's no doubt fuel injection is here to stay, and for all the right reasons. But it's not fit and forget.
Perhaps the people you have observed urinating whilst sorting out their carbs and plugs could do things sequentially and not contaminate their work?

hehehe. this thread is getting very enjoyable and interesting.
I've just gotten past the surprised fact of my +2S130 being with one owner for 26 years before me has webers that always start, including at 4degrees C with NO choke.
There's no way I'm tempting fate and messing with that...,this spring I'm fitting new plugs and Magnecor leads and leaving it in its perfect state.

But good luck to whoever else...

I've just gotten past the surprised fact of my +2S130 being with one owner for 26 years before me has webers that always start, including at 4degrees C with NO choke.

Probably running rich, Thor
Get it fuel injected - that'll sort it..

Elanintheforest wrote:One bloke getting it sorted in a seven doesn?t prove a lot!
My M100 had to go in a couple of times?once to get the ECU replaced and the second to get 2 injectors replaced. All before it had passed 1 year old.

Its not just one bloke with a seven. All too often fitting an alternative power unit results in a bodge somewhere, I'm just saying if you approach it the right way the bodges can be avoided, it hardly takes any more work and if the installation is properly engineered it *will* make the car as, or more reliable. You only need to look at some Elise alternative power unit installations that are complete crap, while others are done the right way.

Carbs and distributors can be just as reliable though, my Sprint gets about 3 lazy days attention a year in total, the only time I've ever spent anything more than that during the "driving season" is when I ripped the sump off last year. Only done about 100,000 miles in it though, but essentially it's 22 years trouble free motoring.

I've also got roughly 400,000 miles in my M100's , all are still on the original ECU's, injectors etc. The only thing that I have repaired on the engine management was a resoldered joint on the hall effect sensor and the speed sensor was incorrectly replaced by a Lotus dealer who didn't really know what they were doing. (I'm also still on the original spark plug leads)

Jaguar (or should the blame lay at Lucas's door?) never really had a clue about engine management in the first place. It was an offshoot from Lucas Racing that led to Zytek in the first place but I would have thought that by now the Ford influence would have helped, but obviously not.....Fix Or Repair Daily ?

Lotus fitted Tecalmit fuel injection to the 47 (racing version of the Europa, sort of ), most folks chucked it out and fitted carbs due to the trouble getting and keeping it in tune. I don't think that modern throttle bodies would be anything but a benefit on the Twink, it's just rather expensive to go down that route.

Cheers,
Pete

For zetecs try
http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/elanmods

John

Don't forget the sound of the Lancia Stratos in the late 70's woods!

Ian