Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Your car looks great! Any pics of the notch cut out in the front crossmember? I'm planning a ztec conversion in my Elan and haven't been able to find any info on that detail. John

Here is my mods to an early Spyder chassis to allow the Zetec
Peter

I really do wonder about the strength of these modified front cross members in bending and the resulting flex in the front suspension towers. I guess if the cross member does not develop cracks and the front suspension towers do not move sufficiently to crack the body then they must be OK.

As I understand it the issue is you need the cut-out for the Zetec front crank pulley to clear the cross member. Is it not possible to just fit a smaller pulley and / or push the engine back a little further so as to cut out none or a lot less of the cross member and thus to maintain its strength in bending

cheers
Rohan

I worried about that Rohan.

The engine is set as far back as it can be, I even relieved a short section of the horizontal body flange behind where the water rail is fitted to give an extra 5mm. If you look closely, not only is the cross member relieved to clear the pulley, it is also relieved beneath this to clear the sump when fitting the engine. Rather than continuing the cut out at a single size right down, I stepped it as the sump clearance need is less severe than that for the pulley.
I looked at Netec's chassis (thanks Rob) before I did mine. My sump scratches across the cross member when refitting, so I have taken out as little as possible.

Similar to Rob, I welded long vertictal plate into the tube and not just across the 'hole', and then horizontal plates off that, before adding the closing plates that you see now. I have also used a Toyota headlamp lift motor, so although I think that the cross member remains air tight, it doesn't need to be.

Peter