Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Da Da!

Gosh no expense spared...

Very smart. Is that custom made for you?

Not 'exclusivly' custom made Simon - he makes tanks to order for lots of older cars to patterns. I just asked him to install a swirl pot with a Protech pump in the tank as he went along. He has done this with many other cars, but the first time in an Elan tank. It makes it much neater, and by the time I bought a decent swirl pot, pump and fittings, this option was maybe only another £40. http://www.asheritage.com/

Hi Jon - an expense that I half expected. The PO did tell be that 'someone' did a bodge job on repacing the fuel sender. When I saw it, I completely agreed , so as I am fully committed to the car now, it had to be done or continue not filling the tank over the half way mark!

They aren’t far from me. Bookmarked for when I start doing mine again I think. Cheers for the link

Good evening, another question please, for those with an Emerald K6 or K6+, using the oem tachometer and driver on port 12 - did you have to convert the tacho to RVC, or is it ok as RVI?

Thanks
Hal

Can’t answer your excellent question Hal. I was also wondering if either the RVI or the RVC tacho’s (or both) would require the Emerald supplied tacho driver add-on accessory?

http://www.emeraldm3d.com/accessories/tacho-driver.html

Tacho driver
SKU:05-007

Tacho driver to allow older style moving coil type tachometers to be controlled by our ECU.

From paperwork for this product:

Tachometer Driver Module
Some early tachometers will only trigger from the high voltage spikes normally seen on an ignition primary connection (coil negative).
The tachometer driver module will convert the ECU’s +12V square wave tacho signal to a high voltage (150V – 300V) signal to drive these tachometers.

I have my tacho triggered off the 5 or 12v square wave from my electronic rev limiter connected to the right input of the Spydia RVI conversion board, from memory it has 4 input levels, two high voltage and two low voltage. The setup works well and should cope when the rev limiter kicks in (it does needs a bit more calibration thou).

So I think your options are to convert your tacho or by teh driver Stu suggested.

I'd forgotten about my question Stu!

I have since found an RVC rev counter from an MGB I had, so will be using this one.

I fear that Emerald are not all encompassing in the description of their conversion box but guess it is the same as the Spiyda conversion box - https://www.spiyda.com/smiths-rvi-rvc-c ... ernal.html Maybe it is the Spiyda box rebadged, I do not know. They also make a converter card that fits inside the tacho which would be my preference.

To answer your question - as I understand it, the conversion box is only necessary for the moving coil RVI type (ie the one fitted to the Elan) that in essence removes the inductive loop and replaces it with a sensor port that should be compatible with pin 12.

HCA wrote:My new car will be with me when I can find a good transporter quote, so first thing will be the important stuff like EFI.....

Without reading the last 99 post's I hope you got your car now in the workshop/garage ?
I certainly would not consider EFI more important than getting the car running to avoid using a transporter... don't take me serious

HCA wrote:Fuel delivery though has me a bit lost. I am reading a lot about returnless fuel delivery, but I can't quite get my head around the reasoning for it or any advantages other than saving a few euros on a length of pipe.
Hal

I think this is when "technology" beats simple proven mechanical things. You not only save a return pipe. Usually also an intermediate tank and modifications to the main tank and the pressure regulator and probably also some space. I wrote a post regarding my returnless EFI conversion in this forum and all comments not to do it, I designed my own by using a controller and a PWM to control the fuel pump speed and the pressure in the pipes. Since about 2 years she is running on this setup and I did about 4000 miles in the meantime.

Peter

Peter, thanks! Yes, the car is in the workshop and already in a million pieces! I vowed just to get the EFI in and then do a bit at a time. Then lockdown came which was a red rag to a bull to dive in there! Now I am waiting for silly little parts to finish each job - like a 5/16 UNC tap to make a new hinge hole on a h/lamp pod. Six weeks and nothing!

However, EFI is pretty well in and the Emerald wires incorporated into a new loom that gives it a professional touch.

I must admit that I wish I swotted up more on returnless fuel supply, as I did not know what a pig of a job it is to feed pipe on top of the chassis! Had I done so, would have allowed me to use the original feed and be done with it. As it is, I have both pipes running inside the car on top of the tunnel (using jointless steel braided teflon hose a la rally cars, so will be good) with a mind to reroute them underneath on a body-off job possible next year. The tank is purpose made with a Sytec intank pump.

If there is a next car, yes, I think I might try returnless!

HCA wrote: Now I am waiting for silly little parts to finish each job - like a 5/16 UNC tap to make a new hinge hole on a h/lamp pod. Six weeks and nothing!

I find you can buy almost anything from Amazon these days. My son has bought the majority of the electronic components for a computer guidance system for a University rocket project from Amazon over the last few weeks, and if you have 'Prime', you could have your 5/16 UNC tap by Wednesday.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Volkel-16-inch-UNC-HSS-Tap/dp/B00EO4K1PM/ref=sr_1_5?dchild=1&keywords=5%2F16+unc+tap&qid=1588610287&sr=8-5

RE: Trumpets and Air Boxes.
My initial thought was to use the current trumpets and air box attached to the Jenvey Heritage DCOEs, but after reading these posts, it would seem that this might not be the optimal approach given the tapered nature of the OEM air box.
I noticed that folks have referenced options from QED, TTR and Kelvedon, I shall have to go and take a look at these - one other option that is expensive but would seem to be a possibility would be to use Jenvey 70mm intake Turbo Plenum without a throttle body? Given that one would be losing the distributor in an EFI installation, you could run the intake pipe below rather than above.
Any thoughts?
Thanks

EDIT - having just followed the link to the +2 Air Box on eBay, the 80 quid or so for this v the 800 or so for the Jenvey Turbo Plenum seems to suggest that adapting the original box seems to be the right way to go.

I am not sure of your thinking of a turbo plenum without a throttle body....

Also not sure that the pipe would fit underneath, but if it did there might be an issue finding the flexible tubing due to the wheel well. As you say, a very expensive option

Have you estimated the length of trumpet you might need? Dave Walker of Emerald has carried out some experimentation on this and has found the best length for various demands. He reckons that if space permits, 90mm is a good overall, but 60mm is also good. Neither of these as you surmise will fit under the standard airbox.

I shall be moulding a carbon fibre airbox to suit the +2. Leaving a decent space between the airbox and the reservoir box, it will accomodate 90mm trumpets with 15mm intake space (that I personally think is too shallow), but as I am using 60mm trumpets, there should be plenty of airspace so as not to create any bad vortexes...keep tuned into this channel and I will post info when made.

A thought for you regarding the loss of the distributer. Consider filling up the lost space with the coilpack! It sits in there very nicely and out of sight with the plug leads running around the back of the engine and up to the plugs between the two cam covers...

Great idea on the coil pack.
I have asked the maker of the eBay Airbox for the dimensions, and will post when I hear.
RE: Turbo Plenum - you could bolt on a simple flange for the air hose.
It just seems an over-engineered/over-expensive fix to the problem.
Is it possible to reduce trumpet size further to something like 40mm which would be 1 1/2” for those of us on this side of the pond - or is the EFI dependent on the flow patterns created by the 60mm trumpets (I am sure that I can find this on the Emerald site)

Nick