Re: 6 speed gearbox for the Elan
Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2012 5:41 pm
elansprint71 wrote:Anthony, if you have a read through some of the stuff already on here you will probably get the impression that the 5-speed "Lotus" box fitted to the +2 can be something of a swine to change gear with. As Alex and many others have found, this is not always the case; I don't know why this should be. The guts of the box came from the Austin Maxi, that had a cable-change mechanism!
Fitting a 3.55, or 3.54 diff is certainly worthwhile and relatively easy.
My modern car has six gears, I'm always trying to stuff the Elan into fifth or sixth from fourth!
I couldn't agree more. I and I suspect many of my fellow Elan owners, even after decades of ownership, still reach for a non existent fifth gear.
Alex Black through his long and distinguished engineering background has been able to come up with a very elegant solution. I would have liked to have gone down the same path, but I don't have the time or anywhere near the engineering skills, so I opted for one of Alan Voigt's five speed boxes, it has a GBH Geartech set of ratios with the 2.66/1 on first, which is very close to the original close ratio gear set.
And how is it????
I don't know as the car is still in bits, but hopefully by early next summer I'll be able to draw a conclusion. A gentleman call Bob (a member of this forum) had a Voigt box fitted a few years ago and he spoke of it so highly I thought I just had to get one.
All the best,