Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

I was looking at my S3SE?s chassis plate and noticed that someone has deliberately scratched out the information relating to the diff oil type, now the car is a S3SE and (to the best of my knowledge has a 3.55 diff)
I am not aware that it should have any special oil except the usual Hypoy EP 90, I have no idea why someone would alter the plate, could this have been Lotus themselves? .....anyone else seen this before.... (20 people now rush out to check their chassis plate) .....well maybe not
This prompted me to check my Sprint?s plate, now this plate shows me Shell S.6909 & BP X 5116 for the diff, I then goggled both these and did not find anything

My late S3, again supposedly an S/E (or at least it came with S/E badges), has a chassis plate like your Sprint only with the manufacturer's columns re-arranged so that Esso is the first one. Like you, those numbers mean nothing to me and I've always used plain EP90 in the diff. It's interesting to see the recommendation for 30 & 40 weight oils for the engines, which is presumably what they were designed around, in contrast to the usually accepted 20/50 as a minimum standard these days ?

Maybe it was altered by a Lotus dealer at some point in a burst of enthusiasm when it came in for service because the numbers didn't match what they were using at the time ? It's a Lotus, who can really say

Brian

I remember reading something about this years ago in a Club Lotus magazine, if I recall correctly it was something to do with Team Lotus sponsorship. I think at the time there wasn't any great science to motor oils, unlike today and it was purely commercial decision.