Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Hi all,
I was hoping for the benefit of your experience...
I recently replaced the battery in my Plus 2. It had an 072 type (I.e. the wrong size) rattling around in the corner of the boot so I was advised to replace it at mot time with one that fitted. Having researched on the forum, i went for an odyssey pc680 and made a mount to fit with an aluminium bracket. Unfortunately, it can barely turn the starter over. I didn't have this problem with the old battery, which was fine starting. People generally seem happy with 680s, so perhaps my starter is a bit long in the tooth and needs more current: or do you think I got a dud pc680? Or do I get a bigger battery e.g pc925, or replace the starter with a fancy new one?
Thanks
Al

Al
If your old battery turned the starter over fine and the new one doesn't that leads me to two things...is the battery knackered or the connections knackered...

John

Hi Al,

If the old battery was fine but the new will not turn the engine over, and assuming that the new battery is ok, I personally would go for the main earth connection.
On a +2 this is a single cable bolted to the chassis under the boot floor. If your car still has this arrangement you could have possibly disturbed this resulting in a bad connection. There are different ways of improving this discussed on here, a favourite seems to be to move the connection up onto the suspension tower of the chassis.

Chris.

Have you checked the battery is ok? i have used a number of Pc680 battery's for different things in the past and there cranking amps are very high for a battery that size. That said they don't like going totally flat (they need to be left on a Conditioner) or they loose a cell. (Never buy one second hand as its common)

As above, if the New battery is good check all your connections well.

I'm using a 680 and it works great but my car has all new wiring as well as a Tilton starter. Make sure it's charged up to near 100%, I think it wants to be up around 12.85v. I think the 680 is a good fit for an Elan.

Thanks all. The PC680 is brand new, and I've had it on a conditioner since I got it as it seemed a bit lacklustre out of the box. That's why I'm wondering if I have a dud. I'll measure the voltage after a couple of starts and see what I've got (new alternator fitted so it should be charging...)

Put the old one back and test. If the old battery still turns the engine over then the new battery is a dud.

Shimples

When I bought my most recent 680 from Malcolm at MSAR I tried to bargain him down, as you do, as Demon tweaks and others had them about ?30 cheaper. He pointed out that they were getting rid of very old stock......???
I have quite a high compression engine and it turns it over very well.

Will do. I'm pretty sure its a dud as it works fresh off the charger, but not for long.

Thanks all. Got mine from Merlin Motorsport. Will get in touch with them.

I went for the PC1100 from rally design. New cables at 50mm2.
It's 12.7kg and put in on the Aldi smart charger as recommended on this site.
It works fine and has plenty of power.Make sure yours is fully charged and all your connects are clean and tight.