Can anyone tell me about my twincam engine!?

[PSJ]

Ok so in my 1979 Carerham super 7 I have the lotus twincam engine. It's running on the Dellorto (40) carbs. It was built by vegantune.

- http://www.vegantune.com/index.php?opti ... &Itemid=27

" The Vegantune VTA engine has also enjoyed a historic association with the Caterham 7. When Lotus decided to cease production of the Lotus Twin Cam it was necessary for Lotus to provide continuing support to Caterham Cars. To enable continued production of the Lotus Twin Cam, kits were supplied by Lotus to Vegantune in order to fulfil orders from Japan for the Lotus Twin Cam Engine. Approximately 300 Caterham 7s were produced with the Vegantune Lotus Twin Cam Engine fitted. "

I have been in contact with vegantune asking about the engine and given them the engine number etc but they are very slow to reply.. Still waiting on a response on further info ( 2weeks and still waiting )

Iv also been told that its been tuned too 1600cc from the original 1550cc and uses some internals from the RS1600 ?? Was this normal/a common thing??

But Barr from than it's abit fuzzy on what's what with it. I would like to know exactly what spec twin cam I am running if possible. Can anyone help me with any further info?

Thanks, Piers.

[gordont]

I would be asking caterham if they built the car.

[rgh0]

Do you have the Vegantune engine or a Lotus Twin cam in the car? The Vegantune engine was developed with a totally different head to go on a tall block when supplies of the Lotus Twin cam head dried up.

I have never seen much technical information on this Vegantune head just photos and sales brochures

regards
Rohan

[billwill]

Vegantune has been through 3 ownership cycles & I doubt that the present owner has the detailed engine build records of the original Vegantune.

Vegantune were originally a firm in Spalding owned by George Robinson & his son, they did a lot of work on Lotus elans and the Twin-Cam Lotus engine. I had my car totally refurbed by them in 1982 or 1983 and that included work on the engine which brought it up to big valve status.

Vegantune (Spalding) also developed their own engine VTA as mentioned above. They also developed the Evante car, which has many similarities to the Lotus Elan, but was stronger having carbon-fibre in critical places in the mouldings and with Kevlar-fibre instead of glass fibre in other places. They went on to create Evante Cars Ltd getting external funding to assist. Evantes usually had the VTA engine (I think)

However it was a bad time to create a sports car company (and possibly the financiers 'interfered' too much ?) so both Evante Cars Ltd and Vegantune Ltd went bust.

Richard Marshal of Finchley London & his financier bought the assets & name of Vegantune and re=opened Vegantune as a firm in Finchley London. These included the rights to the VTA engine design (I think) and a franchise to support Evantes in the UK. While in Finchley their main engine expert was Rob Morley. He rebuilt my engine once for me and later Vegantune Finchley did a major nose repair and repaint job for me in about 2001. They moved out to premises in Borehamwood and I lost contact, but I gather that finances became extremely difficult and so Richard Marshall's Vegantune also went bust.

The assets were bought by Symon Nicholas Jago who is an occasional visitor to this forum, but as far as I know he has not done a lot with the firm. http://www.vegantune.com/

Rob Morley had already left Vegantune around about 1999 and now operates as Pro-Tune Racing Services Ltd in Potters Bar. http://www.pro-tune.com/. He does of course know a lot about VTA engines.

I have some more info and a photo of the VTA engine here, but in any case it is easy to distinguish a VTA from a Lotus twin-cam engine because the Lotus Twin-Cam has an internal timing CHAIN for the camshafts, whereas the VTA has an external timing cogged-rubber belt.

[SimonH]

A link to Piers post on Pistonheads is here.

Its an original Twincam rather than a VTA engine it would seem.

Its nice to see an old 7 get returned to the road. Wouldnt mind one like that myself but I think with the Elan and Caterham 21 I have enough to be going on.

Cheers,
Simon

[billwill]

Get in tough with Rob Morley at Protune Racing.

He works with Ratrace Ltd and most of the cars they deal with are of the Caterham Seven type.

He has pictures of the VTA engine on his website, (not that that is relevant anymore as we know you have a Lotus Twin Cam engine.)

http://www.pro-tune.com/vta.htm

[jono]

Piers,

I think what you are likely to have is a Lotus TC that happens to have been built by Vegantune.

As other have said Vegantune developed their own version of the Lotus TC with a toothed rubber cam belt and their name on the cam cover and (I think) their 'own' cams and it reputedly made 140bhp, however that is not what you have.

However, you do have a very nice early Caterham with an apparently fit TC engine which may have been modded to make a bit more that a standard TC. The 4:1 race exhaust should make a few extra ponies too

Jon

[PSJ]

Thanks guys. Going to email that rob shortly.

Its defo not the VTA engine. Does anyone know what camshafts I should be running? And what the compression figure the engine should produce? Or even the compression figures for a standard twin cam are?

Piers.