Do I need an airbox?

[elansprint71]

Hatman, yeah, you could be right! In all the time I've been with Elan.Net (which must be about five years now) I can only recall two folks mentioning fires and, iirc, both of those were due to electrics.

Pete.

[mac5777]

Hi, I posted a picture on Things in common " airbox seal" Sept. 6th of what my new rubber seal looked like. Last weekend I attended the All British car Meet in Palo Alto CA. On the way there I started smelling gas. It turned out the bolt had loosen on the airbox and the rubber seal came off in places. Re-sealed the airbox and installed a locknut and now it is sealed and no gas smell. Can't help thinking that if I could smell fuel inside my coupe there was a risk of a fire. I was told of a fire from the leaky airbox that was put out with out too much damage.
I too have installed a K&N filter in front of the radiator for cool air. It seems to be working well.
Patrick, if the club member who has made a larger fiberglass airbox and still is offering them, I would be interested in one.
Sarto

[gav]

For what it's worth, Tony Thompson does a deeper airbox made of GRP to smooth the flow to the trumpets. It uses a large bore air hose and a massive cone type filter. I installed his system locating the filter in front of the rad.
His gear is expensive but well designed.
I'm also using his large bore road exhaust system.
The combination is very succesful. The engine breathes much better and seems now to be quicker to respond.

Good luck
Gavin

[Garibaldi]

Greets:

Help me understand why, if there's a concern about Webers belching fire, someone would use GRP to make an airbox? This seems counterintuitive to me.

AFA Lotuses having carb fires, unless there's a good reason NOT to run an airbox, seems to me that it's an ounce of prevention thing. When I was a tad working a Porsche-Audi dealership, Porsche 912s (4 cyl) would regularly pop spectacular flames. Porsche re-designed the air filter a couple of times because the built up vapors would make the fireworks even more spectacular.

GP

For what it's worth, Tony Thompson does a deeper airbox made of GRP to smooth the flow to the trumpets. It uses a large bore air hose and a massive cone type filter. I installed his system locating the filter in front of the rad.
His gear is expensive but well designed.
I'm also using his large bore road exhaust system.
The combination is very succesful. The engine breathes much better and seems now to be quicker to respond.

Good luck
Gavin

[elj221c]

I'm not sure I should admit this but I ran my S2, from '75 until it was pinched in '89, without an airbox or filters of any kind. This was dailycommuting into London from Surrey with regular weekend trips around the country's race circuits mechanicing 26r and 23s, most of which ran without as well. In later years we have used 'socks' or elongated 'pancakes' on the racers because they became available. I never had a whiff of fire although there was the odd minor 'explosion' sometimes causing a little puff of smoke from the gap between the bonnet and the wing. Guess I was lucky? I must say that there was no sound deadening on the underside of the body so there was perhaps less potential for fire. Neither was the car trimmed so, yes, it was quite noisy but SWMBO loved it on the motorway as it sent her off to sleep. Yes, really! Now the family has grown up and the new garage/workshop is about finished, it is soon time to start the rebuild. Just 17 years off the road! Whether I fit an airbox or not I have yet to decide.

[tdafforn]

Despite my earlier emails, there are some phenomenal examples of cars running with filters with no apparent problems.
My Uncle's Triumph TR4A is one..
The car has done 150K miles since '68 including many trips from the UK to Yugoslavia. All these were done without any filters.
Only now is the engine begining to smoke, and that looks likely to be the valve guides and not the bores!
Just shows you,
Tim

[JCR1]

If you're looking for a reasonably priced airbox that certainly fits my Elan S4 (sorry I don't know about others) contact Dave at [email protected] , a well made GRP box, he made mine in 4 days and it fits the backplate I bought from Kelvedon Lotus, hope this helps those that are looking ,

[Davidb]

I have been in intermittent contact with Dave for some months now hoping to get an airbox for my S2. I emailed him yesterday and suggested he send me a box for an S4 and I would modify it to work-I already have an S4 backplate. Dave emailed this morning to say that he hopes to have the loan of an original S2 airbox next week from a Lotus dealer and then he will be able to make them in the 'full depth' style we want.
He did suggest that since I am now in a bit of a rush for one that I take an S4 unit and it should take very little to make it work-he suggested that the inlet might need shortening slightly and that the different angle of the S2 would then be taken up by the flexible inlet hose.
Any comments on that?

[7skypilot]

+1 for Dave's deeper airbox. It is superbly finished and allows the rearmost cylinder to breathe much better than the original S4 airbox. The quality is excellent, much better than the original, and fits my Elan S4 perfectly.

I bought the one advertised on eBay 'Lotus Elan Plus2 Airbox Special full depth' and, despite it being advertised for the Plus 2, it fits the S4 with the same clearances to bonnet etc. as the original. Both use the same backplate.

[William2]

Just placed an order with Dave for an airbox. I think the shape of the original airbox is one of the few things that Lotus didn't get quite right.

[Elanman68]

Does any one know if Dave is still making the deeper S4 Air Boxes? I've e mailed him a couple of times but nothing heard.

[Davidb]

Keep trying! Dave can be a little tough to contact at times-worth the wait though...

[Elanman68]

I will! Thanks for the tip.

[vstibbard]

Anyone have a picture of Daves deeper airbox, preferably the S1/2 version.
V

[cudabenefast]

Here is my S4 'box fitted this week. Nicely finished and supplied with studs to enable easier fitting. Order filled quickly and easy to deal with.

Peter