Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Hi all,

Given the cost and rarity of webber heads has anyone on the list converted their stromberg head to a webber head? is it possible. I feel it ought to be after all welding alluminium is not such a hard thing these days with TIG welders although getting the tube extensions correct would be tricky, thoughts anyone??

Tony W

Tony,

These people in the USA have done it. Omnitech Engineering

They take the Stromberg head, machine of the inlet runners, drill the head and supply a bolt on Weber manifold. Here.

It looks good but possibly not much use for anyone outside the states. I did enquire and they will do one and ship it complete but wont supply just the manifold for home fitting.

What it does allow is much better porting possibilities than the normal head as you can get into the areas normally out of easy reach.

Simon

Go to http://www.cortexusa.com/omnitech/, John McCoy has been doing the conversion for some time.
Russ Newton

Thanks guy's,

That is interesting, pity I cannot get the piece to bolt on, still I might have a look and see what I can do here down under. Intersting comment re porting I can see how that would be much easier/better.

Tony W

You might try www.lotuspbc.com He was doing conversions 30 years ago, I don't think he has much to do with the 'old' cars anymore,but it wouldn't hurt to ask.

Tony

I had two stromberg heads converted by John McCoy at Omnitech. He did an excellent job and airfreight of the heads from Melbourne to Seattle and back was not to prohibitive compared to the cost of repairing a stuffed Weber head casting or getting a new or good second hand head out of the UK

regards
Rohan

Thanks for the replies everyone.

Funny how the same questions seem to get asked, what sort of five speed box fits, heads, seats, suspension, tyres and so on. You can spend hours going through old posts and generally there are answers to most questions as I said above most questions have been asked and answered before, what a great resource this is.

Tony W

Yes, my S4SE came with Stromberg head, I had an old scrap un-repairable Weber head, took it to a local welding wizard in Ontario who removed both intakes from both heads, installed the Weber intakes on the Stromberg head, 10 years ago!

Works great, make sure the intake carb angle is correct and I advise checking line bore for both cams after welding however.

Alasdair.

From what I've heard of both John's work and his prices, I seriously doubt you could do better than paying the freight to the U.S. on the heads. You don't need to ship by air, y'know.

In hundreds of posts, I have never heard of a dissatisfied customer. His work on the head goes way beyond "bolting up a new intake" and I'll opine he would not be a very intelligent businessman if he sold only the intake casting. (Picture of long line of whining, dissatisfied hacks looking to blame john for their flawed work goes here.)

A local Europa owner had his Europa Twink head done by John. With dual 45's, it turned 135 at the wheels on a conservative local dyno. This was a comfortable street engine, not full-race. A stock Stromberg in good tune would do about 100, likely less.

aha -Just in from a sweaty 90 degree humid session in the garage where I melted some wires in a spectacular fashion on 0576R- [no fire department needed ]-I have waited for this ---I am planning on converting a Stromberg head [ as soon as I am finished with the europa --and can afford one ] by removing the intake portion of the runner and welding a V.W dual port webber intake manifold [ machined to match ] on to the head -- and placed on a 711 block to make a 'tall' twin cam -----what do we think of this ----I hope its more positive than the shape craft thread - -ed ---- BTW Alasdair-where in Ontario are you and is your europa bright yellow???ed

My S4SE is a Yellow 1970 Elan DHC, Oakville.

well you should stop in if you come to the falls or St Kitts---ed

CBUEB1771 wrote:Go to http://www.cortexusa.com/omnitech/, John McCoy has been doing the conversion for some time.
Russ Newton

I wonder how much they charge.. there is no indication on their web site. Surely it's a relatively standardised operation?

If you are going to go thru all this work and expense, why not just convert to fuel injection?

JonB wrote:I wonder how much they charge.. there is no indication on their web site. Surely it's a relatively standardised operation?

Last I looked into this (about 10 years ago) I had several exchanges with John and a number of options (stages) were presented for my consideration, eventually a price came out iirc (though I could not extract it at first glance from the many mails, maybe it was on the phone) then I decided not to pursue: the shipping and taxes was making the economy of that option challenging even though I had a good donor head already, and at about the same time some new heads were beginning to be offered quite competitively which made the point that LTC heads were becoming scarce moot (quoting his reference point for new heads as $6k for a bare head and $10k fully equipped and ready did not fully convince me I must admit).
John was also advocating that his modifications were flowing better that the new casts, which may be true (though marginally I would think with respect to the large port SAS version), thanks to an early CNC approach for porting (plus easy access before reassembly) that is now more widespread.
Last the apparent modification made it more likely to spark trouble with eventual FIA inspection down the road.
My conclusion was that his offer was mostly dedicated to the US market then.