What did you do to your Lotus today...

[englishmaninwales]

Got the car out of storage for a Winter’s evening drive. Delicious!

[reb53]

Replaced the ignition switch after having a few times when the car suddenly just turned off.
Key off, then on, fixed it so thought the switch was a good place to start, especially having had one fail in the past.
Of course this aspect of repair, having been through the Lotus, "Let's f*ck it up for the owners" department was not as straight forward as it could have been.
Firstly loosen all the dashboard screws in order to pull the dashboard forward in order to push the switch out the back without fouling the heater.
The nice thing then would have been to simply drop the old switch down, pull the wires off and plug them one at a time onto the new switch.
Not if there's insufficient wire length you don't.......
You lie on your back, twist, turn, get a torch, and tell your wife to ring the fire brigade and their "jaws of life" to come and rip the car apart to get you out if need be.
I can just imagine Colin standing in the factory saying, " Those 3 extra inches of wire don't need to be there getting a free ride, shorten them ! "

Ralph.

[Quart Meg Miles]

So now's your chance to add three inch extensions ready for the next time!

[Spyder fan]

I didn’t do anything apart from driving it. I had to run an errand to collect our old mantelpiece clock from the horologist and the +2 was the first car on the driveway.

Might put petrol in it next.

[pharriso]

Just went for a wonderful 20 mile spin, probably one of the last before the car goes into storage before winter

[Spyder fan]

Just went for a wonderful 20 mile spin, probably one of the last before the car goes into storage before winter

The roads in Long Island last year looked okay Phil, are you sure you want to lay the car up?

[Donels]

[quote="TBG"]Went to the rolling road and sorted a few problems. Does anyone have a ratio of power at the wheels versus power at the engine? I expect Rohan does! D

It is about 16%. If you calculate the drag, CdA, etc you can work out the power at the wheels for the terminal speed. If you know the power output you can work out the losses. I have an xlsx chart but it's not allowed for some reason. If you pm me I can email it to you.

[rgh0]

Went to the rolling road and sorted a few problems. Does anyone have a ratio of power at the wheels versus power at the engine? I expect Rohan does! D

It is about 16%. If you calculate the drag, CdA, etc you can work out the power at the wheels for the terminal speed. If you know the power output you can work out the losses. I have an xlsx chart but it's not allowed for some reason. If you pm me I can email it to you.

Puma Race engines published an article a number of years ago that said add 12% plus 10 hp to the rolling road hp for engine flywheel power in a rear wheel drive car in the Lotus Elan HP range . I have found this to be a good estimate. The actual correction depends on many factors and especially the tyres and how the car was tied down on the rolling road but its worked well as a good guide on the 150 to 180 hp engines I have developed on the rolling roads I have used,

cheers
Rohan

[Donels]

TBG find attached chart. Made a pdf copy of the spreadsheet.

Elan +2 Power chart.pdf

(20.23 KiB) Downloaded 190 times

[TBG]

That is all very kind. Have a super Christmas and a Happy and better New Year. D

[2cams70]

Note there's a SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) standard for these types of calculations. SAE J2188 gives typical correction factors and the formulae to use. It's been developed for commercial vehicles where vehicle performance is more critical but the principals for normal road cars are exactly the same and probably somewhat simpler. I have used it in the past for trucks. It comes up on google but it's not free to obtain a copy unfortunately.

[Elanman68]

Passed a MOT, no advisories . First time road legal since gearbox and diff rebuild and fitting elantrikbits driveshafts earlier this year. Just need the weather to improve to drive it now.

[Andy8421]

Passed a MOT, no advisories . First time road legal since gearbox and diff rebuild and fitting elantrikbits driveshafts earlier this year. Just need the weather to improve to drive it now.

Your car is MOT exempt?

[Bitsilly]

Looked at the burnt fibreglass and tried to figure out how to work on it without
1) catching cancer
2) getting covered in soot
3) throwing away rare parts caught up in the mush caused by mixing years of rain with petrol cooked cancer causing burnt fibreglass

Then
4) tripled the restoration budget.

But then
5) smiled inwardly at how beautiful the repaired,
refinished,
and lovingly rebuilt,
happy car will be.
And how it will please the world of the future when I am long forgotten.
6) smiled at how future owners will despair at what they find out about that bloody PO!

[Elanman68]

Passed a MOT, no advisories . First time road legal since gearbox and diff rebuild and fitting elantrikbits driveshafts earlier this year. Just need the weather to improve to drive it now.

Your car is MOT exempt?

Yes, I know although only if you register it as MOT exempt. However, I think it’s sensible to have the car inspected annually by a tester/trained mechanic as although I do much of the basic work myself I don’t consider myself anything more than a reasonably competent amateur mechanic. It’s a peace of mind thing and has in the past spotted little things as advisories that I was previously unaware of and subsequently able to fix. My choice and booking a test also motivates me to get the roundtuit jobs done .