Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Careful, Veg! These little car can sense hubris!

SENC wrote:Careful, Veg! These little car can sense hubris!

Absolutely! And they are merciless.

I opened my post and what did I find...................? A QED head!! Yipeeee!

TBG wrote:I opened my post and what did I find...................? A QED head!! Yipeeee!

New Head (3).jpeg

Nice and shiny too

Happy me!

h20hamelan wrote:

79E22876-783F-41C0-9FC7-9589415DB0AC.jpeg

Happy me!

Sticky. And on my favourite 5 spoke Revolutions.

Drove over to the rolling road near Malton in North Yorkshire.

The car went well, but I think the rebuilt rear Koni's could do with a tweak to make them a bit firmer.

Mazzini wrote:

SENC wrote:Careful, Veg! These little car can sense hubris!

Absolutely! And they are merciless.

Agreed! I'm aware that just because all the bits will physically fit doesn't mean that it'll be an easy job. And because it'll be me doing it, there's bound to be some weird issue with something that for some reason will totally contradict what should happen and will totally deviate from expert knowledge when I ask about it here!

after a couple months getting work vehicles sorted, I've some time to drive a Lotus again.
new condenser, points, cap, rotor, plugs, wires etc
feeling much better, driving much better
all around, you guessed it. much better!

Refitted this bad boy today…
I have fitting the exhaust engine mount…:(

Fluids in..
Gearlever in..
Failed original exhaust side engine mount replaced, now the engine cant is fine. I bought some of the Kelvedon £40 versions but didnt fit them.... mounting holes on the passenger side one are out, even on the replacement one I asked for.

Just propshaft to connect and ready to go....

As a matter of note, none of the original trim or gearbox parts (even clutch slave cylinder) have been used in this conversion so the car be put back to original. A note on the Paul Matty repro console though, its about 3/8" shorter than the original.

Startup of the Smurthwaite engine tomorrow or Wednesday...

cheers

Did you get your gaitor mount sorted?

Yeah… the original 5 speed Elan had a massive hole cut out of the body, im not doing that so I have used 3M VHP 45 double sided to tape to hold it. Sticks like $ hit to a blanket so all good

Cheers
Mark

Fitted new brake master cylinder, bled brakes. Completed making, trimming and fitting parcel shelf and bolster. Refitted rear screen with new rubber and filler strip … glass still intact
A contrast to all those days spent faffing around the car and achieving nothing.

Locked down again here in Melbourne so no racing but plenty of garage time. I have started measuring up my spare race engine that I retired in 2017 to change it from Avgas which can no longer be used in my racing category to premium unleaded. It will be same spec as my current race engine but as its combustion chamber is smaller I need a smaller intruder.

From my measurements with a 37.5 cc combustion chamber, 83.5 mm bore, 0.50 mm piston deck to block deck, 82.4 mm diameter of piston land down 6 mm to top ring, 0.80 mm compressed head gasket and various details around the valve cut outs.... then a 3.5 mm intruder will give me my target 10.8 compression ratio. I have borrowed a piston holding jig from Col at Elantrikbits and will mount it in the lathe to machine the intruder down next weekend. By then I should also have the crank and rods bearings I need to start assembly

cheers
Rohan