Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

glenn_xp wrote:He says the chasis hasn't been cut about and is going to take some photos of the underneath to send me.

I am certain the chassis has been modified just as Kevin has described. I doubled checked against my chassis last night and the gear lever for a standard T9 gearbox will come up through the top plate of the back bone section. The question is whether or not the shop that made the modification bothered to reinforce the new hole as Kevin describes. Your won't be able to see this modification in a photograph taken from underneath the +2. I attached two photos from my currrent project of putting and Alan Voight conversion into my +2. The first is the modified gearbox in the chassis and the second is the gearbox alone. The gear lever on the Voight gearbox is within 10 mm of where it is on the standard Lotus four speed as measured back from the bell housing forward (engine end) mounting surface. As I said yesterday this is 280 mm forward of where the gear lever is on a standard T9 which puts it aft of the vee section and into the tunnel section of the chassis. For reference the main case is 212 mm long.

This is what mine looks like with the gearstick bent forward (in neutral in the picture), one job which has been on the to do list for ages is to replace the top section with the original stick turned 180 degrees.

Kevin

What are the seats Kevin, they look good?
Mike

Seats are Mazda Eunos/Miata, complete with speakers in the headrests!

...I know cos I have one.

Jon

Jono's spot on, Mazda MX5 tan leather, they fit really well are comfy and suportive and match the oatmeal trim. The speakers in the headrest also solve the problem of where to fit speakers.

My originals were basically falling to pieces with cracked frames and broken recline mechanisms as well as split covers, so fittting these was not a dificult decision.

Kevin

Nice,do they come in Black?

John

Thats a nice looking interior Kevin. I like the oatmeal colour.

Having been away for a while, I have just read this topic, I too had dealings with Vincent via ebay, where I purchased my Spyder chassis, advertised as a late model and updated chassis with some running gear.Although it turned out to be an early model chassis,so not suitable for the mt75/zetec route,it was allmost fully rolling and the parts just need a good strip down/replace and rebuild.Win some lose some,but still good for the price I paid and still a useable base for a conversion.

The bad news is that after a few years of elan ownership and meeting people in "the know",the man in question had upset a few people over the years,but,having said that,he and his wife were fine to me.

Perhaps its the car that needs to be researched properly,and not the vendor,bearing in mind that people run a business to make money,not to be a charity,and will tell you what you want to hear.

Paul

yes they do do a black leather seats for the MX5, in fact that is how I got the seats, the guy was changing his from tan to black.

kevin

...are they light? an easy fit? comfortable?

John