zetec chassis question

[daverubberduck]

I think I posted this in the wrong topic, so here it is again: Somebody recently told me that the ZT1 zetec chassis from Spyder will also take a twin cam engine. In other words it can do either/or, but I'm not sure that is true. Can anybody confirm this one way or the other? If true, has anyone ever done a reverse zetec conversion i.e. take out the zetec and put a twin cam back in? Maybe mating the twin cam to the MT75 box?
Dave

[PeterK]

I've not played with a late Spyder Zetec chassis, however ....

To fit a Zetec into an original Spyder chassis, the only modification actually needed is to modify the front cross member to clear the engine front pulley. I will therefore surmise that Spyder did no other mods to the engine area, and by using the Ford / Lotus engine mounts without the original Lotus engine brackets, then the Twink will fit right in. With the Zetec, the rubber mounts attach to the chassis and the brackets attach to the engine - with the Twink it is the other way around.
Other engine mods will be for the cooling system, as the Zetec and Twink rads are different (Zetec both hoses are on the left side when looking from driver's seat, and the Twink has inlet on right and outlet on lower left).

To fit the MT75 box, the original Spyder chassis needed a few mods to make space just as the Y section met the main front/rear parallel section. With the latter Spyder chassis, these mods are already done, so I expect that you can fit either the MT75 or 2000E boxes, only needing the correct gearbox cross-member.

Peter

[daverubberduck]

Thanks Peter for your quick and extremely useful response. One more question, do you know if it is easy to mate the twink to an MT75 box?
Dave

[PeterK]

It bolts straight on.
Assuming the MT75 is currently installed, then the hydraulic clutch release mechanism is already sorted, although not sure what length the carrier needs to be, assuming that the standard Twink clutch driven and pressure plates are used. You'd also need the standard starter motor.

Many on here have mated their Twinks to MT75s

[daverubberduck]

That's brilliant, thanks again Peter for your excellent response, really helpful.
Dave