Hello All,
Thought I'd update this thread, I bought a car! So many thanks to everyone for your help. I've tried to upload a couple of photos, although not sure if has worked!
After much reading here I went with the assumption that if the bodywork, engine and chassis were good then everything else
shouldn't be too bad.
Unfortunately it didn't pan out exactly like that and it's needed a fair bit of work!
So this one had good bodywork, recent engine rebuild, chassis seemed OK and loads of recent receipted work, so I took it to a Lotus 'specialist' for an on-ramp inspection, they noticed the dampers were leaking and a few other minor things, so I went for it. However, after driving it thoroughly the first weekend, it was clear that the suspension was absolutely way off.
So I looked at some pictures of other cars and mine to just cross check everything and it transpired the previous owner didn't have an ARB fitted!! Anyway, new springs, dampers, tyres, wheel bearings, ARB, clutch master / slave cylinder and an engine tune up later I think I'm nearly there!
It has certainly been a good learning experience.
Shortlist of problems is now:
1) Rubbing noise from rear when accelerating around a right hand bend (more common up a hill)
2) Rear vibration at 70mph most likely relating to a steel wheel being slightly out of shape
3) Slight steering wheel play, and slight movement in the n/s rack.
Below is a video of the Elan on a rolling road today, it made 114bhp @ 5500rpm, with more still to go if he went to a higher RPM:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd45u0Z6LrY&feature=youtu.beOne thing the dyno chap pointed out was the transmission losses from the engine to the wheels was incredibly high, he said he would expect about 30-32bhp loss for a solid axle classic, but the Elan was around 41bhp loss. Anyone have any experience if this is normal? The wheels rotate freely as they can with rotoflexes, so I'm guessing there are a lot of additional losses through the rotoflex couplings?
Cheers,
Guy