Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Its been a long time coming but now im nearing retirement im having fun driving my plus 2.

Shes had a few mods in my 11years of ownership mostly for reliability but before i do anything else im having fun driving around the South Hampshire roads. I picked it up from being MoT'd and remapped at SRE and she was beautiful to drive home. Pulls like a train and has a noise to die for. Been looking at the pressure recomendations and i think ill drop mine down as its a little high. Other than that ill give her an oil change and grease up where i can but its essentialy time to enjoy her.

Looking forward to Castle Coombe

Paul

Paul,
That's great to see you enjoying your car at last.

To make some constructive suggestions regarding your Jenveys. They would breathe far better with deeper filters or even better with an air box and remote KN style filter in the nose of the car. There will be a bit of strangulation going on with the current system. However having run something similar I know how great it can sound and it's probably worth the 6 - 10bhp or so :

Hey Alan,

How are you my friend?

Ok ill confess but only as you have spotted it. I do intend to change that filter arrangement, theyre too small to fit in trumpets too so im looking at a ramair/pipercross style filter that will fill that space and allow trumpets to be fitted. I think i can go 90mm depth because of the curve. When funds allow

But for now im wanting to use her as much as possible. In last 6 years ive done 660m. Not good. In fact i think that calls for a trip to Pevensy Bay.

Paul

Paul,
The coffee and bacon rolls are waiting for you

I have only done 1500 miles or so in my +2 in the last year, that's a shameful under use of a great car, Castle Combe and a visit afterwards to see my cousin near Cardiff will add 500 miles.

Must try harder!

Great to see you are on the same wavelength regarding the filters

Paul - there is a separate thread under the Plus Two forum about attendance at Castle Coombe in May. I've posted today some changes I've made to my one to get noticed at Coombe! Jim

Jim

Im No10 on that list and looking forward to it. Nice additions to your lotus too,presumably you got permission from the purists.?

Paul

Just some help and advice needed, im going to refresh all the car fluids. I was in Halfords looking thro thier catalogue for filters but i couldnt find the exact match. Can anyone advise on the correct HF number?. Intention is to put in Halfords Classic 20/50 and run for a few months before another change. Its not been done for a while. While im there im changing clutch and brake fluid.

Also how hard is it to change gearbox and diff oil? I can find my manual at moment as ive semi moved house.

Thanks

Paul

HOF203

John

Thanks John, we gotta keep these fuel injected old skool beasts in good health.

Paul

pauljones - changed my gearbox oil today, not difficult at all as long as you can get well underneath and have a way to pump fluid into the fill hole on the side. I used Rohan's recommended Redline MTL and am very happy with the immediate results. Of course, I wasn't getting great performance out of the little bit of fluid that was drained before refilling - so more lucky that I didn't tear something up just getting it back on the road. Plan to tackle diff oil next week.

in the winter I bought some halfords 20/50 oil. Was rather surprised in depth of winter that it flowed out of can 'lumpy' !

Oh,

Ive never had that issue with the Halfords stuff. Its always flowed ok for me straight outta can. As for the gearbox oil is it GL-4 or 5? Both less than a tenner on the halfords card for a ltr. Cheaper than redline by far.

I changed to Redline ( bloody expensive ) in the 5-speed box, and drained it out after 12 months as it was too thin.causing notchy changes when hot,went back to good old 20/50.

John

P.S. anyone want a couple of pints of hardly used Redline MTL

GL4 I believe.

I find it easier to fill the gearbox via a long tube inserted in the filler hole fed down from the engine bay, just pour a litre down the tube and wait for it to run in.

I found the Red Line made shifting faster and smoother. Noticeably so.
A hand pump makes filling easy but can be messy. I often fill by removing the shifter .
If you had an issue with Red Line I'd check to see that you were using the right stuff,]75-90 gear oil not the stuff for the diff. 80-140. Check the book.

Eric
64 S1 Hart