What about that 'box!

[jamieheasman]

I'm considering the purchase of a Lotus Esprit V8. Looking at the specs and development of the car I'd guess a '98 onwards model would be preferrable if only for an interior that doesn't look like it's been made as part of a child's woodwork project!

What worries me the most is the gearbox. Not so much the quality of the shift but the fact that the gearboxes don't really seem to be able to take the power of the V8. Call me cynical but I also suspect the peak torque of 295lb/ft for a 3.5 litre twin-turbo V8 is artificially restricted - is that the case?

Are there upgrades or alternatives available for this 'box apart from the 12k Quaife item?

[jamieheasman]

Thanks for that Rob. I was really only concerned with some of the tales I've heard of people having to restrict full-on accelleration in the first two gears to preserve the gearbox. Whilst I'm not planning on wheel-spinning my way to work the prospect of not being able to put my foot down when I like isn't exactly a selling point. I suspected the truth was somewhere in between.

I've heard the Porker gearbox is a very involved conversion, but I was wondering whether a Toyota Supra gearbox could be made to work as they are plentiful here in NZ, cheap and very, very strong. Of course this would only be if I had problems with it or I wanted to upgrade the engine to produce more power which I think would be on the cards! I still think 295lb/ft of torque sounds very low for a turboed 3.5 V8. I would expect the figure to be on the right side of 350 lb/ft so I suspect the torque is curtailed even on the Sport 350.

As you say they are plenty fast enough, and the main attraction of an Esprit to me is the handling. I haven't driven an eight cylinder car yet and there's only three in NZ so I'll be lucky! The four cylinder cars I've driven in the past handled beautifully but were distracting in the lack of brakes, heavy steering and poor build quality (although I'm used to some of that in earlier TVRs!).

Thanks