Discussion
Been a while since I've done a reader's car thread, so thought I'd share my favourite waste of time from the past year.
Had Elises for a good ten years or so but life got in the way. With help from the wife now have this one, and will be keeping as long as there's petrol.
It had been off the road for a good few years before I bought it, with a "rebuild" of all things mechanical. There's some genuinely nice bits on there but goodness me previous chap didn't know how to use a torque wrench, let's leave it at that.
It's now done over 100k miles and is cosmetically.. er. Well it's lived a life. We'll call it patina, and something less to be precious about.
In the year I've had it, have set about replacing and fixing everything that hadn't been before. On the plus side, everything steel has been powder coated, some nice bits including dampers and ali-belled discs, just needed some work to set it up properly.
Have since replaced the fuel pump, the cambelt and water pump, sorted some earth issues, wiring and heating issues, the exhaust, alternator, and adjusted suspension.
Nice place to sit.
Retrimmed the seats:
And then decided to swap this:
For this:
Certainly learned a lot along the way. Wouldn't have been possible without a lot of advice and help from Lotus community and friends.
Some more nice bits:
Is a laugh, goes well. It's been a faff sorting the new engine out, but 60bhp or so more than original. Goes a long way with 730kg or whatever it is. Took a fair bit of effort to get the engine in and set it up properly, but would say it's worth it. Lot less than it would have cost extracting 180bhp from a K series.
Other plastic fun.
Had Elises for a good ten years or so but life got in the way. With help from the wife now have this one, and will be keeping as long as there's petrol.
It had been off the road for a good few years before I bought it, with a "rebuild" of all things mechanical. There's some genuinely nice bits on there but goodness me previous chap didn't know how to use a torque wrench, let's leave it at that.
It's now done over 100k miles and is cosmetically.. er. Well it's lived a life. We'll call it patina, and something less to be precious about.
In the year I've had it, have set about replacing and fixing everything that hadn't been before. On the plus side, everything steel has been powder coated, some nice bits including dampers and ali-belled discs, just needed some work to set it up properly.
Have since replaced the fuel pump, the cambelt and water pump, sorted some earth issues, wiring and heating issues, the exhaust, alternator, and adjusted suspension.
Nice place to sit.
Retrimmed the seats:
And then decided to swap this:
For this:
Certainly learned a lot along the way. Wouldn't have been possible without a lot of advice and help from Lotus community and friends.
Some more nice bits:
Is a laugh, goes well. It's been a faff sorting the new engine out, but 60bhp or so more than original. Goes a long way with 730kg or whatever it is. Took a fair bit of effort to get the engine in and set it up properly, but would say it's worth it. Lot less than it would have cost extracting 180bhp from a K series.
Other plastic fun.
Edited by pthelazyjourno on Wednesday 19th August 23:51
Sometimes look back and wish i'd kept mine, but two young kids at the time didn't make for practicality.
I was also looking at the duratec conversion from Steve Williams and went as far as getting a brand new 2lt engine.
i did similar to you with Lotus S2 bilsteins , eliseparts ally belled discs , 111s close ratio gearbox , light weight flywheel , piper 633 cams and verniers , janspeed manifold and system.
look forward to the updates
DaveK-S1 said:
Sometimes look back and wish i'd kept mine, but two young kids at the time didn't make for practicality.
I was also looking at the duratec conversion from Steve Williams and went as far as getting a brand new 2lt engine.
i did similar to you with Lotus S2 bilsteins , eliseparts ally belled discs , 111s close ratio gearbox , light weight flywheel , piper 633 cams and verniers , janspeed manifold and system.
look forward to the updates
Second-hand engines are also hit and miss - now have a couple in my garden I'm trying to decide what to do with, first one smoked like a steam train so already had the engine in and out a few times. Be easy by the time I need to change a clutch again!
Mine was an Essex Autosport kit, wasn't looking but one popped up for less than the price of the ITBs, seemed like it'd be a fun project and got carried away.
You could always revisit again in future, was nearly a decade between this and my last one. Same colour as yours:
Ace little cars.
Edited by pthelazyjourno on Thursday 20th August 12:10
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