Head work?

[Pete Gossett]

When I comes time to build up my dismantled engine, I'm pretty confident I can do final assembly(despite it being 25-years since my one and only rebuild), but reading through the Dave Bean catalog, it sounds like it would be worth taking the head to an expert for new guides/seats/etc.

They recommended PHP Race Engines in Wauconda, IL. So I googled them - and it brought back "Town & Country Restaurant(PHP Race Engines)". Not exactly confidence inspiring?

Does anyone have any reports on this company, or is there anyone else in the Indy-Chicago general area who is well-versed and respected in Twinks?

[BDA]

If you're not planning on doing anything fancy with it, you could take your head to most any good engine machine shop and you should get a decent result. However, I would tend to prefer in order of preference:

• shop that has experience preparing performance mods for your engine (twin cam or renault?)
• probably experience with with preparing foreign racing engines in general
• a shop with experience with your engine
• a shop with experience with foreign engines
• a shop with experience preparing performance engines of any kind

I tend to favor performance shops because if they are good, I think they are a little more exact and a little more careful. If they have experience with your engine, they may know a trick (good parts supplier, a good modification, something to watch out for, etc.). You don't list where you live, but unless you're far away from a decent size city, you probably shouldn't have any trouble finding a local shop who can do the job. You might ask someone in a local car club if he knows a good shop (a lot easier now with the web!). If you really are in the boonies, you could try calling Dave Bean (on the phone, his catalog and website hasn't been updated in quite a while) and asking him for his advice - and then take it. In fact, you could do worse than starting there. Dave probably knows as much or more about Lotus engines than anybody (when he had a shop, he built a beautiful engine for me).
Good luck!

[Pete Gossett]

Unfortunately I'm pretty rural, and the only machine shops I'm aware of are pretty mainstream hotrod/V8 stuff. I'm 90-miles from Indy, and 120-miles from Chicago, so I was hoping to find someone near either city who was good with Twin Cams.

[cal44]

Pete,

I think there are quite a few Lotus specific shops.  I wouldn't hesitate to ship it.
One shop comes with good marks from my readings.  They have done a great deal on investigation into flow.  They have done no work for me.
You could go over to Elan.net and ask the fellows.  There are some Lotus smart guys.  Make sure you state that you are in the U.S
http://www.omnitech-engineering.com/

Mike

[BDA]

As call44 said, I would not hesitate shipping it to a good shop. In your area there are surely lots of good machine shops within a couple of hundred miles of you, but if you don't have a warm fuzzy feeling about any of them or you can't find one (google would be a big help here, try looking for "english engine machine shop" (without the quotes) or something similar), than you might want to take call44's suggestion of omnitech (I just looked at their website and they look like they would be a great shop to do your work) or as I said, you could call Dave Bean and ask him for a recommendation.

Good Luck!

[EuropaTC]

Hi Pete,

Like you, we live in an area with no engineering resources (only the UK, not US) and if I were in your position I'd certainly ship the head to someone who really knew about these engines as the other guys have said.

In the UK there were once horror stories of valve seats dropping out,  thought to be due to guys either just knocking out the old seats/guides without heating the head up correctly or not checking for the correct interference fit of the new inserts.  I'm sure that such work is more common these days and so might be less of an issue, but it's still something I'd want to check for myself given how expensive a new casting is.
Brian

[viking66]

Hi,

Also I have started to look at the head for my Renault engine and will do the job myself and (apart from cutting the seats as don't have the tools for a good multi angle job) I see scope for considerable improvement in flow.

Will let you know how I get on when I get my gear rigged and ready as this is work I really enjoy.

In addition concerning the Renault motor, I would have no issue having this cylinder head overhauled by any good machine shop as basic work. If I was to give a recommendation then it would be to try and find someone who is used to work on bike engines as this people are used to small engines and finer tolerances.

Brgds,
Marco       

[Grumblebuns]

When I refurbished the head on my Elan Plus2, I sent the head to Richard Kemp of Kampena Motors in Sonoma, Ca. His shop is at Sears Point raceway. I'm not an expert but I thought he did a pretty good job with repairing my damaged head.
If you Google " Lotus twin cam engine builders", a couple of other possibilities come up;  Metcalf Racing and Dave Vegher in the first two pages. I'm sure there are others. I have no personal experience with either of the two shops above but Dave Vegher has a reputation as a pretty good engine builder.

Joji Tokumoto
Fallbrook, Ca