Lotus Europa Community
Lotus Europa Forums => Members Cars => Topic started by: Sean on Friday,November 12, 2021, 06:33:35 AM
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Hi All,
I want to extend my thanks for all the help you all have been throughout my restoration. My favorite part of this hobby is the research and problem solving so I tend not to ask questions that I can find answers to as that would bypass all the fun for me. Thanks largely to the enormous repository of knowledge on this forum I never came across anything that could not be figured out by reading through the countless threads here. I've been driving it since June and have been kept busy refining and sorting out issues, again, all fun. This is my first Lotus and it truly is a wonderful machine. It puts a smile on my face every time I hop in and take it out. Even just sat in the garage I can stare at it for hours.
Anyways, Thank you all!
Cheers,
Sean
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Congratulations on your successful restoration “completion.” :beerchug:
Speaking for the rest of the members, we’re glad we could be of help.
Also speaking for the rest of the members, we’d love to see more pictures of your baby!
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There's a bunch of photos in Instagram of his build, "the_lotus_imposition" is his Europa account.
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Great for those with an Instagram acct...
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I've avoided Instagram and tiktok so far too ......
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BDA, SilverBeast, I can appreciate the hesitancy towards succumbing to yet more social media accounts. Here are a few more pictures for you guys.
Cheers,
Sean
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Hi Sean
She looks terrific well done. thank you for sharing
Lovely colour. What is it?
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S2Zetec54,
The colour is a bit random. My day job is as a aircraft structures technician by which I maintain the training fleet for the Royal Canadian Airforce and as such we often have to touch up the paint during repairs. That paint has a shelf life limit after which it can no longer be utilized on aircraft. It by no means has gone bad, it just can't be used due to regulations. Well to wrap up this story, the CT-156 Harvard II (Canadian version of the T-6 Texan II) is painted dark blue with white accents. When you take a gallon of that recently expired white paint and add a small amount of the recently expired dark blue, the result is this light powder blue colour.
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Very pretty! I like the color!
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Thank you Sean…a real one-off colour…terrific
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Beautiful, early S2. Too bad hostilities will have to break out if you need to match the paint ;-)
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Nice job. Do like the unique white paint.
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Nice car, I also like the color!
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I love 54's, especially ones with the early door handles. Mirrors look great. Are you running AR-1's? I'me sure I'm not alone in saying more pics and details.
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JB,
Fortunately for the sake of the delicate balance of world politics, I have enough spare paint left over to do 3-4 more complete Europas in this colour.
Clifton,
I am running AR-1s.
More Details,
When I came across it in 2019, the car had been stuck in an old semi trailer for almost 40 years. The plate attached had a 1980 registration sticker. According to the original owner, he had removed the interior to refresh it (complete with gold shag carpet) then got sidetracked with family and business and never put the interior back together, eventually pushing the whole thing into the aforementioned trailer behind his mechanic shop. As noted above, it is a early S2. Chassis number 54/0678 so I guess that makes this the 33rd S2. It retains its numbers matching 1470cc Renault wedge engine to which I've fitted the RD Enterprises header and a DCOE manifold that came in the box of parts.
The manifold is a bit of a mystery it dose not resemble either a Hermes or Else. Unlike those two which seem to swan neck upwards, this one comes off the block at a fairly low angle, to the point that the DCOE sits under the unmodified coolant pipe location. An advantage in that the fuel charge has a much straighter run to the combustion chambers, and one doesn't need to creatively reroute the coolant pipe, but a disadvantage in clearance to the hot headers. I've mitigated the later by wrapping the header and fabricating a heat shield under the carburetor. Without the shield, upon shutdown the carburetor would heat soak and the fuel would rise up and pour out of the throats. A bit of a scary situation, but fortunately not one which resulted in disaster, just a puckered bum. Carburetor doesn't get hot anymore.
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That is a much nicer intake manifold. On big Healeys, swan neck manifolds give a 5hp loss over straight ones.
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Can something like this help your heat problem:
https://www.piercemanifolds.com/DCOE_DCO_HEAT_SHIELD_99003_015_p/99003.015.htm
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BDA,
Yes that is exactly what was needed. However, the off the shelf solution you've pointed to would not have worked for me. At least I didn't think I would be able to access the mounting screws due to the tight space. So I made my own. I took a small sheet of 0.016" titanium that I cut out of an old Jet Ranger engine pan I had squirled away (another side benefit of the day job, and a touch of aerospace added lightness) and I formed my own heat shield. A real benefit is titanium has a very low thermal conductivity. Mine mounts off the air filter housing. It creates a nice air gap under the carburetor and does prevent cooking the carburetor.
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Titanium... Real cool!! :)
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Sean,
I like titanium, I used to be an aircraft welder and machinist that worked on the SR-71.
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Very nice early S2 Sean. I have enjoyed watching the progress on Instagram. It has helped inspire me with my S2 project.
Cheers.
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Hi Sean,
That is a beautiful car. Congratulations! I was in the Royal Navy and a couple of my friends went to Moose Jaw and Cold Lake for Flying training. I’ve toyed with the idea of painting my S2 in Barley Grey (AD grey) but I have to get back in the garage first!
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I got up close to a SR-71 once at the Pima Air and Space museum. Truly an amazing aircraft.
I have a love hate relationship with titanium. Most certainly a very cool material, but a real pain to work with most of the time. It's all fun and games until you have to drill several hundred holes in it. Bring lots of extra drill bits.
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Congratulations on a job well done! You have an eye for photography and brining out the good lines of the car.
I love titanium because I sell cutting tools >:D