The Addiction is Real #3450R

[Rosco5000]

I did a little more digging and of course the most available material out there is the small block chevy 383 stroker conversions.  Those guys recommend 0.050"-0.060" clearance in case you spin a bearing.  I'll have a look and see maybe another 0.020" wouldn't hurt, I just don't want to hit a water or oil gallery.

The build is in a 1500cc Lotus block with 125E rods. 
The crank is a Cortina 1600cc crank according to Ken at Dave Bean.  BDA it is a stroker build Lotus stroke is 72mm and this 77mm if I remember correctly (there maybe some decimal places in there). It was slightly modified by having a boss machined off on the Num 2 cylinder casting next to the journal, it appeared to be purposely cast there by Ford so a 1600 crank won't spin in a 1500 block.  The crank was then ground 0.010" under, balanced and nitrided as mentioned before.
Pistons came from Dave Bean, +0.040" size ordered from JE pistons with a modified compression height so you can use the 125E rods with the longer stroke cranks.

My calculations so far puts the motor at a 1700cc I think, I did the calc about 6 months ago so I am going from memory. 

[Rosco5000]

I sent a quick message off to Ken at Dave Bean and he's comment was that the 0.050"-0.060" is pretty well an industry standard for clearance to rotating assembly so i will be doing a bit of grinding. 
R

[Rosco5000]

Hi Everyone,
I am making some progress on my stroker twin cam build and have the clearancing done and the block cleaned.  I am going to clean it 2 more times just to be safe after all the grinding to clearance for the crankshaft and rods. 

My question is what color is the original color for the engine block, oil pan and all the aluminum covers and head for a 1974 twin cam special.  My Elan+2 was done in grey but I can't find if that is the same for the twin cam specials.  The last rebuilder painted the block a Ford blue that I am pretty sure is wrong and it has a black oil pan. 

Thanks,
Ross

[Bainford]

I’m watching your build with interest. I will build a 1.7 stroker also when my engine needs a redo.

The correct colour for the block is Lotus grey, a medium grey. The head should be bare aluminum. I don’t know about the front covers.

[BDA]

My '74 TCS (big valve) had a black cam cover with the ribs sanded to bare aluminum. I think all the big valve specials were black. Red was used on some particular cam covers. I don't remember which ones were red.

[SilverBeast]

I think 'ordinary' Twin Cams had red heads and Specials had black with bare rib tops. Only from looking at pictures from the late last year though!

[Rosco5000]

Thanks everyone. I did have a black valve cover which i will repaint.  I will look for some medium grey paint then for the block. 

[Roger]

Originally block, head, etc. we're painted grey. The head wasn't left unpainted.
Federal Big Valve engines had red ribbed cam covers, other Big Valves were black.

[BDA]

There may have been red Federal big valve valve covers but mine was black. In fact, I don't remember seeing any red valve covers on Europas while hanging around the Lotus distributor in New Orleans back when my car was new. That's not to say there weren't any and I certainly could have forgotten if I did see any but I do remember at some point (could possibly have been in the same time period - mid '70s - but I believe it was later) seeing a red one and thinking it was different. Could it be that you have it reversed and that Federal TCSs were black and others were red?

I also don't think I remember ever seeing a painted head but my previous caveats about memory apply.

[SilverBeast]

More than likely I'm wrong, you've been involved (infatuated?)with Europas longer than my 6 months so I bow to your superior knowledge.

 My UK special has a black head.  Is it possibly just the Big Valve heads that are black ?

[BDA]

I remind you that my memory is a bit suspect and that is my entire source of information on this.

I seem to remember I had a similar thought - that the big valve motors had the black cam cover but was shown there were red valve covers for big valve motors. I remember somebody laying out a "rule" to explain which engines had red and which ones had black cam covers (there are also un-finned cam covers, too, but as far as I know, they were never used on Europas. I could be wrong about that too!). Unfortunately, I don't remember the rule (it was likely shared on the lotuseuropa groups.io group (nee yahoo group).

As I said earlier, I KNOW that my '74 TCS had a black cam cover. (am I repeating myself? Apologies. I guess I'm getting old...  )

[Arizona]

This is the original color cam cover on my '72 TC #2069r

[BDA]

Maybe they were black for the Specials?

[Arizona]

Maybe they were black for the Specials?

I'm pretty sure that's right, and I think maybe possibly the later non special TC's might have been black also. But don't quote me on that.

[Dan C 2624R]

I have a TC, 2624R.  It has a build date of  08 /1972 and my valve cover is black and has ribs.  In looking up engine data in the Miles Wilkins book (page 182) my engine has a serial prefix of S and this is supposed to be a red cover.After finding this info, a closer inspection did look like some red flecks near the edges in some places but I plan on keeping it black.

Dan
2624R

mod:  cover is black ribbed