Lotus Europa Community
Lotus Europa Forums => Off Topic Subjects => Topic started by: Chuck Nukem on Tuesday,November 22, 2022, 09:36:25 PM
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Well boys....it finally happened....I got another broken Lotus....:)
This one seems even more special somehow. It satisfies my longing for a wedge shaped car that has existed since I was a very small boy.
The car came with the engine deposited in the bay via front end loader. There was about a gallon of water in the cylinders and exhaust. The motor still turns over smoothly so I think I might have gotten lucky on this one.
It looks better in the pics than it is in person, the paint is pretty rough. I keep telling myself about the lessons I learned with the black car....Just get it running first....don't paint it yet you fool....
There was a bit of an adventure retrieving this from Houston. My pilot bearing in my truck had been ticking for a little while. I had bought a new clutch and pressure plate in anticipation, but I kept putting it off because....Well now it was truly sounding bad. I promised myself I would change it when I got back. I picked the car up without too much fuss. Halfway back I lost the ability to change gear via the clutch, so I had to rely on rev matching. This was fine until I hit rush hour traffic in Dallas....I saw the sea of red lights on the horizon and I prepared for an arduous several hours. I made some space and rolled down the road crunching as infrequently as possible....my clutch began to judder a bit when being lugged. Somehow I made it through the mess and decided to take the back road to my house. Only one stoplight remained between myself and wedgey glory...As I exited toward the final stretch of road my pilot bearing made a KLJSDFKLJSDKLJFKLJADS;FKLJASD;LKFJAS sound which I initially mistook for all the teeth of every gear simultaneously shearing off and recirculating in the transmission. I was coasting uphill at 40 mph keenly aware that I would not be making it home without assistance. I tried a lower gear and to my surprise I could still get some power to the rear tires at low revs! At a crawl I towed my red prize over the dark Texas road with a train of annoyed headlights behind me. Up the hill....down the hill....up the hill....down the hill....I approached my final hurdle...the stop light! As I neared the glowing green beacon a wave of despair came...I knew that my luck had just run out. I would not make it before the change. I arrived at a long red light and had to stop for traffic. It was there my truck came to rest like Pheidippides proclaiming victory at marathon...but alas I was still one mile away.
Luckily my neglect and wrong doing was not met with real consequence. It was a Casey Anthony style verdict for me as I had already purchased the new clutch and pilot bearing. I had intended to change them to address my leaking rear main seal. A light skim on the flywheel and she should be up and running again to tow another broken Lotus!
The little kiddo in the last pic is my nephew....he approves!
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Nice, beautiful cars! The last pic is the best ;) Yours?
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Nice, beautiful cars! The last pic is the best ;) Yours?
He is my little nephew! We are going to be pals :)
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Congratulations on your quest , Chuck.
It’s nice to hear there are still some true finds out there . Loved the story you’ll tell your nephew in the future. Hopefully you will have it running without much trouble.
Dakazman
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Congratulations on your successful completion of a harrowing trip home and your new project! I might warn you that if you don’t start completing Lotus projects, your nephew will never know what it’s like to ride in a Lotus let alone drive one! ;)
I’m really anxious to see how (one of) your Europa projects come out and interested as well in what you do with your Esprit!
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Congratulations !! Love that style. Had an 87, it was a great highway cruiser but I hated driving it in the city. One of the ones I regret selling.
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Congratulations on your successful completion of a harrowing trip home and your new project! I might warn you that if you don’t start completing Lotus projects, your nephew will never know what it’s like to ride in a Lotus let alone drive one! ;)
I’m really anxious to see how (one of) your Europa projects come out and interested as well in what you do with your Esprit!
It is getting very close now. I am waiting on a shipment of 9 windshields from England to finish of the blue S2 I picked up in May (and the rest of them). The last little hiccup on the blue S2 was that the differential seal had been whacked and was leaking. This led to me pulling the axles and realizing that they were in need of complete refurbishment....so I am taking the moment to convert this S2 to disc brakes. I had wanted to wait to drive the car as it was for a while, but the bearings are toast on the rear and I just cant help myself...I did drive it around the block about half a dozen times and my god it was magical. It is the most communicative car I have ever been in. If I had to wait another 10 years to do that it would still be worth it.
On the plus side, I will have a rear disc conversion for every Europa after this :) I am also doing a dual master that uses a similar angled bracket like the S2 used for its master on a pivot.
The Eclat was working, but mom and I did an interior overhaul on the dash. I'll have to post some pics it came out quite nice. I did an electric pop up conversion to the headlights. Now it is beset by a badly leaking cam cover and a bad voltage regulator. It was driving though! I also found a 5 speed box for it to help on the highway.
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Congratulations !! Love that style. Had an 87, it was a great highway cruiser but I hated driving it in the city. One of the ones I regret selling.
That is great to hear. It is such a special little car. Very different from our Europas, but no less interesting. I am really looking forward to having the contextual reference of driving both back to back.
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Congratulations on your quest , Chuck.
It’s nice to hear there are still some true finds out there . Loved the story you’ll tell your nephew in the future. Hopefully you will have it running without much trouble.
Dakazman
Thanks Dman. I hope so too! I am going to start cranking away as soon as the blue S2 and eclat are done. It is going to be a "parallel project" to the black car....because that strategy hasn't let me down at all.
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Congrats, Chuck. Another cool project.
I'm envious of the little fellow. I imagine as a young man he'll be picking up chicks in a vintage Lotus. 8)
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Congrats, Chuck. Another cool project.
I'm envious of the little fellow. I imagine as a young man he'll be picking up chicks in a vintage Lotus. 8)
He is going to be getting the ride to elementary school that I dreamed of as a child....
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Years ago on a Lotus club early morning run, it was not unusual for participants to swap cars during the 'fang' just for fun.
I'd never driven an Esprit and swapped my Europa for a S1 Esprit and was absolutely staggered by the lateral grip. OK, I guess it is a foot wider. This experience is mainly what drove me to buy an Excel and that also had phenomenal lateral grip – well, that and I needed a car with rear seats to carry the little kids and to keep the wife happy.
Neither of those cars had a turbo and both displayed the rather 'breathy' nature of 4-valve engines. As such, the Excel was much happier cruising above 80MPH than under.
Anyway, congratulations, Chuck.
I expect you'll love it.
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Thanks Gavin,
I am really looking forward to having the Lotus chronology together. I think it will be very interesting to drive them and get a contextual sense of the development. If you ever find yourself in Texas you are formally invited to do some Lotus research with me!
I was greeted with some very pleasant sights. Almost everything electrical appears to work on the car! The motor looks to be very clean too!! I don't know how I got so lucky. I was really trying to be patient and wait to start digging in to this project but my curiosity got the best of me....
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Nice! The electrical part is not something I look forward to if there are issues on TCST….
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How many miles are on that Esprit!? It looks like you picked a winner!
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How many miles are on that Esprit!? It looks like you picked a winner!
Looks like it says 66,676 on the dash shot..
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From the looks of the engine, it seems like they were easy miles!
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66.6k The mileage of the beast!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxnN05vOuSM
I pulled 2 of the rod caps and the crank looks good from what I can see. Has anyone out there rebuilt the Citroen box? Is it a bear? I need to do some research.
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All I know about the Citroen gearbox is that the CW/P is apparently unobtanium and the turbo cars push the limits of the gearbox.
Presumably the Esprit crowd have found an answer which is likely to get a Renault gearbox as per the later cars?
Haven't seen a decent close up pic before but I must say, the cam cover gasket arrangement is streets ahead of the earlier 907 / 912 engines.
Always pleasing when the bearings look good – probably a sign the engine has been treated decently.
For new bearings, Bedford ones work . . . with a little finessing. ;D
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All I know about the Citroen gearbox is that the CW/P is apparently unobtanium
Your information is out of date. The CW/P is obtainium. And you can get it correctly reversed for the Esprit unlike the original, incorrect, CW/P that Lotus sold it with. Harry Martens Limmen sell a replacement. I believe they can rebuild the transaxle, or supply a rebuilt unit, or supply parts.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/18682611768/posts/10156318201496769/
https://ds-vitesse.com/en/
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66.6k The mileage of the beast!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxnN05vOuSM
Has anyone out there rebuilt the Citroen box? Is it a bear? I need to do some research.
You might PM JR73. He has experience with Esprits.
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Good old Iron Maiden...rock on Nukem
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I think I got lucky...no visible scoring or steps in the liners. They look to be upgraded aluminum/nikasil with high compression pistons!
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Thanks for the correction, gideon.
Alas, I'm not a member of that FB group so is there a discussion elsewhere you could point me?
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Alas, I'm not a member of that FB group so is there a discussion elsewhere you could point me?
Try these
https://www.lotustalk.com/threads/reversed-cwp-citroen-gearbox.440273/
https://www.thelotusforums.com/forums/topic/108511-hml-reversed-cwp/
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The plot thickens...the block is from a late model 93! A910 93 11 28377.... Lotus is checking into it for me. Its right on the cusp of being S4S which would be a very pleasant surprise indeed.
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Congratulations on your purchase, see attached pic for translating the engine number.
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Congratulations on your purchase, see attached pic for translating the engine number.
Thanks Jon! it must be LN on the first two not A. I was trying to decode via pics I took. I'll have to see if the C suffix is on the end :)
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Alas not S4S as the intake valves are the smaller of the two.
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Oh well… Instead of having an extra really cool car, you’re stuck with a plain old ordinary really cool car!
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Valves can probably be upgraded.
Do the ports differ?
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Yes I believe they were ported too. I am still learning the Esprit so hopefully someone can chime in. The larger valves can be fitted without issue. I probably need to just get it running first... :)
S4 spec is 268 hp while S4s was 300. Apparently the Citroen C35 is pretty taxed even at the 215 hp of the HC turbo. That reverse CWP might be in my future.
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There are a fair number of differences between the earlier turbos and the later (almost last of the line) 4 cylinder turbos.
The engine you have appears to be a good starting point (in that it’s much later etc) that someone has swapped the earlier manifolds etc onto.
I can’t see from your pics if it has a charge cooler?
I can see that it has the earlier (as fitted to 86 cars for example) exhaust manifold, turbo and wastegate setup - S4, S4s, S300 had a different manifold and turbo configuration along with the charge cooler and fuel injection - the charge cooler and fuel injection also results in a different intake setup which all contribute towards the higher horsepower figures considerably.
There where carb turbo cars with charge coolers - this may be a sensible route for you if you are looking to make good use of your later engine but there are a few parts that you would have to find/change in order to do it. - as you have already mentioned, the Citroen box is likely to be your weak link as the power increases. - even the Renault box in the V8 was only rated to 350bhp (pushing its limits) but if you are careful it can handle more.
There are many different things to look out for if you are rebuilding the engine, it’s a bit of a minefield tbh as parts have changed over the years (different suppliers = slight differences in specs etc). Even head gaskets used to be different thicknesses between the LC and HC - it may have changed now but I recall a revision to one gasket fits all some time back which to most wouldn’t mean very much but effectively made a HC into an LC and the LC into an XLC….!
The standard car is no slouch, I’d just put it together and enjoy it as it is.
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Many thanks for the links, gideon.
Interesting stuff, indeed . . and every day is a school day.
For anyone else following this, there was a previous thread referred, which is also interesting.
https://www.lotustalk.com/threads/new-design-cwp-for-esprit-citro%C3%ABn-gear-box.350506/
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It's cleaning up so far. I'm going to soak the exhaust valves in Berryman dip to see if I can get the carbon off. *edit* The wire wheel worked better.
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Things are looking good. Some of the cylinders have some staining. I might see about honing. Rod bearings were all within spec. I still need to size the crank before ordering new bearings, but it is getting close to the final push on tear down.