Lotus Europa Community

Jumping out of gear is not good.  I know you have resolved the issue that caused the problem but the issue may have started to damage the gears.  Change your tranny oil now and pray to whichever gods you're partial to.

It only happened 4 times, and I think it was caused by the vibration of the engine making the exhaust downpipe hit the gear change rod.

The gearbox feels very good now, better than my other 2 on the road.

I decided to seal the top of the RH tank.

I removed the filler cap and the rubber tube to the tank top hole, covered the opening with the bottom 1" of a plastic cup (exactly the right size) and made a funnel from an empty orange juice bottle which was long and round, so when I cut it up, I was able to make it into a funnel shape.

500mm of resin was just a little too much to cover the whole top. It flowed evenly over the whole tank top without any need to spread it out using a long wooden spatula.

I surrounded the hole in the bodywork with masking tape in case of drips.

Time will tell whether the LH tank needs the same.

You can just see the bottom 1" of the plastic cup covering the big hole, above the Banks engine cover support bracket. The crescent to the left of it is the bottom of the plastic funnel I made up. 

Hi

A good way to find air leaks is with a smoke generator. No need to take anything apart, just seal off the entry point. Works great on modern induction systems with 101 pipes and connectors etc. A petrol tank should be easy!

There are quite a few youtube videos on making them. I have done that before, but now have a "cheap" Chinese made one. Was bought from Ebay or Amazon, cannot remember.

All the best

Berni

Hi guys,

thank you for your kind words.

I'm in contact with the organizers of my racing series regarding that illegal tyre issue. The matter was brought to the person responsible for the technical regulations and now I'm waiting for a feedback from this person. I guess (and also hope), after that the person in charge of sporting regulations has to decide for a penalty. As the race result is already official and I have not launched an official protest (which requires to deposit a few thousand Euros out front), the penalty could only be championship-related. From my point of view, a points deduction would be correct.
The opponent used illegal tyres in qualifying and race 2. In race 1, he used rain tyres, which is OK. After qualifying, I just talked to the driver, who was using the tyres illegally, and he said: "I made my own rules now." I did complain to the technical scutineer before race 2 in pre-start area, so what happened in qualifying is difficult to police, I guess. But the infringement in race 2 was known to the scrutineer before the race and he has seen it with his own eyes. Thus, the points from this race could be deducted legitimately.
And as our points system only counts the 8 best results of a 10 race season, the penalty has only symbolical value. It doesn't cost the championship leader his chance of winning the title, as he still has 6 races left, in which he only needs to score 5 results to complete a set of 8. It would only mean that I would lead the standings after 4 races, because he'd have just 3 counting results while I've got 4. Nonetheless, a symbolical penalty would be enough for me to end my feeling of being treated unfairly.

The gearbox with shorter differential ratio is a big improvement, especially at this tight circuit. I'm using 5th gear three times in the lap, while I didn't use it at all with the stock differential.
As you can see in the video from my last post, there is still room for lap time improvement. But it's already a lot better compared to the laps on my Youtube-Channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/Bierlogistiker), which were recorded in 2023 (with Quaife diff) and 2022 (with open diff) respectively. I have to admit that the Quaife diff is not completely without loss of traction out of tight corners, but the loss on the inside rear wheel is very marginal. I'm not sure if you can even tell from the video, but from experiencing it live, I can tell. It's a big upgrade compared to the open diff and it's not expensive. Comparison to a "real" limited slip diff, I have none.

Oh, OK . . . 20mm off the deck.
I think my S2 has the pipes pretty close to the bottom of the tank.

Anyway, I reckon Fotog's idea has merit and should be easy enough to do without taking the tanks out.
What about making a wooden (MDF) bung for the filler neck and silicone it into place. Seal off any vent tubes and apply a little compressed air to the existing fuel line with your BA spraying the bubble solution.

Probably don't even need to drain the tanks, either.