What are we missing, what should I make on a VMC?

[gideon]

Also thinking of aluminum defrost grills, no more warping in the sun.

The defrost grill sounds like a nice option.  If you do that, try to design something that can be installed and removed with the windscreen in place.   I think they should be black anodized, so you'll want to do a batch of them for anodizing.

[Richard48Y]

Today I was gifted a small Ender 3-D printer.
Going to play with it before getting serious about buying a much larger $1,200 three in one print/laser/mill version.

One of my first items will be defrost vents for the Lotus.
The CAD model for this printer should also be a good start for milling from billet.
What I should really do is make stamping dies for aluminum sheet.
I have a 30 Ton press that might work for that.

EDIT: Ender 3-D basic assembly is complete.
Do not even try to use the cartoon assembly instructions, use one of the youtube videos.

[GavinT]

With a 3-D printer and some stamping dies...
Sounds like a business case for ash tray customers. 

[Richard48Y]

But Banks/Lotus Supplies are already supplying ashtrays.
I like the idea of aluminum vents to make them less of a throw away item.
Trying to find a printable wax to use with my sand casting outfit too.
With tools at hand and cars to restore I should never run out of "Things to do".
At least not when the power is on, just had another outage most of the day due to a broken power line.

[314159td]

IIRC there are some starter motor adaptors that would be handy, I have one designed to put an Isuzu Trooper gear reduction motor in many places the standard Bendix ones goes, haven't poked around enough to know how simple/complex that would be for the Europa engines. Almost certainly just a $50 part though.

Kinda sorta ripping off this outfit: https://www.classiccarperformance.com/products/lotus-europa-renault-powered
They used to be worse priced ($300 a pop) but I pull those trooper starters for $10 so $200 is still a hard sell.

[Richard48Y]

I keep coming back to wondering if there is a market for a well designed and durable dual Weber air cleaner assembly using a readily available paper filter.
The individual K&N units have gotten expensive and are just not the same quality they were.
They also do not have any really good provision for engine venting.
I am thinking of a single unit to cover both Webers, and maybe some provision for a cold air duct as well.
Renault and Ford engines would require different base plates, and Renault might not all be the same due to different brands of intake manifolds.
I do hope to be able to use the same top cover and filter for all variations.
In any case I intend to do a prototype for my own use.

[EuropaTC]

I keep coming back to wondering if there is a market for a well designed and durable dual Weber air cleaner assembly using a readily available paper filter.

Chris Neils (Lotus independant specialist) offered one in the 80s/90s which came as a folded metal back plate with a flat filter clamped in place. This did away with the OEM front cover and trunking to the separate air filter canister. I had one (it's probably still on the shelf somewhere) because when I bought the Elan it was missing the cover/trunking and running on open weber trumpets with no filtration.

It's a poor shot, but you can get the idea from this old photo taken during a respray...

[jbcollier]

Europa engine compartments get warm, very warm.  If you are going to make something up, have it draw in cooler air from near the front of the rear wheel well.

[GavinT]

It's a poor shot, but you can get the idea from this old photo taken during a respray...

That looks like the filter used on the Lotus Esprit (not sure which model/s) as well as the Excel etc.?
There's also a K&N version if that takes the fancy.