Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

disquek wrote:Thanks!

Do you think that it can be added with the diff in the car?

-Kyle

Absolutely because that's the only way to fit it. The diff won't fit with it already installed on it. In
a stock frame.

I'm not familiar with the Spyder chassis and its various iterations so it very well may fit
with it already installed. Just don't know that.

It's coming along. Engine is back from the builder. Fully inspected. Bores, bearings, valve lash, etc all look great. Resealed, new clutch, timing belt converted to HTD, new water pump, and a ton of other things.

Motor is all billet steel inside; crank, rods, etc. 12 bolt crank. Aluminum flywheel. Cosworth forged pistons. Baffled pan. She's a screamer!

Should be back on the road soon!



-Kyle

Kyle,
I fitted a new diff brace last year to my S4 with a Spyder chassis. Little bit fiddley but no problem. Dropped diff enough to jiggle in. Bit awkward tightening the single bolt that goes into the diff case. Got brace from Kel Sport. Nice and strong.
I was just wondering if you are running standard internals in your gearbox or have gone for uprated with the available horse power.
Mike

Nice! Hope to see the completed car in person someday!

Hi Mike,

The gearbox looked great and worked beautifuly when I got the car and so I didn't pull it apart. I just installed new seals.

I got a boroscope inside it and took a couple of pictures in an effort to figure out which gear set it had, but it was difficult to get the camera inside and so I didn't get much information.

Any ideas how to tell which gearset is in it without pulling it apart?

Changing the input shaft seal was a trick! I had to turn a tool on the lathe. The old one looked like it had been installed by a man with a hatchet on horseback. lol.

-Kyle

PS: Here are the boroscope pics:
https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/my ... nBIGMQxDuN

Hi Kyle,
It is a matter of marking the input shaft and output shaft with a bit of white paint or tipex. Then select 1st gear and turn counting the ratio from one to the other. It helps if you have the gear selected first and mark both at 12 oclock. Then you can clearly see.
A semi close at 2.97 is virtually 3 so easy to see. An old anglia or cortina ratio can be at 3.55. Again easy to see. If you are super lucky you may have a 2.5 first gear.
That being true close ratio.
If you dont mind me saying, I would look at a proper strip if you don't know its pedigree. There a a few things to bite you on the bum
Shoving high hp through it is working above its designed rating. Thefore needs to be spot on.
Rohan knows more about this and will hopefully be along.
I am running a 185 - 190 hp Zetec S4 and opted for a close ratio semi helical set to be happy. PO had trouble previously. Some of that was down to bell housing dowels having been modified and not engaging properly. This allowed movement.
Cheers Mike

Nice engine what sort of cams are you planning to use as you really want to build it for mid range torque rather than top end power if planning on using it mainly on the road


The gear box in good condition should be fine for road use. Ultimately the standard gear set and case suffer under racing loads and 180 hp racing engines going hard through the lower gears coming out of every corner. But even then it takes a lot of racing for the box to suffer to the point of failure. The usual failure is in second or third gears which see the heaviest loads with the teeth suffering fatigue cracking or in the lay-shaft fit into the gear casing where it frets and wears and comes loose overtime.

A car used on the road sees nowhere near these loads in practice even with a high torque big capacity engine. Provided you are comfortable that the box is in good condition there is no specific need to do anything with it especially if you don't mind the hassle of pulling the engine to fix it if there is a problem.

cheers
Rohan

I am currently running a close ratio behind a 2L Zetec in my Plus2 and its 3.5 diff. Must confess, I am not using the added power in anger, rather being a bit gentle with the clutch and the accelerator. The added weight of the car over a S1/S2, would accelerate the gearboxes demise if I became a bit ham fisted. Still trying to determine if I want to keep the close ratio in the car, or swap back to the mid close.

Thanks for the advise. This gearbox has been behind this motor before. Fairly few miles (<7k). It's clearly been rebuilt recently.

The motor has BD3 cams. The PO told me that it was converted from the alcohol midget car spec to road spec by Cosworth on special order. It came with detailed build sheets as well as dyno sheets. It made an honest 200hp and 170ft/lbs of torque.

The car has 185/60/13 Toyo RA1 tires (R compound) and will happily break the rear tires loose any time you floor it (a Quaife LSD is also installed). So although I thought about looking into more modern cams, it seems pointless! lol.

My hope is to make the car leak free and reliable and just enjoy it on the road for a bit.

One odd thing I found was that someone had made and fitted auxiliary booster venturi extensions. I've got a long history with DCOEs, and although I've seen them on IDAs, I've never seen them on DCOEs before. It has a standard looking air box and the #4 extension was found down in the air cleaner. I suspect that it had been hitting the airbox and knocked loose. I bought a new set of aux booster venturis and will fit them and retune it. I'm also fitting a wideband and will use my racing DAQ box and dash to tune it. Should be fun! All this and it still had too much power! lol!

-Kyle

The BDP is back in! There is more work to go to finish the job, but it should be running by next weekend!

Near term work: Eddie from TTR is making me a set of custom rear shocks to work with the Spyder double wishbone setup. I will be going with a complete TTR suspension package. I'm very excited about that! I need to rebuild the calipers. They're working and not leaking, but I'm sure it's been a long time since their last rebuild. I already replaced the clutch master, rebuilt the brake master and clutch slave. I also want to replace the upper ball joints and tie rod ends. They're cheap and the boots are all either gone or crusty. New trunion seals too.

-Kyle

I took it for a drive today! Did about 30 miles. No major issues!

The rear view mirror fell off (just the screw came loose). The speedo bounces then drops to zero.

Loving everything else!!!

-Kyle

gjz30075 wrote:

disquek wrote:Thanks!

Do you think that it can be added with the diff in the car?

-Kyle

Absolutely because that's the only way to fit it. The diff won't fit with it already installed on it. In
a stock frame.

I'm not familiar with the Spyder chassis and its various iterations so it very well may fit
with it already installed. Just don't know that.

I have a Spyder chassis in my Plus 2S. I made up and fitted a basic angle-iron diff brace some time ago, with a single bolt to the diff itself. It easily goes in and out with the brace in situ, especially after grinding of the casting flashes on the bottom of the diff casing, as I saw in a recent post.

After seeing a recent post on a quite substantial diff brace, I have now modified my diff brace with 3 diff bolt pick-ups, as per pic. No change in ease of fitting.