Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Only Mazda part you need is the motor, the rest is custom made but not difficult, just about everyone has their own design of motor mounting, no right or wrong design, just depends on whether you weld steel or bolt aluminium basically. You need the federal linkage to link both pods together and a link between the motor arm and the pod, I used stainless screwed rod and 6mm ball ends. The motor needs a permanent power supply and a switched signal supply.

It really doesn't make much difference, as the actuating arm on the motor rotates a full 360 degrees, and is fully positionable. On my Plus2, I used a left side motor, as I was trying to keep everything out of the air flow to the radiator. I also positioned the motor so motor shaft pointed up and back, so I could fit a shaft to extend the manual operating knob up into the engine compartment. This way, if I ever get a failure, I just have to open the bonnet and I can turn the knob to raise or lower the light pods. The shaft is a hollow piece of aluminum tube, and I used a cutoff section of, if memory serves me, 5.5mm allen wrench to broach the end of the shaft to fit over the exposed shaft on the motor. Used the same sacrificed piece on the upper end to attach the knob.

To be honest, I don?t know which motor fits on which side on the original Mazda, I bought a pair of used ones and picked the one which worked best with my layout, the other one is sitting on the shelf in the garage if it?s of any use to anyone, nominal price plus postage. I decided I?d have the manual knob pointing towards the grill for ease of access, but others have it pointing towards the engine which would need the other motor to the one I used. Total cost (including motor from eBay) was less than about ?30 excluding the pod link bar which I already had, plus some alloy sheet and other odds and ends many of which were laying around the garage.

mikealdren wrote:Spyder have produced a power supply for the Mazda motor to slow it down and make it less aggressive. I would assume it uses a lower voltage, does anyone know?

Very unlikely. Just a bit of electronics in a black box !