Oh good lord...

[Esprit]

... what have I done??!?!?!







Got the car stripped now to about as far as it needs to be stripped.

Suspension's all off, will split all the joints this week,and then it'll be able to go in and have the blasting/coating done to it As soon as that's underway I begin to attack the chassis with some elbow grease and a whole bunch of chemicals to get it all cleaned up and I'll be placing an order to get new balljoints, bushes etc over from blighty.

Then it'll all start slowly going back together again..... god there's some work ahead of me

[Kylie]

Wow!!! That just makes me nervous, a rather large jigsaw puzzel your starting to create there

Hey did you use spring compressors to take these apart ? Got to do the same soon, already peeled off a bucket load of flaky rust with scouring pad. Did you find the odd bolt welded tight and stripped a few even though soaked for days in CRC etc? The joys eh

[Esprit]

Kylie said:

Wow!!! That just makes me nervous, a rather large jigsaw puzzel your starting to create there

Hey did you use spring compressors to take these apart ? Got to do the same soon, already peeled off a bucket load of flaky rust with scouring pad. Did you find the odd bolt welded tight and stripped a few even though soaked for days in CRC etc? The joys eh

No, the shocks just unbolt out, haven't removed the springs from the shocks yet. I will be though because the springs are flaking away near the seats so will get them re-powdercoated along with much of the rest of the car (although might not bother because the LTS Konis might not be long for this world anyway.)

I've had a few seized bolts, thankfully nothing seized completely, although a few that required liberal dousing in CRC and consumption of a cuppa while I waited for it to soak in Everything's come apart rather nicely. Been rather nice, now that I've got it apart it appears that most of it is actually accumulated grime rather than flakey rust... aside from one spot on one wishbone that's JUST starting to flake, the rest has just blackened the Zinc plating, so everything should media-blast up brand new again

[Kiwi XTR2]

Time for a poll on how many bits (including nuts, bolts etc) George has spare THE FIRST TIME he puts it all back together.

I vote 4

[Esprit]

Kiwi XTR2 said:

Time for a poll on how many bits (including nuts, bolts etc) George has spare THE FIRST TIME he puts it all back together.

I vote 4

If I can get it back together with just 4 bits left over, I'll be happy!

Anyone taking bets that one of those 4 bits will be the engine?

I'm actually REALLY enjoying it thus far (despite the swearing, skinned knuckles and long, lonely hours in the garage!). I'm always a firm believer that a car's not truly YOURS until you've stripped it down to such a point that you don't know HOW on earth you're going to get it back together again!

Given that I know I'm a rather fastidious type of person, I know it'll be JUST right when it's all back together again and should give me a lot more knowledge on what to look for if/when anything else goes haywire in the future.

Edited by Esprit on Monday 2nd June 09:06

[Kylie]

Awesome, I know youll have it looking perfect in no time How's the engine coming along are you annoying KW every few days in anticipation? - I would be Or you letting Ken hold on to it for you for a few months no rush etc..

[Esprit]

Kylie said:

Awesome, I know youll have it looking perfect in no time How's the engine coming along are you annoying KW every few days in anticipation? - I would be Or you letting Ken hold on to it for you for a few months no rush etc..

I've not hassled Ken yet... I know he's plodding on with it.... in no big hurry as the rest of the car's likely to be September by the time it's back in one piece again... by the time I get everything stripped, cleaned, blasted, plated, coated, reassembled and back on the car.

Not far off now placing a big order for bits and bobs from the UK so that'll be the first big bill on the job... most things thus far have just been lots of time.

In another 3 weeks my love interest will be out of my life and no doubt I'll be wallowing in self pity for a while and there's no better way to distract yourself from heartache than swearing at your car in the garage so expect to see some rapid progress from late June onwards!

[iwilson]

Esprit said:

I'm always a firm believer that a car's not truly YOURS until you've stripped it down to such a point that you don't know HOW on earth you're going to get it back together again!

Boy do I know that feeling! Five years later I'm still not sure it's really all back together



You missed a great day at Puke on Friday. Got the geo reset, car hasn't handled this well in years. Big scary moment at the end of the day. Dropped one passenger off and was about to set off with another when I smelt petrol and the engine stuttered, almost thought nothing of it since I had only just refueled. But shut her down and took a look. Imagine my horror when I discovered the fuel line hanging off the fuel rail. A huge pool of petrol under the car and a couple of litre's over the engine. The sound of it sizzling off the exhaust manifold nearly put me into cardiac arrest! An overtightened and stripped hose clamp was the cuprit. I'm just glad I didn't need to sieve through the ashes to discover the cause!

Edited by iwilson on Monday 2nd June 11:03

[Esprit]

It's those magic "Exige-spec" camber shims that did it for you mate Glad to hear you're back on track with the handling I'm assuming this was on BFGs and not 48s? you need to get some new 48s/888s and see how you go then! Will probably call you in a couple days, need some advice on stuff, am not long after placing an order with Mr. Geary for a bunch of stuff.

[Whitey]

where has your engine gone?

[Kylie]

iwilson said:

Esprit said:

I'm always a firm believer that a car's not truly YOURS until you've stripped it down to such a point that you don't know HOW on earth you're going to get it back together again!

Boy do I know that feeling! Five years later I'm still not sure it's really all back together



You missed a great day at Puke on Friday. Got the geo reset, car hasn't handled this well in years. Big scary moment at the end of the day. Dropped one passenger off and was about to set off with another when I smelt petrol and the engine stuttered, almost thought nothing of it since I had only just refueled. But shut her down and took a look. Imagine my horror when I discovered the fuel line hanging off the fuel rail. A huge pool of petrol under the car and a couple of litre's over the engine. The sound of it sizzling off the exhaust manifold nearly put me into cardiac arrest! An overtightened and stripped hose clamp was the cuprit. I'm just glad I didn't need to sieve through the ashes to discover the cause!

Edited by iwilson on Monday 2nd June 11:03

Holy hell talk about lucky!!

Your guys cars stripped looks like they have been in a train wreck if you didnt know what was happening with them

[Kylie]

Any shiny bits to show ?

[peterpsg]

Just out of curiosity, since I've never personally seen the inside of an Exige/Elise engine bay, do you think you could fit a bigger (>4 cylinder) engine in the bay? I'm also guessing the engine is transverse mounted at the moment?

What I had in mind was something like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VR6 which is quite compact, only a single head and due to the offsetting is not much longer (wider in transverse) than a normal 4 pot...

I quite fancy just a humble Elise myself, but one with a monster motor hiding in it! ;-)

[GravelBen]

Google the Lotus Esthi - its an s2 Elise with 400+ bhp Audi RS4 biturbo V6 shoehorned into it by some German nutter.

Much more common are Honda K20A (Civic Type-R) transplants, ~230bhp NA or ~300 supercharged. Like this one:

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Trade-Me-Motors/Cars/Lotu...

[Esprit]

peterpsg said:

Just out of curiosity, since I've never personally seen the inside of an Exige/Elise engine bay, do you think you could fit a bigger (>4 cylinder) engine in the bay? I'm also guessing the engine is transverse mounted at the moment?

What I had in mind was something like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VR6 which is quite compact, only a single head and due to the offsetting is not much longer (wider in transverse) than a normal 4 pot...

I quite fancy just a humble Elise myself, but one with a monster motor hiding in it! ;-)

Not really doable IMHO... you'd need to do a fair bit of hacking around and fabrication (custom rear subframe) to fit anything bigger than a 4 cylinder in.

Why bother when you can bolt a Honda in, supercharge it and get up to 350 horsepower out of it... will pretty much run circles around ANYTHING from Stuttgart, and most things from St Agata and Maranello.

Peter Lucas is running one in the Australian GT Championship and is running near the top of the field in something that's actually not TOO far removed from a road-spec car... it's just been set up very well.

[peterpsg]

Esprit said:

Why bother...

It was just a thought (ok a madish one...)

I might try to get some measurements on the engine just the same (it'll keep me from going looney in this cyclist-frenzied place!) and I like the compactness of it, it'd have to make a good doner for something!


There's even Turbo kits available for the R32, http://www.streetwerke.com/R32turbo.html












Ok, I confess, I just want an Ultima that'll go round corners properly! After an 8, 4 just seems like not quite enough!

[tim the pool man]

If you want an engine swap then a V8 would be the way to go...

If it fits in an Atom it should fit in an Exige

[peterpsg]

tim the pool man said:

If you want an engine swap then a V8 would be the way to go...

If it fits in an Atom it should fit in an Exige

Nice v8, but I read some of his reservations about that particular engine!!!

dpcars dot net guy said:

Just hope the RST doesn't blow up with supercharger like it's reputed to do normally aspirated

Sounds a little high strung for my tastes, but would be cool for sure!
Though with any luck the VW engine would couple up quite quickly to a suitably beefy diesel A6 Audi box...

Anyway, hope the reassembly is going well!

Edited by peterpsg on Wednesday 16th July 10:51

[peterpsg]

Looks like Lotus are going to beat me to it...

http://www.pistonheads.com/lotus/default.asp?story...

Edited by peterpsg on Wednesday 16th July 14:11

[Kylie]

peterpsg said:

Looks like Lotus are going to beat me to it...

http://www.pistonheads.com/lotus/default.asp?story...

Edited by peterpsg on Wednesday 16th July 14:11

For what it is being a 2+2 its ok. I only like the now very old M250 styling that never got off the ground. The interior I could live with though looks nice. Wish they would hurry up with the new Esprit replacement though they have big boots to fill here to match their current super car rivals.