Attempting to build the world's quickest UK road legal Elan

[nalesutol]

Hi
 
I was surfing this site yesterday after discovering it in Retro Cars. I stumbled upon a tread by Claymore whom I know from TorqueCars. He suggested that my project may be of interest to members of this forum.

It is a 1967 Lotus Elan that I have had for over 40 years and been rebuilding for the last 12 after being laid up in a leaky shed for 19 years (broke it at 1985 Street Car Championships then kids came along). The rebuild started off as an engine rebuild and new chassis but quickly escalated into a full blown nut and bolt radial modification saga.

The car had 168bhp at the wheels and ran high 12s when I broke it. However, shopping trolleys have more power these days so I had to rethink the power plant. Decided on a YB turbo as it is not too far removed from the twin cam and the engine mounts are in the same location. Up till then I had built all my twin cam engines but decided to get the YB built by someone who knows what they are doing. Settled on 520bhp/450lbft on pump fuel. This was over 10 years ago and I never expected the rebuild to take this long, although there have been many hiatuses due to life getting in the way. However, it is now, finally coming together and, hopefully, will be running by the end of 2016.

Rather than bore you with the trials and tribulatins up to this point I will just list what has been done and what is still to do. The engine was built over 10 years ago so the spec is a little dated but will do for now.


Sierra Cosworth 2000cc 4 cylinder modified engine:
Approx 520bhp on pump fuel
Ford Motorsport 200 block
Long studded (6)
Balanced knife-edged lightweight WRC crank
8.2:1 compression ratio
High pressure oil pump
Big winged WRC sump
Steel windage tray
Group A rods
Mahle pistons with R4 pockets
Group A ported and gas flowed 2WD head
Hydraulic lifters
WRC phase sensor
Escort WRC inlet manifold
Piper BD14 inlet and exhaust cams
Piper vernier cam pulleys
Piper valve springs
WRC steel head gasket
4WD exhaust manifold
Custom made 3” exhaust system (Primary Designs) Plasma coated by Zircotec
T4 RS500 turbo with 60 trim compressor housing and 360 degree bearing
.31 Actuator
8x Seimens injectors
Distributorless ignition system (camshaft pickup)
Wasted spark coil pack (Motorcraft) and high performance plug leads
Big wing baffled alloy sump
4WD steel flywheel
Twin plate cerametallic Alcon clutch assembly
4 bar MAP
Life full race F88 ECU
Custom made lightweight wiring loom by DC Electronics
Anti-lag system
Launch control
Traction control
ABS wheel sensors for above on all wheels
Full throttle pneumatic gear change system
(homemade)
Custom made alloy radiator and intercooler
Hi-Spec 4 pot alloy front calipers and larger diameter lightened grooved and drilled discs
Hi-Spec2 pot alloy rear calipers and drilled and lightened discs
Elite il300 6 speed sequential gearbox
Lightened propshaft
Sierra Cosworth 7.5” 3.85:1 rear diff fitted with Quaife ATB
Custom made gun barrel drilled halfshafts
Custom made rear hub assemblies
Lightened CV joints
Uprated chassis to beyond 26R specification (by Graham Hatherway Racing) to cope with up to 650bhp
Uprated (Tony Thompson Racing) Lotus Elan rear bottom wishbones
modified so as to be adustable for toe in
Custom made (GH Racing) rear top wishbones (“Rose Jointed”) and hub carriers
Custom made adjustable aluminium front top wishbones
Spyder bottom front wishbones
Alloy (Pace Products) front wheel hubs
Standard bushes in all suspension parts that haven’t been “Rose Jointed”
Droop limiters all round in lieu of anti-roll bars
Fully bespoke B.A.D dampers and Eibach springs with tender springs on rear
Rear dampers now inboard
Standard steering rack but reconditioned and secured with solid mounts
Floor mounted brake-bias pedal box assembly
Hydraulic clutch assembly
No ICE
Carbon fibre seats (pair), dash, centre console, boot, bonnet, door skins and cards, rear wheel tubs and bulkhead
Lexan windows including windscreen
Custom quick release steering wheel with inbuilt switches and containing dash
Full structural roll cage
Lap and diagonal seat belts for everyday use and full harness for track day and drag racing use
2 gallon foam filled alloy fuel tank
Holley blue top lifter pump
1.5l collector tank
Pair of Bosch 044 MotorSports high pressure fuel pumps (205l/min @5bar)
High flow filter.
600 series Aeroquip dash 8 fuel lines
Fuel pressure regulator with dash 8 return feed
Hydraulic handbrake
Custom rear light clusters
Bodywork modified to accommodate 3-piece 15x8” alloys with 225/40/15 tyres on the front and 3-piece 15x10.5” alloys with 285/35/15 tyres
at the rear
Front splitter
Rear diffuser
Front and back bumpers moulded into bodywork
Underside smoothed
Lithium battery
No lights
Lightweight 80amp alternator
Carbon fibre hardtop
Most bolts replaced with either titanium or aluminium alternatives
Component positions optimised to help in balancing car weight
Probably dark grey satin paintwork


If anyone is interested I can post a few photos.

[VIP]

Sounds great.

Start a thread for it in Readers Rides.

[GT4ME]

Welcome aboard, car sounds great. I'd love to see pictures.

[georgeb]

Me too, Get a build thread going...please!

[pistonpopper]

As already stated by the others, i too am ready to read a thread about it!

[tdk]

Pictures please! My kind of car!

[claymore]

Nice to see you on here Steve (or should I say Old Git)

[nalesutol]

OK, but where to start? A short history perhaps.

Bought the car in 1974 and started to modify it almost immediately. After many engine rebuilds the final configuration produced 168bhp at the wheels, which were 13x6 front and 13x8 rear.
Sliding spline rear driveshafts, Quaife straight cut gearset, Quaife LSD, paddle clutch.

Racing at York drag strip in 1985 prior to engine breaking:



Car was then stuffed into a leaky shed for 19 years whilst I dealt with having a family and all the other boring stuff :-)

Wife eventually said I had better get the car working again while I am still able to drive! So I dragged in out (after unseizing all four calipers) and gave it a wash:




I decided that as it had been sitting for so long that a compete body off rebuild and a new chassis was the way to go.

Although the power had been very good in the 70s at around 100bhp/litre (which was race engine spec back then) it wasn't very impressive now so a new powerplant was needed. Settled on the Cosworth YB.

Engine being built:


That was the easy bit. After a lot of research I couldn't find anyone who had done this conversion before so I was on my own. I can now see why :-)

A lot of work has been done more than once with many design changes along the way. However, I am on the home stretch with the plan being to get it running this year.

One of the reasons it has taken so long has been my growing obsession with weight reduction. As the new engine is a lot heavier than the original twincam I wanted to offset that somehow. It started off with removing anything not required for an MOT and it sort of escalated to the point where I have become anal about weight loss :-)

I had the bonnet and boot made in carbon fibre for me but now do my own. Boot floor, wider rear tubs, complete dash and centre console and hardtop are now in carbon along with the door skins. All glass will be replaced with Lexan, including the windscreen. As mentioned in first post I have replaced many bolts with titanium or aluminium. I have even centre drilled some of the titanium bolts :-)

Rear suspension:





Engine:



Initially, I was only going to fit a roll hoop in order to keep the weight down. However we discovered that, even with lots of additional stiffening, the chassis twisted when one corner was lifted up. In order to eliminate this a full roll cage was decided upon. To ameliorate the extra weight I used T45 seamless tubing which saved around 15Kg. In hindsight fitting a full roll cage was a good move and I feel a lot more confident about driving the car. The cage extends up to the front suspension turrets.



Once I got the car back from the fabricators I set about the body. I made a new hood, saving around 5kg. I then made new wheel tubs to accommodate the wider rear wheels.

Regarding suspension mods, the front is fully adjustable for camber and caster in-situ. The bottom rear wishbones are modified so that the toe-in/out can be adjusted.

Gearbox is sequential and changed by flappy paddles and pneumatics (home made).

Main controls are fitted to the steering wheel. A folly, maybe, but I had fun making it :-) The rest are on a central panel.





I could go on for hours as I have over 10 years of photos, but I don't want any suicides on my conscience :-)

At the moment I am making carbon floor panels:

Any questions, please ask. I will endeavour to update regularly.

[nalesutol]

Feb 19, 2016 11:11:06 GMT claymore said:

Nice to see you on here Steve (or should I say Old Git)

Shhhhhh!

Couldn't use Old Git so had to make up another name.

[mylittletony]

I think you're downplaying yourself somewhat, that's quite the package you've developed!

I know I speak for others when I say I want to see more!

[fer4l]

Looks awesome so far - please keep it coming!

Cheers

Matt

[Mercdan68]

Superb , and someone who has kept a car all that time, much respect to you,the work is just fantastic

[nalesutol]

T
hanks guys for the welcome and encouragement.

I had no plans to keep the car this long when I bought it. However, I liked it so much and have yet to find anything I would be prepared to exchange it for.

When I bought it it was my daily runner so any mods had to be done and the car working by Monday so I could get to work. To that end I had two engines - one in the car and the other being modified. I would then change them over at the weekend and then start rebuilding the removed engine.

It is now just a toy so there has been no rush up 'till now, but time marches on and I need to get it working so I can use it and claim the title of the fastest road legal Elan in the world :-)

But not everything runs smoothly. I recently made the passenger floor out of carbon which turned out pretty well.





The driver's floor is a little more complicated as I need to add a lowered section under the seat so my crash helmet clears the roof.




Set up the mould, cut the materials, mixed resin and laid everything up only to discover that my vacuum pump isn't pulling a vacuum! 4 hours, 3m2 of carbon and approx £30 of consumables in the bin.

Oh, well, ordered a new pump and I will try again next week.

I have been experimenting with making seats. First one came out pretty well but, with only two layers, it is a bit flimsy. It does weigh less than a kilo though :-) I will probably use it as the passenger seat, moulding it in to the body so it is rigid. My second attempt at the driver's seat will be with 4 layers. The circle in the carbon was caused by the vacuum attachment. I now either locate this remote from the carbon or put more layers of breather cloth under it. Learning curve :-)

[fer4l]

This is definitely going from 'Good' to 'Extremely marvellous'!

[nalesutol]

Thanks. My carbon fibre work isn't brilliant as getting the weave straight is difficult. However, I will be hiding the carbon with paint so any imperfections will be covered up :-)

[fer4l]

Isn't paint heavy though?!

[heathrobinson]

Crikey. That thread title is, while technically accurate, a fair bit wide of the mark. But then "Space shuttle loosely disguised as lotus elan - new boy to the forum but past master at combining classic cars and classified alien technology" is a bit too long to fit in the header bar.

[nalesutol]

Feb 19, 2016 23:25:56 GMT fer4l said:

Isn't paint heavy though?!

Well, yes, but showing your weave is vulgar :-)

[varelse]

Can you add tinters to the resin/consumable stuff to do the colour change for you? Even just black tinter would hide the weave well enough I think?

Also, this is cool!

[commervan]

Total respect you will have a monster on your hands its gonna be awesome cant wait to see more bookmarked