If your a lotus esprit lover, turn away now!
I bought a engineless/transaxleless rotting rolling chassis S2 esprit (£28 on ebay guv'nor), and gave away the fire damaged shell, and now Im
left with a rolling chassis which at least gives me some uprights and wheels and steering gear etc. Along the way previously a donor rover v8 engine
has been procured and a 6-71 blower, and a Renault 369 transaxle and I have a megasquirt sat on the bench doing nothing so it'd be rude not to. I
did think I had an adaptor plate twixt v8->transaxle, but its turned out to be rover -> something else random adaptor after finding 3 renault
bellhousings, so Im going to have to make my own anyway.
Now, I still want to continue headlong in the plan to build a tube chassis for my nova kitcar, since the X form of the lotus isnt quite what I wanted
in terms of side impact and Id like rocker arm suspension instead of the falling rate of the lotus units, and various other bits n bobs and it would
probally be as much work to get rid of the tinworm in it than make a new one, but I plan on using the original chassis as a giant jig and lifting the
geometry from it mostly since by all accounts the esprit was a fine handling car. Now my problems start ...
At the front, its a double upper wishbone, but with a single lower wishbone, with a trailing arm back to the chassis in the form of the anti roll bar.
I think this should be improved to a pair of double wishbones with more rigidity in the chassis where they mount in the fore aft plane, which I can do
without changing radically altering the geometry and can still use the chassis as a appropriate jig.
At the rear, the S2 used the driveshafts as the upper member in the suspension, but that was with the citroen box and resulted in a lot of knackered
boxes from the side loads etc, and theyre not really good for more than 200hp and rare to find. The later Stevens-Esprit used a more conventional un1
transaxle with upper and lower wishbones, but there is a lotus specialist in the US called LPBC (lotus prepared by claudius) who offers a double
wishbone conversion for the earlier cars. I plan to replicate the conversion but perhaps incorporate some subtle changes to update. Oh and the earlier
cars ran inboard disc brakes, so no citroen transaxle currently means no rear brakes. That may take some thought.
So a cunning plan is forming, first job now Im home again has to be to measure up the chassis and get it into a cad package to play round with the
suspension mods, unless someone knows where I might lay my hands on a drawring of some description of the original lotus chassis.. I asked on the
esprit lists but there arent a lot of people needing the information and nobody was forthcoming...
Anyone spotted some nice lotus drawrings on their travels... Its still locost honest... 28 quid for a jig and uprights...
Thats one of the craziest plans ever, even by locoster standards
quote:
Originally posted by MrFluffy
At the rear, the S2 used the driveshafts as the upper member in the suspension, but that was with the citroen box and resulted in a lot of knackered boxes from the side loads etc, and theyre not really good for more than 200hp and rare to find.
quote:No, nothing to do with the Chapman strut in this case. The Esprit just has double wishbone suspension with the half-shaft forming most of the upper wishbone. That design was extremely common in Formula cars from the '50s through the early '70s.
Originally posted by Browser
Ah yes, the famed Chapman Strut, which worked fine on his formula 1 cars (Lotus 25/49 etc) but ws found wanting a little on heavier road cars
Pictures of this project would be nice, I alway liked the nova.
quote:After I wrote that I thought about it some more and eventually did some research when I had time. The Esprit rear suspension is a large semi-trailing arm arrangement that uses the half shaft as a locating link.
Originally posted by TheGecko
The Esprit just has double wishbone suspension with the half-shaft forming most of the upper wishbone.
If I understand it correctly, you are planning to mount a Renault 369 transaxle to a Rover V8? I'm very curious whether the gearbox would
survive. It's more wise, probably to use a UN1 box. In which case I could help you out with a bellhousing;-)
I intended to use a Rover V8 for my Midtec Spyder, but eventually decided to opt for an Alfa V6. So I don't need the bellhousing I allready
bought...
Oh, and I found a supplier for Ranault 21 Turbo UN1 boxes in The Netherlands. I don't know whether the guy's got more, but I could ask if
anyone's interested. Sending them over would be expensive though...
[Edited on 21/2/07 by Bart-Jan]
quote:
Originally posted by Bart-Jan
If I understand it correctly, you are planning to mount a Renault 369 transaxle to a Rover V8? I'm very curious whether the gearbox would survive. It's more wise, probably to use a UN1 box. In which case I could help you out with a bellhousing;-)
I intended to use a Rover V8 for my Midtec Spyder, but eventually decided to opt for an Alfa V6. So I don't need the bellhousing I allready bought...
[Edited on 21/2/07 by Bart-Jan]
This is the total sum of chassis and driver protection on a lotus esprit s2 bar the fibreglass shell...
The guy who lifted the body off when I disposed of it said he always wanted a lotus esprit, until that day when he seen exactly what protection and
side impact stuff it offered.
Im liking more the idea of using it as a jig and only modifying the rear in a major way as its needed. The front Ill restrict myself to making tubular
wishbones to replace the pressed steel ones, locating the lower arm better and making the shocks inboard using a linkage.
She'll be up on her wheels properly tonight with the engine located where it needs to be. I mated the box to the engine last night although the
plate Ive been given seems a little misaligned. More work needed...
Hmmm, dontcha love mockups to check everything fits as youd expect...
Even got headroom with my 6'3 frame ...
Note distorted inner shell on one side from sitting on ground over time and wibbly rear wheels as I havent started the chassis mods proper yet. Well,
I had to make sure it was all viable before really...
Spend the rest of this week sawing out the bits of the shell that I dont need.
Does anyone know if a rearview camera setup in lieu of a rearview mirror is sva compliant? Im just going to have a durty big supercharger where my
rearview would go, so Id rather just build a firewall there if so...
Ive posted the rearview camera question in the sva/legal section of the forum. Makes sense to ask it in the right place...