How do you buy an Excel?

[Tanz]

That's a confusing car It's got the later wheels but older bonnet. The cam covers are black but are same as fitted to HC cars. Also got twin filler caps on water tank. I think it is an HC car and maybe the seller doesn't know it A change over car

[Alan_M]

That's a confusing car It's got the later wheels but older bonnet. The cam covers are black but are same as fitted to HC cars. Also got twin filler caps on water tank. I think it is an HC car and maybe the seller doesn't know it A change over car

The change to the cam covers and fitting of a twin expansion tank was standard for all cars from 86MY no matter what spec they were, so those two items are perfectly correct for a later non SE car.

[Monkeyzak]

The red one in pistonheads has been written off twice.

[Roadrunner]

& another one: 1989, red, £9,000, but it's a non-SE model, which must make it unusual for 1989. I can't imagine many people choosing the slower version once the SE became available. Was there a big price differential when new in 1989?


There seems common conception that the non-SE model is somehow dramatically slower that the later SE version. Looking through some of my old motoring magazines I see that the 'Performance Car Road Test' (June 84) gave a 0-60 time of 7.4 sec and a maximum speed of 133 mph. The 'Autocar' magazine (April 83) differs slightly at 7.1 sec although the test car didn't quite match the manufacturers claimed 134 mph top speed.

'Motor' magazine of the 1986 SE road test indicates 0-60 time of 6.9 sec and a maximum of 138 mph.

Although the measure is perhaps a little crude it does suggest that any difference is quite miniscule and in reality the driving experience is probably unlikely to be noticed by any other than the most extreme driver. It would cerainly be interesting to hear from those who have experience of both versions of the car in a real-life environment.

[Lotus-e-Clan]

Double post please delete

[Lotus-e-Clan]

Driveability is better off-cam, not least due the fact the higher static compression ratio of 10.9:1 works well with the SE cams (which have similar timings to the Ford BDA). The 0-60 times don't tell the whole story.
If you want to extract even more out of the SE then bolt-on items work well. I fitted a light steel flywheel at clutch renewal time which released more torque on top of the torque released after EWP conversion. Before this it wasn't easy to spin the rear wheels taking off using moderate revs, now the torque released makes this easy. A tubular manifold will release more top end too.
The LC s I drove before buying the SE had less bottom end, and certainly my old Elite 160 bhp had a lot less torque.

[TonyL]

Interesting. Thanks. An EWP is one of the items in my fantasy engine spec'/ long term to do list.