The Lotus Grand Tourers

NB, this may be of passing interest.

While compiling the elite and eclat register, a car appeared in the US with the GM 3800cc V6. Which itself is a cut down Buick/Rover V8.

Maybe this would have been the engine that Lotus would have looked to had the oil crisis not appeared. After all, Colin's previous "in house" engine bore a remarkable resemblance to another GM engine.

The GM3800 V6 is a very good engine, and revs very well indeed. Funnily enough I have a supercharged one sitting under a cover in my trailer out the back. Where did I put that tape measure....?

i think that you will find that the gm v8 that was used in the corvette is a development of the lotus v8 type 909. april 1985 (nine months before gm took over lotus) lotus was commissioned to design new 4 valve heads for the gm L98 small block 5.7 v8 which had an iron block. design problems with the car resulted in lotus being asked to design a new light weight engine, this became the LT5 ( 5.7 litre 375 bhp)which made the corvette ZR-1 the fastest car ever sold by Gm up to that time. if you doubt this refer to "lotus since the seventies" by graham robson.

dunc wrote:all taken in good humour...

(8 cylinders with two valves each = 16 valves. So all Rover V8's are 16valvers...)

I know what you meant - I'm just poking fun!

I guess I'm just an overweight slow witted European:" 'cos der ain't no sub-stitoot for cubic inches bhoy...."

D'oh!


Point proven. It's me that's the slow wit!

257spring wrote:I think the best thing to do is change the head gasket, I think that will deal with the tapping noise, sure there's a link there. Then someone who knows about these cars could check it over and get it running right! That's the way forward,
Can't believe there's no airboxs around, with all these hotted up car surly there are some stored away somewhere??
Which toyota engine's would bolt strait onto that gearbox?

Make sure you clamp the liners down. otherwise it's a rebuild. I'd drain the oil first, to see how much coolant is in it, the seals have probably gone due to the overheating.

Hi,

Have to say sorry to the original poster for making him look across 9 pages to see answers to his question(!) But more thread drift....

I think it's a big pity Lotus didn't do a V8 excel. I think if they did, even if it wasn't the 909 4 litre V8, it still would have been good, it wouldn't have been a stock rover v8 or a stock 1uz - although either would be a good starting point.

But when you look at what Lotus did with a boring 6 cylinder vauxhall engine in the Lotus Carlton, and of course the Lotus twin cam ford engine, a lotus tuned/modified V8 excel with chassis development to match would have been great.

btw (IMHO) the 1uz would have been a good starting point and Lotus had the business relationship with Toyota when the 1uz came out so could have got base engines in the same way they got W58 gearboxes.

from wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1UZ-FE#1UZ-FE

"Its resemblance to a race engine platform (6 bolt cross mains and over square configuration) was confirmed in 2007 by David Currier (in an interview with v-eight.com), vice president of TRD USA, stating that the 1UZ platform was based on CART/IRL engine design"

Mat.

Jason.goad wrote:

257spring wrote:I think the best thing to do is change the head gasket, I think that will deal with the tapping noise, sure there's a link there. Then someone who knows about these cars could check it over and get it running right! That's the way forward,
Can't believe there's no airboxs around, with all these hotted up car surly there are some stored away somewhere??
Which toyota engine's would bolt strait onto that gearbox?

Make sure you clamp the liners down. otherwise it's a rebuild. I'd drain the oil first, to see how much coolant is in it, the seals have probably gone due to the overheating.

Hi, what do you mean by "liners" the gasket?

Pete.

Ozzy_UK wrote:can you remind me what exactly?

Can't imagine you forgot

"Sent: Tue Jul 06, 2010 11:38"
" If AB14 and the stuff to fix the oil leak at the oil pump can be part of the deal I will be please to send you the £"

Always waiting after the AB14 unit ...
Does it make sens

I have vague memories of a 4 litre V8 Excel kicking about at the factory in the mid 1980's. i could be wrong though.

I suggest you read this article several times.

http://www.benani.co.uk/articles/HG/Head_Gasket.html

if you don't do the cylinder head correctly you'll end up with a pile of scrap aluminium.


I would suggest that a second hand lotus engine (lotusbits have them) would be the easiest and cheapest option, or sell it on.

257spring wrote:
Hi, what do you mean by "liners" the gasket?

Pete.

The cylinders have separate liners in them. If you aren't very very careful when you remove the head, you will dislodge them and need to effectively completely strip the engine to remove the pistons before re-aligning the liners.

Jason.goad wrote:I suggest you read this article several times.

http://www.benani.co.uk/articles/HG/Head_Gasket.html

if you don't do the cylinder head correctly you'll end up with a pile of scrap aluminium.


I would suggest that a second hand lotus engine (lotusbits have them) would be the easiest and cheapest option, or sell it on.

Tar

amarshall wrote:

257spring wrote:
Hi, what do you mean by "liners" the gasket?

Pete.

The cylinders have separate liners in them. If you aren't very very careful when you remove the head, you will dislodge them and need to effectively completely strip the engine to remove the pistons before re-aligning the liners.

Waiting for the weather to change before starting on this outside job, so these liners won't move of themselve's?
it's gonna need me to move them by being to rough etc.. Sounds like a hard job, gonna need a torque wrench, have
done a gasket before on a strait six.

Tar

As long as you don't move the pistons while the head is off you should be OK - hence the instruction to back the pistons down half way and lock the ring gear with a stout screwdriver before removing the cylinder head in the head gasket 'how to'. If you have to move the pistons or want to be sure they don't move, you'll need to obtain some liner clamps (Lotus Tool T000T0002A).

Someone buy this car please...............

Engine swap is starting to sound good again!!

I made a set of cylinder clamps in about half an hour for when I had my engine apart. If i can dig them out I will lend them to you for the cost of the postage!! really simple piece of kit.

Second the advice re the liners slipping, before I read the forum I rebuilt my top end and one of the liners slipped very slightly, I thought that it would seal back up again with the head torque and it failed miserably within 200 miles.

Have since had to have the whole lot out again and rebuild, I would make 100% certain hey physicall cannot move, if you are replacing any of the pistons etc and try to do it without the liners clamped, then one of the ones you are not holding will move!!

I also know of another guy who left his engine upside down overnight and gravity did the job!