The Lotus Grand Tourers

I am probably going to take my car off the road soon and get the engine out, mainly because the rear main is weeping and is now dropping small amounts of oil on the floor (that is not the only reason).

My plan is to rebuild the engine over the next year.

I have seen various discussions on Nikasil and piston Liners and I would like to know what the best course of action will be if I need to replace my cylinder liners.

So a number of questions crop up which for me are as follows:-

Can you hone a nikasil liner, My guess is no.

Do ALL the 180 SE engines have Nikasil and does the LC engine use Nikasil liners?

What are the Nikasil liners actually made off?

If replacing the liners is it a better option to go for something like QEDs standard liners with Nikasil liner type spigot?

Hi Jonk

when I rebuilt my engine I had my liners re coated, about £80 each. The firm in question suggested they would be better than the original as the new coat was thicker. The older LC engines have Iron liners. SJ do sell replacement HC liners and piston sets for £715, which may be better value if your pistons have seen better days.

Thanks

Paul

Hi Paul
where did you get the liners recoated for 80 pounds each i have been quoted 600 for all four, but they do not recoat them but custom make brand new ones
thanks steve

Hi Steve

I'll dig out the receipt tomorrow( Xmas party this evening) it was a motorcycle engineering place down south somewhere. This was a couple of years ago so the price may have changed a little but I'll see what I can find.

Thanks
Paul

To make sure all questions were answered.
The Nikasil liners are an aluminium alloy liner.

To be honest the coating (the Nikasil) is so hard you may find you need to do nothing to the liners, in my Esprit Turbo (the Excel I stripped was an LC) the coating was still good, and you could still see the honing marks they put in when they made them.

So yes, you can hone Nikasil, but not with normal equipment, and not repeatedly, it's a very thin coating, so honing several times would wear it away and possibly lead to it flaking away from the liner metal.

Related item, high octane petrol- generally has high sulphur levels, and Sulphur tens to remove or wash away Nikasil, so modern low sulphur petrol has its good points.
Andy

what i found with my liners is that you could still see all the honing marks, but right at the top they are just through to the aluminium

Hi Guys

I had mine done by these guys

http://www.stanstephens.com/nicosil.htm

The price look to have increased to 95

Thanks

Paul[/url]

Out of curiosity, what are the symptoms of worn liners? My SE has done 98000 miles, without (as far as I know) having being rebuilt, so from what I've read it should be due for liners soon. But I've got good compression, minimal oil consumption, and no piston slap etc. when cold. Are there any other signs to look for, or am I just lucky?

there was no telltale signs with mine, im doing a complete restoration and stripped the engine to clean it and check it thats when i found they had worn through.

paul thanks for the information
steve

Thanks for the info.

My car has pretty good compression and does not smoke so hopefully they will be fine.

If I need to I would be tempted to swap out for non nikasil liners. I think there is only a small weight penalty. But I have no reason to think they need replacing. Still soon find out!!!

Hi Jonk

Hopefully yours are o'k, when I was rebuilding mine the research I did and the people I spoke to suggested its best to catch them before they go to prevent damage to your pistons. Two of mine had to be replaced and it did take a while to source a matching pair of decent second hand ones.

Cheers Paul

Well I now have the liners out and they have pretty much had it.

You can see what they would have been like fron the factory at the bottom of the liner.

There are no problems with the coating coming off in flakes or chunks but it has worn very thin or through.

The other major problem for me though is that if you hold them flat and look across the surface you can see quite bad ripples at the top and bottom. and as I was getting vibration I would attribute this as a major contributing factor. Also there is dirt and staining indicating that the rings have had it aswell, although the compression was not too bad.

I have now looked into replacing these and unfortunately due to the cost of re coating and piston rings for the nikasil liners I think I am going to go for a new set of pistons and Iron liners perhaps from QED, but I am still thinking about that one.

It is quite interesting taking the engine out, it does tell quite a few stories, The clutch looks like it has been done quite recently (that partly explains the light pedal Steve) but the thrust bearing looks original and knackered, also some of the bolts holding the engine mounts on have been rounded out. I am hoping my local engine machine shop will be able to remove these for me.

On the plus side the front and rear oil seals have had it and everything is covered in oil and road dirt which is truly horrible to work with. So it definately had to come out.

Hi Jon

I spoke to a company at the Autosport show last year called Perfect Bore; they manufacture liners etc. for lots of motorsport teams. The guy was very knowledgable and helpful, and the prices didn't make me wince! Might be worth giving them a ring.

perfectbore.com

Pete

Did lotus use nik liners to stop the engine pinking. If so wont there be a problem with iron liners?

Peter,

I have looked up Perfect bore, they have changed their name to Capricorn Automotive. They are based in Andover so that is 10 min from my house. Nice Website.

http://www.capricorngroup.de/en/automot ... chsen.html

the thing is though SJ do a really good deal and their Piston set includes rings and gudgeon pins so I think that makes good sense and is a bit of a bargain.

I got the crank out last night and that is not good either.

Robert, The Nikasil liners allow an alloy liner to be used which gives a weight saving advantage. From what I am finding the way foreward now is to swap out for Cast Iron because of price and availability of original liners.

I will try to give Capricorn a call later, If I find out anything useful I will post it here.