Artie

Well Chris I have never heard of a Marcos much less seen one and if the cars in your avatar are them, I would love to see them up close. I love all sorts of cars and my "wish " list is long and eclectic. I am planning on calling or visiting the builder come Monday, to attend to the situation at hand. I will keep everyone abreast of the situation and I'm hoping I don't have to disassemble the whole engine. I am considering having the head O ringed if the nip is within spec.......Perplexing! Artie

That's nip Simon.

Okay, I didn't address a few important points I guess in my original message so I'll add them in. The head was skimmed and is completely flat and was done by a very competent head shop in KC that has done head work on many local SCCA champion race cars, so I don't think the flatness or trueness of the head is the issue. The shop sent out several items to be done by other specialists as they understood the importance of this being done properly. They shipped the crank off to a specialty aircraft crankshaft refurbisher to cut the grind the shaft and magnaflux it. And Chris, sorry for the misconstrued statement about an RX7, I love RX7's in fact I just rebuilt my 3rd FD3S for myself and I use them for track cars, I am an instructor for the regional Porsche and Audi club for driving school events. They are quite beautiful cars and very well capable of far outperforming any esprit in every aspect except looks, so tread lightly please, they are magnificent cars.... I'm sure you meant no offense by the statement, just understand that I love my RX7 as I do my Esprit, albeit for different reasons. Take a look at the attached picture, I think you'd agree she is a magnifcent car. Finally, I originally planned on shipping my engine for the original build to Michaels' Motorsports in Massachussetts USA, but after shipping it to him and it sitting for almost 4 months, I had it shipped back to me and found the local builder to do the job, which they came highly recommended by several of the local Lotus club owners. I probably will just pull the engine soon when I make some time, but will ensure the nip is measured and adjusted properly. If it is out of spec or not high enough, what is the rectification? Do I need to get new liners? Jeez! What a pain!

Okay fellas! This is enough! If you all remember, I had my engine completely rebuilt 2 years ago. Used all uprated components, new pistons, rods, bearings, Liners were stripped and fresh nikasil put on them then engine assembled. AFter about 2200 miles, the head gasket went. I pulled the engine, returned the whole engine to the builder and they reinstalled a new gasket(Lotus part) and paid them another $600 or so to do the work. I reinstalled the engine and about 10 months later now, the gasket has failed again! My boost is set with an electronic controller and peaks no higher than 1.2 kg/cm2(or about 1.1bar. I'm starting to consider the fact that perhaps the builder did not bother to check the nip height properly, or at all and thus once bedded in after a while, starts to dance and fail. The symptoms are classic head gasket failure symptoms. Starts from cold fine, up to temp and runs fine. If I stop at the store and come out in 10 minutes or so and start it, white sweet/antifreeze smelling steam/smoke. Rev the engine a few times, and clear the residual water from offending cylinder and runs fine to home. This is getting really annoying and quite frankly am considering just selling the car as is and buying another RX7 since I never have problems with them(although everyone else can't seem to keep them alive!) What would you do? I have well over $12000 Usd invested in the engine alone! The car is a beautiful car and I love her dearly, it just seems as soon as I fix one problem, another arises. And it's not from lack of proper maintenance or neglect. I am a mechanic and know what I am doing. I just find this car too frustrating anymore! What say you?

Eric, thanks my friend! I just do engine installs. I don't recommend any substitute for the 2 rotor engine! With a power fc and stock turbos we have a few cars making at or just over 400 at the wheels! Very reliably! Anything over that and the engine wants to twist itself apart! The LS1 conversions are popular but I feel those people are afraid of the rotary nuances and don't want to learn the system. But that's just my opinion! Ill be getting a 4 post lift in the near term, so ill be looking for a new project! I'm thinking 944 Turbo S!

Thanks all! The lift will really make life easier as I do a few engine swaps a year on RX7's! Yes, the door will be raised appropriately to let the car clear the runners/door opener. I won't be able to put the car all the way up to 70" that the lift will go because of the beam in the ceiling, but I can adjust the max height of the lift so I'll set it to about 65"! That will be plenty for the cars I work on! I like the idea of the transparent sticker! Might just have to do that! Thanks for the idea! BTW, the front chopper is silver, the rear one is blood red with silver flames. Fun to ride!

Hmmmm! Thanks! The silver one is sold! Making some room for a new addition to the workshop! 4 post lift coming soon! I was trying to think of something to do to the green/yellow stripe. Love the banner! I may have a LOTUS decal made in White and do something similar! But I like the idea!

So we had 15" of snow last week and I was BORED!! I decided to clean the garage a bit and did some painting! Nice to have the Esprit operational finally again, but now I have to wait for the weather to get better!

Yes, that's great on a mustang dyno, usually about 8% lower than a dynojet. Ill have to look into that controller. Sometimes sinpler is better in my experience

John, I have 18" wheels on my esprit, am not thinking the 6 pots will fit under a 15 inch rim.

Well Roger, I wouldn't put a tank in for my kit in anything less than a gallon, which is about 3.8litres. A litre wouldn't last long at all depending on nozzle size. Id presume your turbo is making about .85bar or so. Id think you would need a gallon size tank or larger. Ill be doing approximately 4 to 5 gallons in my tank with my alky injection.

Lucas, Sounds great, keep us posted. Batt voltage is paramount as we push the ignition system harder to burn more boost/fuel/air. Usually at the expense of battery voltage to the ecm/fuel pump. Very common on high performance turbo cars as you push the system to it's maximum. What boost controller did you decide to go with ? Have you considered installing a wideband in the car so you can monitor the afr's realtime? Just a thought. I have one in my RX7 and the Esprit. If the afr's go past 12.5 I get out of it and adjust. At least on the RX7 I can tune in more fuel at a given rpm but the Esprit just turn the boost back some on the controller. I'll be interested to see what your power looks like when you get it sorted out! I'll buy the popcorn! Video? Artie

Wrong flange I'm afraid Garp. It would need a standard T3 rectangular 4 bolt flange to mate up to the manifold. The Vband outlet is nice though. Currently looking into specs for a new more powerful turbo for my engine! I have been doing some calculations and fiddling with a friends Turbo Grand Prix that we have installed Tunercat on........Very user friendly and very easy to tune!!!!! Nice write up so far Mike, as usual.....Was that car used as an ROV or something? Holy moly that's a lot of rust! Suprised I didn't see any barnacles on it!

JOhn, I have the 6 piston Wilwood calipers on my 89. I got the entire kit from Claudius. The rotors are 12.19" and come with hats, brackets, lines and pads. Can't recall the price but quite reasonable in my opinion for a well engineered kit. I had the 4 piston kit that he offers and although it's much improved over the stock brakes, it pales in comparison to the 6 piston setup. I have a 93 FD3S or RX7 to you if you aren't familiar and it has a 13" front brake setup that I have installed and it's how brakes on a "race car" should be, the 6 piston Wilwoods, should have come on the Esprit or something equivelant! The stockers are not even "adequate"! Artie

Well, the cable is the 2 piece cable, the rear section is fine, I took it out, cleaned it up and used some heavy duty heat shrink wrap to cover the cable as it has gotten knackered over years of neglect. The new cable will be here this thursday from JAE, which cost me $168 plus shipping. Oh well, was hoping for cheaper but gotta have it! Anyway, to those doing this in the future, the rear section screws apart, and the end is a small fitting, perhaps 3/8" so I have pulled that end into the cockpit instead of trying to pull the large end that goes to the speedo through the firewall, that involved far less removal of inside upholstry! FYI! Artie

Well John, I haven't purchased the kit yet. I will probably compile pieces and make my own kit as I like one companies pump and it's characteristics, but I like the jets from a different company, etc. I believe there is a less expensive low boost one out there called the "cooling mist" which is or was on ebay a while back for about $300 or so. I plan on making a bladder for the alcohol that will mount back in the trunk along the very back wall under the lights, but that way it can drain completely and be fitted a little more temporarily than a giant jug I would have to bolt to something! In many aftermarket supercharger kits, they include a bladder to take the place of windshield washer tanks to make room for cetain plumbing etc so I'm looking for one of those in larger capacity! Artie

Well, I couldn't fall asleep thinking about it, so I went down and took the silly thing apart! The Stevens car I have has the cable in 2 pieces. The front piece comes into the firewall just in front of the alternator and there is a threaded sleeve with a nylon locking/screw on bit. I separated the halves, but left the front half in place so I can feed the new one through the firewall when I get it. The inner cable doesn't seem to come out of the cable sheath as far as I can tell. I pulled on it with pliers but no luck. I'll call JAE tomorrow and see what the story is. Not a bad job really, but just had the center console and everything when I replaced the shift cable last week! I don't know if it's a good sign or a bad sign that I go into each project on this car now knowing what tools and what stretches I need to do before I start! Hoping of all hopes that Jeff has a cable in stock and that it doesn't cost me $200 like the shift cable did! Artie

Okay, so for the last year or so, every time I get this car running, I find another annoying problem! Geez! Anyway, I finally sort out my broken shift cable problem and send my broken speedometer in for repair after 5 years without a speedometer. I got the speedometer back today and took the binnacle off to install the speedo only to find the speedometer cable end broken! I had installed a speedo from a junkyard in Texas, turns out it was from Paul93's old black 93 and it wasn't working properly. But, the odometer worked and the mileage was only about 4K miles over what my mileage was on my original speedo so that's all I needed. Anyway, I did a search on replacing the cable but found nothing. Anyone done this? Does the inner cable just get pulled thru, or does the whole cable and ends have to come thru? Does the large threaded speedo end go thru the firewall somewhere? IF so, is the hole big enough or did Lotus seal the hole with fiberglass after running the cable thru or what? Any ideas would be great. I didn't inspect any further than gettting the binnacle off and looking at the cable! I took out the boot floor but it's too cold on the garage floor tonight to climb under the car to see where it all goes........AHHHHH!

Ill be adding a brand called "Boost Cooler" but ill be running the isopropyl alc as it isn't at corrosive to aluminum! Methanol can erode the aluminum considerably depending on concentration levels. Do a search on that as well. Also, lots of rotary engine friends with big turbos run straight water mist injection! Helps ward off detonation and steam cleans the engine!

Lucas, Your AFR's should be no higher than 12.3 with that kind of boost. You hit 13.87 at one point at 20+ Psi. You only made 330HP cuz I bet the ecm is pulling crazy amounts of timing! I know you have a fuel system fit for a king! I am currently working on a bypass feed 12V source and relay for the Sport 300 pump I have installed. In 3rd gen RX7's the fuel pump runs great until about 16 psi then starts to lose pressure because the ECM starts divying up power to other things like ignition to keep the mixture burning. I'm not sure this is the issue, but you are not getting enough fuel delivered! I am frantically trying to figure out a way to crack into the lotus code to be able to tune these cars the correct way! There is so much more power to be had with this engine and it's being locked inside that box! Anyway, check your base pressure, which I am sure you have before, but if you can buy a vacuum pump and a cheapo boost gauge, start running the engine with the fuel gauge on the fuel rail schrader valve, then hook up a vacuum hose to the exhaust port on the vacuum pump and run it to the FPR. U can T in the boost gauge(I got one from autozone for like $35 and use it for testing the various turbo cars I work on periodically) into that line so you can see how much pressure you are applying to the FPR. for each PSI you should see an equivelant psi of fuel pressure. Usually you can only get about 5 to 8 psi from a vacuum pump outlet port but if the FPR isn't raising pressure accordingly then you aren't getting fuel delivered appropriately. Also, what sized secondaries are you running? Primaries? Have you checked to see that the secondaries are coming online? I had an issue a while back where the resistor had shot craps on me and my secondaries weren't kicking in! YIKES! Also, Another great reason to use a good quality electronic boost controller! My boost will vary on the dyno maybe .5psi from start to finish of the pull, unless my clutch slips or the tires spin.....Less load means less exhaust energy for the turbo, very common on light cars, especially on the street or at the drag strip where tirespin is common! Rich, I'm afraid you have the AFR values backwards my friend. The higher the AFR value, the leaner the mixture. The more O2 in the mixture, the more volatile the mixture becomes. Think of it like a can of gasoline! If you throw a match onto the open can of gasoline, it most likely will just catch fire.....Now, conversely, if you have very little gasoline in the can, but lots of vapor and oxygen and throw on that same match.....BOOM!!! You will get a much more violent explosion! Rich values are 11.XX and lower. 12.3 for this hemispherical combustion chamber is ideal, lots of propogation and good burn characteristics. too rich like 11.5 or lower and you risk washing the cylinder walls of their oils and lubrication! But you can run rich all day long, but can run lean once and blow the head gasket or worse!

John, I believe there have been a few people that have retrofitted the newer GM handles to the earlier esprits like ours, however, I found it easier to just have the body shop paint the handles body colour which you have done! I did the same when I had my car resprayed a few years back and love the body color look! Much more modern while eliminating a nightmare project trying to translate the pull forward mechanism to an up and down action. Artie

Both of my lenses were identical in size Lucas. Not sure if the S4 had different lenses though. What have u got to lose with an inexpensive HID kit? You will be pleasantly surprised! If you don't like them, ill buy them from you! I want to put another HID kit on my Chopper!

Well Roger, I'm no chemist but the premise is, by using a high pressure pump and atomizing nozzle, you inject a predetermined volume of a mix of water and alcohol into the intake, somewhere before the throttle body/plates. As the injested mix is introduced into the engine it helps cool the injested fuel and air charge since water has great antidetonant properties as well as a cooling effect when atomized. Now, alcohol(methanol is the usual suspect, but isopropyl works too) does a similar thing when atomized, but adds another aspect to the mix besides cooling, it is also a fuel! Do a search on google for alcohol or water injection, they are really keen on it with tuner cars like the toyota supra and rx7 in OZ! You Brits really discovered it in WWII! You guys put it on the Rolls built Merlin engine for the P51 Mustang! The Germans were using nitrous!!!

I get the vacuum from the T off the front of the intake manifold past the throttle plates. I used a screw in viton t that I use on the FD3S' I work on. They are indestructible and very heat tolerant unlike some nylon. I have looked at the AEM unit you are referring to, I like that you can control other things with it. Since I also run an AEM digital wideband meter I would be able to log AFR with boost from the unit you are looking at! AEM makes great stuff. Have tuned several RX7 big turbo cars with the AEM standalone ecm! Very slick stuff!

Well John, if you do plan to modify the car and are looking for denser air charge, you might consider a water/alky injection system that could easoiy be removed if u do find a later model SE you want later down the road. Adding a chargecooler is quite involved and very costly! I know because I have done exactly that! I got very lucky however, finding a local donor car with all the needed components after a total salvage! Read up on alcohol and water injection if you haven't already.