tjs98jetta

Hi Andy, great to hear from you. I'd got the Esprit into really nice shape and felt as if it was time for a different challenge, as you say. Susan vetoed the idea of multiple toys, and anyway I don't have excess indoor storage space. Hence the old car choice. It's got a Spyder chassis and a slightly modified (Vegantune) TC engine, so promises to be a lot of fun. I'll send you some pics when it arrives

I just sold my 91 SE (SCCFC20B6MHF60015) to Matt Moore in Southern California. I enjoyed driving and maintaining it, but decided to move on. In the process of buying a 71 Elan! 🙂

Very pretty looking car!

Prices here in the US seem to be creeping up for nice examples. A yellow S4 just sold on Bring a Trailer for $34750, which is significantly higher than it did just over a year ago. I have a vested interest as my 1991 SE is up for sale: https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1991-lotus-esprit-14/ I'm looking for a Europa (1970 or so vintage) as my next long-term project...

The wall thickness is certainly thicker than 1 mm, its a substantial object.

Mine has a 1 inch ID one, or the metric equivalent.

I used 6mm nuts, washers and bolts, the rubber lip comes predrilled with holes every 4 inches or so. I drilled holes into the fiberglass to match.

I went with something similar to rhino lip after replacing the L and R sections of the rigid plastic lower lip several times. Mine was from a Toyota (Scion?) car. I think it looks good and it has proved very durable. Scuff marks can be cleaned up with fine sandpaper, if desired

Similar stories in suburban NY. I start tomorrow morning giving online lectures to university students around the world (they have all gone home of course) from my house. It'll be interesting to see if the university network holds up when everything starts again remotely. The campus is closed. The national guard are building a field hospital in the basketball arena and we have a drive through testing center in one of the large car parks. Now it's more than 2 weeks, I'm getting used to being at home all day. Statistics say that the worst will be past by early to mid May around here. Crazy Times

I looked around for a used Tesla and they are practically non-existent here. And, they seem to be holding their value well. I couldn't justify the upfront cost of one in my mind. It will be interesting to see what the used EV values are in a few years. My used Leaf still charges up to the original spec range after 3+ years, and it seems to be fairly good estimate of the actual range I'm getting, just over 100 miles. It's only done 20,000 miles since new though.

Living and working in the suburbs of NYC, almost all my driving is journeys of 20 miles or less. I swapped my 7 year old Hyundai for a 3 year-old Nissan Leaf last year. It's been fine, I only have to charge up at home and we have solar panels on the house that have generated more electricity per year then we have used for the past 10 years. So a small and quite boring electric car works for me. We still have the wife's Subaru for longer journeys and the Esprit for fun...

This car is apparently very close to where I live. Didn't know about it until I saw the advert at the weekend. The paint on the intake manifold looks a bit tired for only 14 k miles. Missing front lower spoiler. But overall looks to be in nice shape. No details on maintenance of course. Price looks very optimistic though!

I used a lab pressure gauge I had access to. Then you need to measure the offset at the spec pressure and this needs a micrometer really, so it's not so easy to do well. My comment was suggesting the absolute reading accuracy of the sensor may not be great, resolution is probably fine. I found that I did not get the required activation of the by-pass relay until I set the actuator to at slightly higher actual value, as measured by my independent gauge, than the spec 0.65 bar. In practice, 1/2 or 1 thread of the screw on the actuator rod.

In the freescan manual, a setting of 0.65-0.75 bar is suggested, BTW. I agree with Barry, 0.70 bar is fine. I don't believe the accuracy of the sensor in the engine is good enough to warrant the precision quoted in the manual, especially given the age of the cars now. If you set it too low, the engine's sensor thinks the boost is never reaching the limit and you never get higher boost, so loose a lot of performance. I don't recall the colour of the actuator spring in my Forge unit, but it was definitely possible to set it to open at below and above the 0.65 setting by adjusting the rod length. Any of the available possibilities will work fine, I am sure.

I've had the Forge unit for 6 years or more with no problems. It has an aluminium body, so no rust problems, still looks shiny and beautiful. 🙂 You order with selected spring tension that includes the maximum Esprit mechanical setting (SE in my case) of 0.65 bar. As I recall, set up installed in car with external pressure gauge so that opening is at 0.65 bar or slightly above by adjusting the length of the actuator rod. Then the bleed relay will be controlled by the ECU and allow boost pressures up to just over 1 bar by bleeding off pressure sensed by the wastegate actuator as long as everything else is within specs and the engine up to normal temperature.

1) Mark K 2) Pan 3) Chris 4) Barrykearley 5) Trevor. (tjs98jetta)

Mine fell off too. Poked around to look for replacements and found they were uncommon/expensive. Also, it's a pain to get off,. the mounting screws seem to be attached to nuts under the trim which rotate, so trim has to be removed. In the end, I cut a small piece of 1/16 inch aluminium plate to strengthen the attachment and epoxied it back together with JB-Weld. I used duct tape to hold it in position against the windscreen while it set up. No problems after several years. And you can hardly see the join. Trevor

There is a picture above in this thread. It comes as a length you cut to fit and I installed mine as one length, no join in the middle. As I said above, it has pre-drilled holes every 3-4 inches and I installed it with 6 mm bolts and washers with nyloc nuts. Easy to fit and takes the abuse, mine often scrapes the ground, but survives reasonably well. It can be polished with fine sandpaper and Armorall. I have a new set of the glass fiber Ramspott and Brandt front splitters (L+R) for an S4S, but never installed them as, like you, I got fed up with the hard ones cracking. If you're interested in those let me know. Trevor

Congratulations Tony, I'm very envious!

I picked up a replacement voltage regulator when I visited the UK earlier in the year. Cost is about 8 pounds. Search on E-Bay The part number is visible on the photo, it is Mobiletron VR-VW002-P513267B. Matches Peugeot and Renault models among others. Direct replacement and has been working OK for me.

Picked up one of these voltage regulators when in the UK last month. The original? one on my car had leaked all its potting material a couple of years ago due to overheating and I'd not got around to fixing it. The really good news is that random erroneous ABS and coolant warning lights have stopped since I installed the new one. So I wonder if they were due to poor voltage regulation now. Anyway Paul, thanks for chasing these parts down. 8 pounds 50 plus an hour or so of my labour is a cheap fix. Trevor

My 1991 SE looks exactly like this.

I can get you some when I get home next week, if you haven't found any by then. Trevor

I remember the one I got was designed for a Scion (Toyota sub-brand, here in the US), so It might be possible to source it from Toyota. I used 6mm cheesehead screws and washers plus Nyloc nuts to install it. Very solid!!

I installed a rubber lip on my SE to protect the fibre glass and replace the cracked black hard plastic one that had been installed when I bought the car. The link to the company that sold it is no longer active, but looking at Rhino Lip, it's very similar. It came as an 8 + foot length of creased rubber with holes about every 3-4 inches for fitting. I drilled holes into the lower fiber glass lip and used nuts and bolts with anti-vibration lock washers to attach it solidly. Attached picture shows the result. It looks good, has been very reliable, and is cheap enough to change if it gets really scuffed up. Mine's survived some scrapes and looks as good as new. Trevor