Elite 4.9

WOW Heiner!!! What a beauty ! Bet you can hardly wait to put in first and take it for a country ride to nowhere. thanks for posting. cheers, Richard

Christopher Jacobs in his book on auto electrics says that 90% of electrical problems are bad grounds. Simple to check by just pulling a new wire off a near by ground and connecting to your brake light. The fact that you have both out suggest this may be your culprit. No doubt a simple solution if the case. When I bought my Elite there were 6 melted wires under the dash and all needed to be replaced which many times, in my experience, it is easier to do then to find out why or where there could be a short. atb, Richard

Welcome Marvin to the Lotus forum. Glad for you to finely get a Lotus. My grandfather came over from Devin and finely resided in Kent, that is Kent, Washington, USA back in 1902. Kent is the home of Kent Pacific Raceways and I have seen many great races over the years there. This too is Lotus land. atb, Richard

One thing I also have done on my Elite with a very modified aluminum engine, which is very sensitive to overheating and one can tell with his right foot when this occurs, is to put a separate switch that enables me to turn on my electric radiator fans when ever I want to. So if I know I am going to be sitting in traffic or I see my temps going up, I can turn it on. And of course you can also had an oil cooler.

2 things that will bring down your normal operating temperature. 1 is synthetic engine oil which you may already be using, and the second is a product called "Water Wetter" by RedLine. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=red+line+water+wetter&ia=web This product works and I always use in in Aluminum engines as they are more sensitive to heat and overheating is something you definitely want to avoid. But sounds like your fans are not functioning when they are suppose to. atb, Richard

One thing that will make a rough idle is if your spark plug leads are not getting all the juice to the plugs. This can still happen even with new leads. If there is any place where the wires are coming in contact with some metal surface like the engine or another spark plug lead. Make sure your leads are not touching each other or any other part of your engine. This is more than likely a fuel or electrical problem. atb, Richard

The question one might ask is: if you do your own maintenance, would you ever slop brake fluid on your own car's paint and not clean it up immediately? Of course you wouldn't do that.....ever ! Sounds to me like the worker was not really qualified to be doing the job in hand. To me it is totally unacceptable service or lack there of. And it is precisely why I do my own. The problem is that, this is quite common so one must try and find someone to trust, if you don't want to do the work yourself. Difficult to do sometimes. I have got burned a good number of times in life when I relied on a dealer to handle some work. Many are corrupt and will sabotage your car for further payment. If you are not familiar with your vehicle then you can easily get taken. It has happen to me.

Great looking car. Always loved the Elan and maybe I will find one someday. I think the Elan is one of the more reliable Lotus's.

Other than rebuilding the engine with new pistons and cylinder liners, you can put in some Lucas oil treatment and that will increase compression and give you less blowby making more hp and less pollution. My trucker friends turned me on to this amazing product which also sticks to bearings and cam lobes preventing a dry start which is said to cause 80 % of cylinder wear. These very large engines (semi) go a million miles before rebuilds and this is one of the reasons why. They buy it by the gallon. I started using it in all my engines even from new. Truckers know ! cheers, Richard

LET light bulbs need a different flasher as they only draw 1/20th the power of a incandescent bulb and can't function normally without a LED flasher. If you change only the front and leave the originals in the back it will work fine but they won't work properly if you change all of them without a new LED flasher. atb, Richard

You can always do a compression check on each cylinder to see how much wear you may have and see if you have more blow past the rings than normal.

Well Jono, Unless you have something broken, there are only two systems that make it run and they are electrical, and fuel related. Replacing spark plugs and the wires along with making sure you are getting a hot spark may help. Coil replacement may be in need also. Coils also don't last forever and become weak and this may happen during higher rpms when the load is the greatest like when you put your foot into accelerating but seem fine at lower power requirements as you drive. Spark plug wires go bad over time and one maybe shorting out some of the juice before it gets to your plugs reducing power. Make sure your wires are separated from each other and not grounding out on any part of the engine. You may have a fuel blockage like in the filter or a spazmatic fuel pump or even a blocked line. Timing looks spot on. Not rocket science but little things make a huge difference at times. good luck and it probably is a simple fix. tinker tinker tinker...lol Richard

Never taken my Lotus to the limit in some corner as it was intended and designed to........ Hopefully NOT . lol

Hey Freddie, Sounds like a fuel delivery problem. Easiest one to check is the fuel filter. With the car sitting for long the fuel probably has some water in the tank and that could completely block your delivery because the filter is full of water. Second, fuel pump. Also I have seen a dirty air filter dramatically reduce power. 2 choices, fuel or electric unless something is broken in the engine. atb, Richard

Awesome Aimee ! And what a beauty it is. Love the color too. I too have roots from Devon as my grandfather was born there and immigrated to the US in 1902 after queen Victoria's funeral. Still haven't made the trip to Devon but maybe someday soon. atb, Richard

Welcome to the Lotus forums Aaron. Sounds like you have Lotus in your blood and that is a good thing IMHO. LOL Elans are a very cool model and I always wanted one from way back. A guy I knew raced one for many years and his was dialed in to the max. He beat a yellow 427 corvette on a regular basis out at Kent Pacific raceways in Kent, WA. Always good to see others from the US here. cheers, Richard

Jimmy smoked'em with Fords purpose built injected, 4 valve, gear timing with 11 gears and Chapman's beautiful Indy racer. Jimmy skipped the Monaco GP to race the 500 with this Lotus 38 Indy racer and what a beauty Colin and Ford put together that year including using the Wood brothers as their pit crew from American stock car fame. I remember the day. Jimmy really only lost the lead to pit and gas up. Not even close! Jimmy and Lotus also won the world F1 title again that year as Jimmy was unbeatable in his Lotus 33. Them were the days !!! great picture, cheers, Richard

yeah well, I didn't make the rule and you just can't stop people from doing what they do even if they are breaking the law. Many just don't care one bit. Too much booze. Years ago, I visited a gal in BC just across the boarder from Washington state where I live, and the cops would, on a regular basis, put up a road block and check each driver to see if he had been drinking. This of course was done late in the evenings and nearly always on the weekends when more drunks are out driving. I am sure it was effective at stopping people from drinking and driving but it would not stop all of them. A problem which more than likely will never get totally fixed until you have your car drive you home all by itself which they are building right now.

Hey Ivan, Unfortunately I had my bumpers made years ago and I have not kept in contact with the guy who pulled my parts. But his name is Jerry Foley and he lived in Tacoma, Washington. Not sure if he is even still alive but you could do a search and maybe find him. Also inquiring with other Lotus clubs that are not in your area is a place I would try as well. If you have an old part, nearly any fiberglass man could make a mold for you and pull some parts and if you go that route, find others who will help cover the cost of the molds and hook him up with Lotus clubs in your area so others may want these Eur spec parts. Cheers, Richard

Hey Ivan, The Fed version of the second gen Elite had the most ugly bumpers and really did nothing except make it a foot longer. The black rubberized cover went south quickly so I discarded mine and I found replacements. I bought my front and rear bumpers ..(Eur spec ) and the front air damn from a local fiberglass man who had molds to pull parts. This guy also had other Lotus molds to pull parts from. Probably your best bet is to join the local Lotus Club and inquire there for similar parts. I always found this to be a most excellent decision when buying a car like a Lotus. Most shops don't even know how to work on them so you have to either do it yourself or use the clubs for a good shop. atb, Richard

I know of a young 17 yr old gal who had just got her driving license, and while making a U-turn on a local 2 lane, 50 mph highway, while texting, pulled out in front of a full sized pick-up. To this day she is still in a coma. What a sad way to end ones life. Texting while driving , here in the US, is six times more likely to cause a car accident than drunk driving and there are over 10,000 deaths a year here because of alcohol related deaths while driving. Here you get 3 drunk while driving tickets and you go to prison. We all want to live in perfection or in our minds. We see things like they should be and not how they are. Laws are meant to be broken by some peoples mentality. I was visiting my daughter in Orange county, California. We went to Lego-Land which is just an very large,, amusement park (grand kids in tow) and on the way home going north, at 8:30 pm, with 5 lanes to pick from (70 mph limit) , we were in the far right being passed by nearly everyone in sight and not just by a small amount of speed difference. I looked over at my daughters speedometer and she was doing 84 mph! Now I lived in San Diego for few years and for a short while, I sold Fords at the local dealership in PB. I sold a new truck to a San Diego policeman and I asked why I never see any radar traps on the freeways down here in California. He said while we have a guy pulled over for doing 80, 400 guys go by doing 90 mph so we spend out time on other things. And if you ever saw a cop car on the freeway during rush hour, forget it... as the road is simply plugged with traffic going almost no where. So IMHO, laws aren't the answer. but education and making it more difficult to get your drivers license would be a good start. It should be more difficult to get ones driving license than it takes to pull out your prize from a Crackerjacks box as anyone can get one. Expose young people going through drivers training to the results from doing stupid things while driving. I mean, for instance, take them to the prisons to see the drunks who killed another person while drunk. Expose them to people in hospitals whose lives are now nearly ruined by texting and drinking. First hand knowledge is always better for burning important things in your mind. Sorry to have gone on so long here but this subject touches nearly everyone and I have a number of similar very sad stories. just one man's opinion on the matter, Richard

What I have learned in many years on the road, is that 80 % of the people should be ridding the bus. They are mentally, mostly absent driving their car and are on auto. I call it route 350. Their bodies are present but their minds are on some other important matter and they really aren't paying attention. We had an accident, a while back, on a major two lane ( each side ) divided freeway, 70 mph limit. This happened on a long, very steep grade up hill stretch, maybe a good 5 miles and straight as an arrow so one can easily see for miles. A gasoline double tanker was loaded and only able to make about 25-30 mph going up this hill and a full sized van ( same size as a full size pickup ) hit him in the rear starting the gas truck on fire, killing the van driver. So hot it burned for two days as the state police closed the road and just let it burn itself out. Now this happened on a sunny day with nearly no traffic. I can imagine some ways this could be explained like a heart attack just at the wrong moment but this guy was doing 55 mph and had plenty of time to see and move over to pass this tanker. This is easily explained by my route 350 scenario. His mind was so consumed by something he couldn't even watch where he was going. And these are the conditions we have to drive our Lotus's in, can you believe it? LOL atb, Richard

Looks good for me near Seattle which is very nice as this is also Lotus country.

Welcome Colin, to the Lotus Forums. Must be quite a feeling building in you till, your car is delivered. Of course we will need pictures once you have it. cheers, Richard

Welcome Glides, to the Lotus forums. Nice to see such a sleek looking Elite, definitely a great looker in black ! These cars were designed from the start for a V8, and it is fairly common modification to install one, especially here in the US. IMHO, it makes the Elite a much nicer car with the much needed increase in power, making it a great GT for road tripping. cheers, Richard