renckensj2

Thank you Peter that I could use your digital timing equipment for measuring also my ignition advance (see tables below). In the Lotus service notes it is indicated that the centrifugal advance is 11° extra at 2000 rpm and only 8° extra at 5000 rpm. Initially I thought that this 8°at 5000 rpm was a mistake and I would expect rather 18° extra advance!!!? I still wonder how the centrifugal advance can decrease at a higher rpm? What special mechanism is inside the original distributor? anyway regarding to Peter's results it seems to be correct! The distributor in my esprit is rebuild see my topic "distributor issuesof carb-turbo(1988)" posted at 25 oct 2008. I wonder if I should take actions to improve the curve of my centrifugal advance? centrifugal advance.xls I have the feeling that something is wrong with the attached spreadsheet, here is the complete spreadsheet of the static, vacuum and centrifugal advance of my carIgnition advance tables.xls

O, I see the confusion: the USA Esprit turbo MY88 has a Bosch Fuel injection with an electronic control module (ECM) but the European Esprit turbo MY88 has carburettors + turbo

Thanks Rolf, I agree with you: it is indeed better to have no vacuum advance then no centrifugal advance (as it was in my case) . I was really amased about the big difference in power while I was changing the ignition advance. The reason is because it takes some time before the burning (combustion) reaches the maximum power and as such the ignition has to be advanced in order to reach the maximum power in the cylinder at the right moment i.e. when the piston goes down. I could easyly test this with my old distributor (which had by surprise no centrifugal advance). Of course the advance is also required to make sure that the gas-air mixture is not burning anymore when the outlet valves are opened, this to avoid damage of the valves. Jos

However my exhaust manifold is also glowing, certainly after a fast ride, I am very concerned about it because I suppose that the outlet valves are also glowing and that is not good of course. One has to make sure that the ignition advance is correct because this is a very important parameter for the exhaust temperature. If the gas-air mixture is still burning when the outlet valves are open then this glowing of the exhaust takes place. At high rpm of the engine, there is less time for a complete combustion and for this reason the ignition advance must become higher in order to get more time for complete burning. If this advance is too short the valves will become too hot. I want to believe that an Esprit can have a little bit more then a normal car but there are no miracles and one should not underestimate this glowing. Regards Jos

Indeed, no load, no boost! Note also that an Esprit turbo of 1988 has no ECU and as such has no initialisation or settings for the turbo: it is all mechanical.

I had the feeling that my Esprit Turbo from 1988 had less power then initially and even after a replacement of the cam belt at the Lotus dealer the problem was not eliminated however the ignition was re-adjusted. I started searching for the reason and I discovered the following: The static advance was 10

1988 Lotus Esprit Turbo (black) SCC082910JHH11021 Jos Renckens Tessenderlo Belgium

On my Lotus Esprit Turbo 1988 are also springs in the window lift mechanism! JR

I made also a photo of the flywheel, which was very accessible since the bootfloor was removed because of the clutch replacement. Here it is:

When I replaced the clutch of my Esprit I discovered that the timing marks on the camshaft pulleys were not correctly aligned. There was a shift of one tooth! Fortunately the pistons did not touch the valves and there is no damage at all. After all it is very difficult to see without a tool whether the dots on the camshaft pulleys are correctly alligned: on the picture it looks correct but it is not: I made a simple and cheap tool to check whether the timing marks are facing towards each other. I just used a plastic CD-cover which I cut in a T-form ( see picture) and I put a line at 19 mm showing the connection line of the centers of the 2 camshafts. On the next picture one can see that the 2 dots are not positioned on the centerline, however there is not much deviation. When we turn the engine a little bit, such that one timing mark fals on the centerline of the tool, one can see very clear that the IN and OUT camshafts are one tooth shifted. After the correction of the time belt, I could not feel a difference in performance. I hope that this easy tool can help all of you with the positioning of the timing marks. Regards Jos

Here is the end (?) of the story: When I opened the old muffler I was surprised about the internal condition. The outside was completely rusty but the inside was in good condition. So I decided to re-use the inside pipes and to replace the outside shell by a stainless steel one. this is how an original muffler looks inside, the steelwool for the sound absorption was almost all gone and the shield between the 2 pipes was damaged! after removing the external rusty shell this is the new shell in stainless steel note also the stainless steel plate between the 2 pipes, both pipes are by this way in 2 different compartments like original. the original steelwool for the sound absorption is replaced by rockwool (fireclass A1: it can not burn, no smoke, etc....), initially I bought some steelwool and tested its fire resistance but it burned like hell, so I decided to use glassinsulation. final result: almost an original muffler but with a stainless steel cover for a price of around 120 Euro

Arti, indeed I refer to this internal structure. As I can read from the different reactions it does not matter so much and as long as no fire is coming out of the exhaust and the sound is not too loud I can try to weld a muffler myself. I will for sure have a look to the "Larini" and "Janspeed" exhausts as well in order to decide whether it is worthwile to do all this work. Regards Jos

Indeed we should organise a meeting. I am from Tessenderlo. About my current exhaust: I want to keep it on the car until I have a new one so that I can still drive with my Lotus esprit, after replacement it will be for the garbage. As such I can not open the old exhaust for looking inside. I want to keep the period that the car is out of service as short as possible.