RobinB5

Does anyone use Espritmon for anything more than fault finding once a fault has been identified?

@Jacques, @Chillidoggy, beyond just the standard maintenance schedule, what diagnostics do you perform to identify any required preemptive maintenance?

Had this with the brake pedal switch. Original was assumed faulty, bought a new one (from SJ), it failed. Went back and cleaned the connectors of the original, all fine now. Lotus might be accused of using cheap parts sometimes, but compared to modern cheaper equivalents, maybe not so bad.

Had to Google that, brilliant!

Points well taken @Sparkyregarding the service schedule. I suppose that was evolved based on assumed required maintenance to start with and adapted over the years by Lotus based on experience and warranty claims. I'm not au fait with all the service schedule items but I do wonder if fuel tank breather tube integrity and fuel tank corrosion were specifically covered for example? Or what other somewhat common faults required at least checking. Maybe put it another way, if the service schedule was to be defined today in conjunction with a 20+ year warranty (if only), I wonder what the complete list of those items might be and checked on what time frequency?

Was wondering what people's opinions are with regards 2 opposing schools of thought about maintenance: On the one side there is a 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' approach, which is fine and cost effective until something does brake, possibly when you're driving, leaving you stranded. On the other side is a more preemptive approach, fixing things that have a higher probability of failure, a priori, to hopefully ensure each and every journey is breakdown free. But sure, potentially more costly in the long run. The far extreme being a nuts and bolts restoration, most costly by far, but recreating production level reliability. With the wealth of knowledge and experience documented on TLF, and given an Esprit with a documented maintenance history, I'd have thought someone might have created a 'to do' list of pressing required maintenance activities? Although reading TLF posts is somewhat akin to reading the reviews on TripAdvisor (if you only did that you'd never go on holiday), there are common issues that arise, each with their own probability. Has anyone considered creating a probability list of commonly encountered failures, derived from the 1000s of TLF posts? (I'm sure regular and long term contributors to TLF have an intuitive feeling of such a list already?) Would be fascinating. Might even form the basis of a business model should anyone be so inclined! There are those of us who might like to invest in a preemptive maintenance schedule as we don't have the mechanical skills to perform them ourselves but would be willing to annually invest in such preemptive work, if nothing else to to pay for peace of mind!

Love reading this thread, to own an Esprit whose maintenance was so well documented is great. In the 3 months and ~300 miles since I bought PRA of @Barrykearley I've needed to do precious little. Bought a new gear stick gator from @Steve V8 as the original one looked uncannily like the sorting hat. And fitted the heat shield in the rear arch. Both tasks being at about the limit of my (current) mechanical competence. Also got an ALDL USB cable from @internets to at least be prepared to diagnose any problems should they arise, which to date they haven't. Car's been great, quite speedy

The Delco-Moraine ABS replacement has resulted in a brake pedal response that doesn't need the weedy return spring as well. The brake upgrade that keeps on giving

Diver's cod piece?

Yep, confirmed the return spring is required. As weedy as it is, it does just enough to ensure the brake light switch is closed at default brake pedal position. Looks like it's also cured the intermittent ABS warning light as well

Perfect, thanks @sailorbob

Brake lights were only coming on intermittently so replaced the brake light switch (spring loaded rod type switch at the top of the pedal that screws in with a 1/4 turn). Found that there was a return spring attached to the pedal. I've not reconnected it, just ensured that the brake light switch is seated down far enough so that it's depressed when the pedal is in its default position. Was wondering if the return spring is standard? Can't see it in the parts manual. Also hoping that this might cure an intermittent ABS light issue (heard that non-working brake lights will trigger it), let's see!

Nearside bracket broke on my Quicksilver exhaust as well. Made quite a rattle. Welded now.

First bit of spannering complete. Didn't do too much damage

@Escape, I'm thinking of blowing out the radiator debris from behind as well (apparently should be part of A and B services according to the service manual). Did you encounter any issues when using compressed air to de-debris the radiator pack?

That must mean that there are separate internal pipes for the 2+3 and 1+4 up to the final join at the turbo? (I've not removed and inspected the manifold internals). I would have assumed that all 4 would have been combined into 1 by the turbo stage. So in theory I could replace the stock turbo and with a twin scroll turbo without having to replace the manifold? Thanks @MarkKassimand @Barrykearley!

@MarkKassim, so is this a twin scroll manifold? : Does it only vary from the single scroll manifold in the final section to the turbo?

@CHANGES, Dave, your original post was great, extremely enlightening! Do you know if/what simulation tools were used to help design the Alunox manifold? I only ask as I work for a company who develops CFD (computational fluid dynamics) software and would love to apply it to this manifold geometry, comparing and contrasting the fluid dynamics behaviour with the original manifold. Such a study would require a CAD model of both, which I assume would not be forthcoming due to IP concerns. Unless you know otherwise? In the field of the design of flow systems the use of a relatively new approach, topology optimisation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topology_optimization), is becoming more widespread. See for example this abstract: https://www.sae.org/publications/technical-papers/content/2017-01-1339/ Huge opportunity to be applied to manifold design. Considering I've just bought an S4 with an Alunox manifold I'm more than a little eager to do some studies myself

Interesting thread. I assume the ribbed 'elephant trunk' hose is used just to provide structural rigidity (for the very low pressure interior) due to the use of cheap materials that would otherwise collapse if smooth and the smooth hose alternatives are made from much stronger materials? Viscous-sublayer and laminar/turbulent boundary layer profile stuff described is a bit of a red herring as, with the ribbed hose, there won't be a continuously developing boundary layer, the flow will be highly turbulent throughout (with associated much greater press loss coefficient). The Moody diagrams are for smooth walled pipes, with some extensions to ones with so-called 'sand grain' roughness (order < 100s of microns). The key though is one of relative contributions to the overall pressure loss. I'm assuming the air filter loss will dominate so if there's one bottleneck area to address first, it's that. Then one could hunt down the other next dominant contributors such as hose wall shapes, surface areas, cross sectional areas, number of bends etc. Fluid, be it liquid or gas, doesn't like being made to turn, twist, contract or expand. Being made to do so takes energy, which is a drain on the provider of energy, i.e. the internal combustion cylinders. Any energy saved by easing the flow of the fluid (in or out) will result in more energy being made available for traction. The reason why an Alunox manifold contributes to increase in available power, as does de-catting.

Yep It's very sound and quite astonishingly fast. I'm very much looking forward to being her mentor and steward until either she dies or I do.

@Barrykearley, you've left me so little to do to her all I've been doing is polishing

Esprit contingent at today's Supercar Wednesday's event at Hillside Brewery in Gloucestershire with @dr_jayhart's lovely dry sump. In amongst the Ferraris, Astons etc. it was delightful to see so much interest in these beauties

Time to grind off the existing brackets!

Thanks John!

Anyone have any ideas about how to get a 2nd set made? One key, one remote locking and one after market immobiliser fob (that is inserted into the steering column then removed to enable the ignition). No idea how standard this is. Also no idea really of the make of the immobiliser! I realise that answering such security based questions on this forum is a potential concern. Please feel free to PM me! No big deal I suppose, I'm not planning to lose or break my key set, but having said that no doubt I probably will now