ChrisShaw

Did you have something in mind to swap it to? I’m having a hard time trying to decide what to put into my Esprit that is currently engineless…

@Escape sounds like what I’m potentially after! What do you have and what are you looking to get for it? @Chillidoggy what spec springs and dampers do you have? The DM didn’t come through?

I basically need everything! I’ve got a chassis and the body with doors (no interior either). I want to get a rolling chassis then work on the interior.

Sorry, should have said, I’m UK based in the northwest (Wirral).

Hi All, I am putting my S4 on the road and need some (pretty much all…) bits. Please message if anyone has a set of front and/or rear suspension (arms, uprights, hubs, etc) off an S4 or V8 that they are looking to part with. Thanks in advance. Chris

I read somewhere that the grade of aluminium used by lotus was A356.0 T6 (which Google told me was a fairly common casting alloy) but I can’t find an official source. I don’t know much about the alloy itself or how it compares to LM27?

That’s interesting. I spoke to one engineer who was talking about high-pressure casting, presumably to minimise the risk of voids? I was also considering making an equivalent from chromoly, it would be heavier but at least would be more robust.

Yeah, they are the best current solution, I was just floating the idea of casting some replacements also since the originals were cast aluminium. I see people cast numerous car parts from aluminium so just wondered about these.

Hi all, Had a bit of a mad thought and wanted to discuss. Since some kind folk here have made the cad files for the rear hubs publicly available I was considering how to use them. Has anyone considered 3D printing the hub, making a sand mould, and casting the hubs from the same grade aluminium that they were originally made from?

Interesting topic! the approach I was thinking of with the firewall was to remake it from two half-thickness pieces of marine ply, sandwiched and stuck together with this: https://www.pyroteknc.com/products/decidamp/decidamp-dc30/# or something like that. Mine is well and truly knackered anyway. The idea being that the sound energy is converted to heat through friction and therefore doesn’t propagate through the sheet (no where near enough to cause a problem/fire risk though). There might be some different strategies we can use to dampen the sound, but the road I didn’t want to go down was adding mass and therefore weight.

I think you might be right. Regarding sound-deadening I could get two pieces of ply, half the thickness and join them with a sound-deadening paint. There is a video on YouTube called the world’s second best speakers and he uses it to stick the various sheets together.

All of the above (with the exception of access panels, I hadn’t considered that) but mostly improved resistance to damage from water. As much as I love wood I’ve had mishaps with it getting wet before and would prefer not to use it outside if I can avoid it.

Hi All, First post on the forum. I did a search but couldn’t find anything specific. I bought an Esprit from a scrappy and it’s not in the best shape. Having had its roof removed and left out the plywood firewall has gone beyond a bit of delamination. I’m going to replace it with something and wondered if anyone had any suggestions. Plywood seems to be what everyone says in other threads, but I’m wondering how I can upgrade from plywood. Was thinking a composite and either nomex or aluminium sandwich instead. Anyone done anything this severe?