Unless the inswearance suddenly change their minds, I might be the proud owner of a very early S1 Elise in about a week's time or however long it takes the PO to get his personal plate off the car.
I'm not sure if that's a smart move but I'm sick of looking at overdescribed sheds halfway across the country.
Didn't Lotus do something clever to stop the HGF? I'm sure I read an article about that somewhere once.
Yes, they cleverly switched to Toyota engines.
Not just by Lotus but an improved head gasket was made later and the plastic cylinder head locating dowels which were the major cause of a lot of the failures were replaced with metal ones. In theory if it's changed properly when required it shouldn't need doing again.
Keep one for me, I've just got my S2 :-) I decided to get AA breakdown repair cover just incase the head gasket goes anytime soon.
The key word being "properly", The liner stand up above the block needs to be checked and corrected if an issue. A good read here
Check Coolant Daily. And thrash it everywhere. Did 160k miles in a rover 414 (H reg, original shape) and the head gasket only failed once (precipitated by split hose and overheat).
Well, this S1 has already consumed several head gaskets. The last one seems to have lasted quite a while so I guess it's got the latest type now. Nevertheless the plan is to move the thermostat as per Freelander (outlet instead of inlet) as that seems to reduce the likelyhood of thermal shock and if the inevitable happens, pull the engine and fit the various uprated parts that Powertrain developed over time.
Of course I'll be driving it like granny would, given that part of the plan is to use it on trackdays.
Cool article, thanks for the link.
Heh.
I'm debating if I should try and pick up another K-series off fleabay and rebuild that in anticipation. That'll probably ensure that the engine will never blow another head gasket.
Of course the idea of trying to bag a VVC lump is very tempting, but that'll need either a VVC ECU as well or something like an Emerald ECU.
Other than that Dave Andrews is reputed to be an expert, search on "DVA power". I've yet to get anywhere near getting my ex Caterham K in my AH sprite.
I read an article in Motor Mechanics (I think) about fitting the VVC head to an ordinary K-series. You don't get the VVC of course without the ECU but the head flows a lot better.
Yes, I'm aware of that - there is an article in PPC by Dave Walker where he mentions that, too. The main downside with this is that you need special cams as well as the regular ones don't fit the head. Once you price up the piper conversion bits and the appropriate cams it actually gets a little expensive. Still tempting, though.
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