Lotus's EB XR8

[lotus]

After giving the engine bay a good clean decided to freshen it up a bit with some new paint. Took the front bar and headlights out to to fit the oil cooler and hoses when the engine is back in.



Decided to paint the firewall rubber insulation black to give it that as new look.

Before



After



Also gave the K frame a shade of grey. Since I couldn't match the original colour decided to paint it all the same shade.



Started to paint the rest of the bay. Thought I would do the passenger's side first as I thought it would be the hardest side with all the fuel/brake & a/c lines and a bit of wiring.

Before



After



Gave the power steering a fresh look as well.

[lotus]

Then it was time for the gearbox. After it was cleaned it looks like the box has been apart at some time, possibably a recon. The extension housing just came up so good.



Gave it a bit of colour.

.

Will do the driver's side of the bay tomorrow after work and start on some other parts so that they will be ready when it all goes back together.

[justa6]

a lot of work going into it. not sure on the blue or the wing, i liked the boot lip.. interiour looks smick.

[lotus]

Finished the engine bay today. Just have to fit a few things before the motor goes in which should tomorrow.

[lotus]

Been a while since I put anything up. Time flies when you are doing a few things at the same time.
Forgot to finish install of engine, so here we go!!

All the gear ready to back in.



Started to fit the motor and gearbox into the EB.







Motor in, just sitting there. Next is the bell housing and gearbox.

[lotus]

Fitted the gearbox and got the motor to sit right with the gearbox crossmember up and bolted.







Now to finish doing everything underneath, give the headers a repaint before refitting, drop the car and finish doing the engine bay.

[lotus]

Been slowly getting the EB back together. Was going to use the AU accessories on the front of the motor but the A/C compressor had seized up and though we freed up the compressor I wasn't sure if it would operate properly and if not would be up for a new/recond one. Then would of had to change the A/c hoses as well as the power steering. So after getting the pullies HPC coated and painting up the brackets, I've decided to use the original accessories to save a bit of mucking around. So I have started to fit the brackets, alternator,power steering pump and A/C compressor onto the motor. Just have to wait to get the pullies back from getting HPC coated and finish fitting it all back together.
Will just pack the brackets and pullies from the AU away and fit them onto my AU XR8 when I get around to working on it.

Painted and fitted the headers back on.



Just a pic under the car after fitting the headers



Motor in with the original accessories on and waiting for the pullies.
Painted the power steering pump Black Pearl just to see what it would look like. Also got all the nuts/bolts and some washers Gold Zinced to give it that "new" look

[lotus]

Got the EB pullies back except for the front plate of the A/C clutch. Had some problems with the coating.



Fitted the pullies to the engine.





Starting to look alright in the engine bay.
Hope it goes as good as it looks!!

[lotus]

Well got most of the car done just mucking around with the oil cooler.
I have looked at the area in front of the a/c condensor but seems a tight fit since the a/c filter is mounted in the middle on a support bracket. Since I have a SSV front bar I don't know how much room I have between the condensor and bar.Might have to fit the bar back on and see where it can go.
Also looks like the bottom radiator hose that fits onto the water pump is in the way of the oil cooler hoses. There is a bit of room there so might have to find another hose that is a bit longer where it fits onto the steel pipe between the two bottom hoses to put the curve of the hose closer to the a/c pump.





Here is the oil cooler and have to fit it somewhere at the front.



The engine as it stands now.

[lotus]

Fitted the front bar back on today to see how much space I had to fit thr oil cooler. I was very suprised at the amount of room there. So made some brackets out of some aluminium I got off a mate. Made them a 2 piece so I could adjust the length of the brackets and get them to fit neat. Overlapped the brackets at the oil cooler so the cooler bolts held them together as well as another bolt at the other end.



Turned out pretty goodand just enough room between the A/C drier and the bar.


Fitted the bar back on to check it all fitted "ok".



Have to take the bar back off, give the condensor, cooler and brackets a coat of paint, fit the hoses back on to the cooler and at the oil filter.
Another bit completed. Just have to try and find a bottom radiator hose that is just a bit longer at both ends to clear the hoses coming from the oil filter area.

[lotus]

Well hoping to get the motor motor running, but I have to do a couple of things first to get it ready.
First I went to Greg of QLD Ignition Leads and got the spark plug ends changed to 90 degrees so they wouldn't be up against the headers.
Leads fitted well.Will get some heat resistant socks to fit over the leads and protect them from the headers.Put some oil into the spark plug holes to lubricate the bores since it had been idle for a while.





Next I had to move the bottom radiator hose so that the oil cooler hoses could connect to the oil base at the oil filter. I could not find a hose any longer at both ends so had to improvise. Went to the local exhaust shop and got 2 sections of pipe 75mm long. Had then stretched to fit inside the radiator hose.Then I bought a bottom radiator hose for a XE V8 and cut off the straight sections of the hose. I had to cut off a section of the original hose and fit the pipe into the hose. I then had to measure the lenght of hose needed from the XE hose,fit it to the pipe,clamp it all up and fit to the motor.
Now there is plenty of room for the oil cooler hoses and it turned out quite well.





Now I was ready to start the new "Heart" of the car.
Motor ready to go!!





After thinking of all the things that could go wrong, I turned the key. After a few turns it sprung into life!! Let it run for a little while just to make sure there were no oil/water leaks anywhere. Fortunately there were none. After a little bit of adjustment of the distributor it ran smoother and reved out quite well. I still have to get the AIT sensor working as I'm looking for the plug that attaches to it.
Tomorrow will fit the front bar, check everything again and then mabye take for a short run.Have to look at the A/C clutch as it's not working properly and the oil pressure gauge in the dash sits about halfway(3 on the gauge) but does not move when the motor is reved. Checked the oil cooler and it's getting hot ,so the oil is circulating. Might be the sender unit.

[lotus]

Fitted the bar after relocating the horns to the other side. Ran the motor for a while then dropped the water and just filled it up with demineralised water and will let it run for a week then flush the system and fill with cooant. I am still amazed how easy this thing starts and runs. Took it for a short run up the highway this afternoon. Accelerated great up to about 4-41/2, plenty of pull and gets there quickly. All this and it hasn't been tuned yet!!
Temp is fine, just the oil pressure does move when reved but so slightly.Might be how the motor is.

Here it is before the bar went back on





A couple out in the light.





All put back Just have to get use to driving it again as I have been using the Wife's "TOY" to get around in and get all the bit n pieces for the EB.



This is what I've had to rough it with while the EB was getting a transplant.





Can't understand why she wanted me out of it!!!

[lotus]

Got the windscreen replaced. Looks terrific, amazing how a new screen makes the car look better!!





Well in between doing other things around the house today, I connected up the IAT sensor in the elbow of the AU motor. I found out that the V6 Explorer from 98 onwards uses the same sensor as the AU.Went to the wreckers and found that the plug is in a short loom seperate to the main engine loom. Picked one up,stripped it and found the wires were just the right length that I needed. Cut the plug off the EB loom and fitted a 2 pin connector to both ends and all done.

This is the Explorer loom



The plug needed.



The loom made up.



Fitted to the motor.





So that's about the finish of the motor conversion. I'm still very suprised how good it runs with no tune done yet. Could be since there is a Chiptorque chip installed ( been there since I bought the car) may be making the difference.Will see how it goes after it's tuned.

The completed conversion.

[lotus]

Went to a Club Event at RDP (Real Dyno Performance) and put the EB on to see how the engine was running. This motor has just been put into the car, roughly set the timing and has been running very well.
I wanted to use this as a starting point and then see how good it is when it is tuned correctly.

Anyway here are the results from today.



They gave it just 1 run as they said it was running rich down low but too lean up high. They said I should get about another 20-25 HP after it's tuned.

[lotus]

Have been a while without the car as i havn't got it back from getting tuned.Have got a few problems they are sorting out. Firstly the upper manifold was cracked at the rear lower bolt area. So it had to be removed,repaired and planed level. While it was off they found the lower manifold was warped, so removed and planed level as well.Got the fuel rail and injectors cleaned while they were removed. Had to replace the TPS sensor with the AU one as the EB sensor was too far out and would have had to drill through the wiring to screw it onto the throttle body.Fuel pressure was down a bit ,so fitted a new fuel filter. Also fixed the idleing as now it's nice n smooth and no longer hunting. Finally found the fuel pressure drops dramatically at revs, so at the moment they removing the fuel pump to see if it's the pump or the hose that's the problem.
Other than that, it's going great!!!
Also the Wife is getting a bit grumpy sharing her Z4 with me, It seems I'm ruining her style !!

Finally got th EB back yesterday. A 2 day tune turned to a 3 week fact finding mission!!!
But now it's all back together and running fantastic, just have to give it a good run and check everything is running "OK". It's been raining pretty heavy today so I hope to get out over the next couple of days and see how it goes.

Here is the result on the dyno before the tune This is on a different dyno and I know they can vary but usually not by much.



So here are the dyno results after the tune.





A truely great Xmas Present!!!

[lotus]

Her are a few pics I took of the exhaust that had to be extended so the brackets on the pipe lined up with the ones on the body. He did both sides but was mainly the right side that was hitting the body.





The pipe was hitting where the sealant is on the body.



The system as it is now

[lotus]

Finally found the water problem I've been having on the pass front. It turns out that the channel where the water flows from the left side of the windscreen (in front of the top door hinge and covered by a panel) has been filled with leaves ect and rotting causing rust and I think the water was seeping through the rust as I don't think there is a hole yet as the water coming in was only drops and not a continuious flow.
To repair this properly the dash has to come out to see where the rust exactly is and I think I will have to cut away part of the boxing on the outside that is in front of this area. I'll have to look at a wreck that hasn't got the guard and dash in to see exactly what has to be done to get to this area.
For the short term fix I removed the inner guard plastic cover, the aerial and the felt that sits between the plastic cover and the door hinges.Hosed out as much of the rubbish that was laying in there and let it dry out. On inspection I could see some rust along a join in the panel which is under where the water flows, so i suspect the other side is much worse.
Here is a pic of the rust area under the water trough looking through the hole in the panel for the aerial.




I sprayed some rust converter onto this area as well up top where the water flows. Up top there is an oval hole in this area as well as a couple of smaller holes near the bonnett hinge. To get to the oval hole you have to remove the compliance plates (great place to put them!!) Then I sprayed a mixture of tar, fish oil and lanolin that was in a can I got from supercheap (Knock Out Rust, KO-66 rust proofing) that came with a handy extension tube to get to the tight places.
The temp repair.




Hoping this will fix the problem for about 6 mths and then repair it properly.

[lotus]

Just a couple of shots taken of the EB running around Lakeside a few weeks ago. Went good and stayed all together, couldn't ask for anything better!!

[lotus]

So that's about where it is at the moment. Just about everything done that I want.
Just have to do something with the brakes and mabye fit electric windows.
Painting will be the very last done(if it gets done at all since it's my daily ride)

Now I'm starting on the AU and hopefully get back the Celica in about a month from the panel shop
all nicely painted!!

[huggiebear]

looking good. if i knew it was going to be at lakeside i would have headed down for a look/listen. the new motor looks awesome. i love the look of the blue silver black you have going.

[lotus]

looking good. if i knew it was going to be at lakeside i would have headed down for a look/listen. the new motor looks awesome. i love the look of the blue silver black you have going.

It would've been good if someone had taken a video on the day, I would like to hear how it sounded along the straight. It was fairly noisy where I was!!!
A few people did come up to me and say it sounded really good, like the "old school" sound of the 8's compared to the latest models.

Thanks for the comments about the motor. Since Ford don't paint the blocks, they do look a lot better with a bit of colour.
I painted the block and gearbox the same colour as the rear end and tailshaft,brake booster and battery tray just to keep it all the same. The upper and lower manifolds, alternator,a/c compressor,MAF,T/B and brackets are painted "Aluminium". The rocker covers and power steering pump are painded Black Pearl (colour of car). It does all seem to blend in well. The pullies are HPC coated and had all the bolts/nuts redone in Gold nickle plating to give them that "New" look.
I'm very happy with the way it turned out.

[DJV8T5]

So much work has gone into this mate, looks really good. Keep up the good work.

[Rollin]

That looks great on the track! Very clean

[icachn]

Thanks for the comments. As for any more mods,since it's a daily ride not too worried about doing anything to the motor. If I do something to the AU I'll just put on the EB what I take off. It's just a great car just to cruise in. Will be getting the cats replaced soon with metal cats (still has origional ones) and getting the exhaust lifted as it's too low. Looking at fitting a 3.45 diff out of a XR6 just to give a bit better take off. But as I said a great car to drive. Went to Bunberberg last week, round trip of 720 klms on just under a tank.
Will be fitting some EL mirrors on soon as I've already fitted EF exterior door handles.
As for the rear wing, it's her car and like all of us she can do what she feels looks good to her.
The car is pretty low (paint bottom of front and back bars pretty regularly) but it does have a tough look about it.

really love the front end of this, veery nice!