Central Valley Classic Cars - Cars & Projects

Chin Spoiler

2010-07-16T17:51:00Z

You could say that Project Lotus is all about correcting as many of the faults (or at least shortcomings) in my S2 Europa as I can. ‘As I can’ is the key phrase there as sometimes I find out that this or that is the way it is because of this other thing that can’t really be changed. Or it means that sometimes I try to reengineer something only to tape it back together the way it was because I’ve made it worse.

But overall, sorting problems aside, the engine transplant has been successful at curing the car’s biggest failing in my book; that its acceleration didn’t compare to its handling agility. With that shortcoming fixed one of its other faults has taken center stage.

The front end lifts at speed.

Apparently the original design didn’t suffer this problem. Regulations in headlight hight and ground clearance caused a few changes in the car resulting in the design of my Federal S2 model. To put it simply, the front end’s ride hight was increased giving a little bit of an upward pitch to the nose and the headlights became frog-eyed which spoiled a bit of the air flow over the front of the car.

Road and Track tested a Europa in the 70’s and found that it had 95lbs of lift at 70mph. That’s a lot for such a light car. Later, when Lotus released the Twin Cam version of the car they found they needed to add a chin spoiler to the front of the car to lessen the air flow underneath and make the car stable at the speeds it was now capable of.

But history aside, I have personal evidence of the problem. When I bought the car the front of the body wasn’t bolted to the frame. I didn’t realize this until I was on the free way and found that the nose of the car seemed to be lifting up and away from the car itself. Clearly a sign of lift. The other giant indicator was that at speeds over 50mph the steering wheel went ridiculously light. Almost like it was loose, with no road feel. Even worse was that the car WAS connected to the steering wheel and would change direction with nothing more than the force of ones fingernails growing. That is you had to really concentrate while driving it at speed and if you didn’t it’d scare you half to death. I used to consider this a sign that it was a real man’s car; that it took a real driver to pilot it down the road. But that gotten tiring and I miss the wonderful road feel my Esprit had.

Luckily, the Europa wasn’t particularly fast before which made the problem manageable. With the new engine, its a different story. I decided a chin spoiler was in order.

Dave Bean Engineering supplied me with an aftermarket made replica of the original Twin Cam spoiler which I had decided would be the least conspicuous and complicated route. Installation was a matter of painting the spoiler, drilling mounting holes in it and the car’s nose and bolting it in place.

I started by taping the spoiler in place, making sure it was lined up evenly on each side and drilling three holes through it into the nose of the car. I then pulled the spoiler off and painted it. While waiting for the paint to dry, I decided to reenforce the inside of the car’s nose where the bolts would be. I had a Bondo Fiberglass Repair kit I’d used before so I mixed a little resin, applied it around each hole, placed some mesh in, and then covered the mesh with more resin. I then pressed down a large metal washer onto the fiberglass to finish each one off.

I doubt that was really necessary as a large washer probably would have been enough, but I had the time and the fiberglass. . . .

Click though the pictures to see the results.

I’ve tested the car on the highway now and I should admit that I didn’t really think the little fiberglass lip that the spoiler was was going to make much of a difference. BUT IT DID! Not only is there some resistance in the steering wheel now when you steer at freeway speeds but there’s road feel too! I’d always thought the car was fantastic at 45mph, but it lost something when on the freeway. Not anymore. Next to the engine upgrade this has made the most significant positive difference in the car. And it only cost $120 including shipping.

Adjustable Camber

2010-07-09T22:14:00Z

When the dust settled from the massive war that was the jamming of the new engine in the Europa, the engine and transmission were left sitting an inch lower than they used to. That’s great for weight distribution but not so great for the alignment of the rear wheels.

The problem is that the lower links on the rear wheels attach to the transmission. So with the transmission sitting lower it had the effect of pushing those links out a little more. Now a stock Europa runs 1 to 2 degrees negative camber (that is the top of the wheels point in) which I know helps its lateral traction, but makes the back look like its sagging a bit. With the new transmission location, the wheels looked like they had more than 5 degrees negative camber, or as my sister put it “like one of those cars on the claymation Chevron adds that’s REALLY tired.”

Unfortunately the stock lower links are non-adjustable. They are simply fixed length metal pipes. So that means I get to buy something! R and D Enterprises sells a set of adjustable rear lower links that look like they are made out of Tie-Rod ends from a truck. The beauty of these though is that with just a simple wrench you can adjust the camber of the rear wheels to anything you’d like. The pivoting parts on the ends are teflon coated and in order to adapt them to to the attaching points, a great mess of washers (which R and D provides) is used instead of the rubber bushings. That’s my kind of adaption!

Swapping them in is as simple as jacking up the rear of the car, unbolting the old links and bolting in the new ones. Its worth noting that the Lotus Shop Manual said to always replace the nylon coated locknuts on the links when unbolting them. I did my best to ignore this waring until one of the nuts stripped out completely. Then of course I couldn’t find the proper threading on a nut at my admittedly lousy local hardware store so I just replace the whole bolt and nut combo with a new grade 8 bolt and lock nut (try stripping now!). Over kill, I know, but it got the job done.

I’ve only eyeballed the camber setting as opposed to using a bubble gauge or something more mathematical and precise but I’ve aimed for a halfway point between the wheels having 0 camber and how they looked before the engine swap. This SHOULD be around 1 degree negative camber, but whatever it is, it looks good, works well, and I can increase it if I ever get to a race track.

Project Lotus: It RUNS!

2010-03-21T21:06:00Z

We’ve had another couple Saturdays spent on the engine swap now and the car has come to life, been reborn you might say.

On March 13th at 3:30 the engine started for its first time in the Lotus. An hour later, I drove the car out of the shop and then backed it back in, wanting to call it a day and celebrate before something went wrong. I knew I didn’t have the cable gear shift linkage set up right when I left and I needed some exhaust pipe bends to attach the muffler.

A week later, after welding in a new mounting point for one of the shifting cables and bracing both cables’ mounting points to remove any flex from the system, I’m proud to say the car shifts much better than it ever did before. And as a nice little bonus, the new large clutch and pressure plate I’m using has a much smoother take up. But both of those are just icing on the cake. What really matters is the engine. And it is perfect.

Its not the fastest accelerating car I’ve ever driven by a long shot. Part of that is its gearing but the feel of the engine now is what it always should have been. Before the Lotus felt like a race car that was down on power. Now it feels like a race car period. Test driving it with open headers helped too. . . .

But before I left I went ahead and tacked in the muffler and connecting pipe and now the car is ready to come home. There’s still plenty to do, plenty of things to be hooked up, cleaned up, checked, and tested. But the car can be driven and all systems seem to be working well. You can see a video from this last Saturday’s progress and test drives here:

New Engine for the Lotus

Project Lotus: Engine Swap

2010-03-06T18:42:00Z

There’s a little automotive show that airs in Britain, where the hosts frequently try projects to see as they put it “how hard can it be?” Often they are forced to sum up their plans in the end as, “ambitious, but rubbish.” I think now I can safely say I identify more with them than I would prefer.

You may remember that last year I bought a 1970 Louts Europa. This was a relatively affordable mid engine car which was simple and down to earth enough that it could be modified and improved without an advance degree from MIT. Or at least it was. Until I heard about a man in Texas by the name of John Pels, who helps other Lotus owners take out (now I’m quoting here) ‘the French lawnmower engine’ that is in our Europas and replace it with a near fire breathing engine from Toyota which is a good 15 to 20 years newer.

Now I’m sure there are those of you out there who aren’t fazed by the sight of a modern engine with its myriad of wires running everywhere controlling, every aspect of the engine as well as monitoring the engines performance, its emissions and what it had for breakfast. But coming from a stand point of working on old Fold V8’s, a modern EFI engine with variable valve timing and multi port injectors, separate coils on each cylinder, sandwiched between knock sensor and mass air flow sensors and multiple oxygen and temperature sensors sends a shiver up my spine, into my brain and causes what I can only describe as a mild stroke. Not that I don’t love these advancements in technology, and don’t desire an engine with them in my car. But the idea of me installing such a engine in a car it doesn’t belong in is at best overwhelming.

That all said, I suffer from another condition. A mental disablitly summed up by the phrase “eyes bigger than my stomach.” Hence I often drag myself into places I probably for sanity reasons shouldn’t venture.

So the project began when I bought both an adapter kit from Texas and my very own Toyota 4A-GE 1.6 liter EFI engine. I went the JDM route (Japanese Domestic Market) not because I would gain a few more hp if I used 98 octane fuel (their gas is higher octane than ours and their engines are thus tuned for it) but because JDM engines are often sold for engine swaps so it is easier to get all of the components you need with the engine as opposed to buying a long block and then needing all of the electronics and accessories. I didn’t go for the most sophisticated version of the engine, the 20 Valve version. I opted instead for what’s called a “Red Top” 16 valve engine. It has multi-port EFI but no variable valve timing or multiple coils or other advancements that might have made it more complicated. Or at least that was my reasoning, I have since decided that logic was somewhat faulty as I often find many more parts for the newer 20V engines than I do for the older 16V engines. But that’s water under the bridge at this point.

The next phase of the project was to obtain all the other parts and tools I would need to do the engine swap so that I could bring the car to my father’s shop (he is a rice farmer and works on a lot of his own equipment) and take a week’s vacation to preform the engine swap. Those of you who have done it know that for a first timer, this wasn’t the best of plans. But I tracked down and bought everything I knew that I needed, and yes. . . I knew I would find out more once I got into the project. A big thanks needs to go out here to Jim Blair who has also been working on an engine swap in his Europa with the same model of engine as I am using. He had already done a lot of work getting correct part numbers for everything and he shared what he found with me, saving me countless hours of ebay headaches (that is that pain in your head that comes from trying to determine if the part in the picture that looks like it was taken with a cell phone is indeed the correct part for your car). So with a truck piled full of parts I set out for my week off work to preform what I thought would take less time then I was allotting.

Can you hear the laughter in the distance?

My good friend Niles came with me for the first weekend, and he and I wasted no time yanking the old engine out and getting the alterations done to the frame. To be honest he did most of that work, I was busy working on my new cable shift linkage set-up. I obtained plans that are online at the Lotus Europa Yahoo Forum for a system that would replace my current tube style linkage. Now in my mind, I thought, that Niles could be working on the new engine mounts and reinforcements and I would be installing my new shifter. I had already made the mechanism it just needed to be installed and adjusted. But just as some foreshadowing of things to come I’m going to admit that Niles finished the frame modification Sunday afternoon. I finished the shifter on Tuesday.

Now seems like a good time to take a moment to talk about complications. Before I jumped into this project, I talked to a man who runs a custom car shop and asked him about an engine swap like this. He told me he’d probably have the engine in and out four times checking things before it was all finished. I couldn’t imagine why he’d have to do that SO MANY times. That was before I took the engine in and out 5 times. FIVE! And I’m not sure it won’t need to come out again at this point.

Now this isn’t to say the conversion kit I got isn’t great. It is saving me months of trial and error. The problems just come from attempting to make logical decisions about how to connect things, or the proper order to ease assembly and then finding out I was wrong, but wouldn’t have known that until the engine was in place. And if any of you know anything about fabricating or modifying anything you know it always takes longer than you think it will: “Okay now I just need to connect this and this. . . .Oh wait, it doesn’t fit this way anymore, okay I’ll just grind this, weld this in, re drill this and we’re good. . . . What do you mean its 6 o’clock I’m not half way through connecting this first thing!”

What wasn’t great was the condition of the wiring harness of the engine I ordered. I was told I was getting a JDM engine out of an 86 MR2 with its wiring harness intact. That is not what arrived. I thought it was odd that the flywheel wasn’t attached to the engine when I received it, but what was more alarming was that the wiring harness was all hacked up, connections were missing and the relay box had been smashed to bits. Oddly this may have been the best thing for me. Rather then attempt what would have been a complicated wiring job if the wiring had been all in one piece I sent the harness off to Phoenix Tuning (oddly enough not in Arizona) who customized my harness to being wired into the much simpler wiring of my Lotus. Besides saving me hours or sifting through wires and buying new relays and other components, they also were able to tell me that my engine was actually out of an (around 1989) AE92 Corolla with an automatic transmission. Hence my flywheel had come separately. This is all fine, its a better engine than an 86 MR2, and at least now I know what engine I’m supposed to be getting parts for. Or at least that’s what I tell myself at night when I’m lying awake thinking about it.

But back to the swap:

I wanted to have the engine bolted in and wired up so I could test the starter relay and spark by the end of Monday. I actually got to preform that test on Thursday. What happened was, that after I finally got the shift linkage working properly (I tested it with the transmission in place so I would know it worked before I blocked my access to it with something silly like an engine) on Tuesday, my dad and I bolted in the engine. Then on Wednesday we found out that my oil filter relocation lines stuck out too far and that the headers had to be installed before the engine was bolted in. So we spent Wednesday undoing Tuesday’s work and then re-doing it. . . twice. Lets just leave it at that.

But the engine cranked over and had spark. Even after the car decided to hide its new engine beneath a cloud of electrical smoke. . the result of a stray wire which just happened to find its way to the battery terminal.

That unfortunately was about it for the week though. The last couple days was spent putting in the transmission, re-doing some more things, and putting as much of the car back together as possible as it wouldn’t be coming home with me any time soon. I still need to get a new fuel pump, run coolant lines, hook up the exhaust, clean up and mount all of the electrics as well as connect all the gauges and such before its done. My week of vacation is over and I suppose I should be really proud of what we accomplished. But I’m just left with this feeling that I’m going to spend the rest of my life pulling and re-installing that engine. Maybe I should take up bird watching. . . .

Why?!?

2009-10-06T01:23:00Z

The first question that you should be asking is what in heaven or earth (or somewhere more sinister) could have possessed me to buy a Europa?

I could tell you that I absolutely love the car, but that doesn’t really answer the question but merely begs: Why do I love this funny looking little trouble maker of a car?

Having owned a lot of interesting metal (and fiberglass) over the years I’ve noticed my way of looking at cars has changed. No my eyes haven’t gone. Ha ha. What has happened is that my criteria for liking a car has been freed up.

It used to be that I skipped to the end of car reviews to read the stats. To find out, mathematically which car was faster. That was what mattered right? I mean I need to know that my car is superior (and speed is primary way to judge that) to whatever car is next to me at a stoplight. But there is a tiring problem with that (besides the possibility of driver error which can easily make the fastest car slow). Its expensive. I can’t afford a car that is faster then 5 seconds from 0 to 60. So I bought what I could afford and then made it faster. But that still costs too much money. And cost can really suck the fun out of things. For instance I would thoroughly enjoy cruising around Italy in a rented Ferrari. But that would mean I wouldn’t be able to afford anything but rice and beans to eat for a couple years. And that takes some of the fun out of tooling around Europe in an Italian thoroughbred. So I don’t do that.

But two things have happened that have left my primary criteria rendered moot. The first is where I live now. When I was in the valley the road are smooth, straight and intersections are so big they seem designed for drag racing rather than for traffic control (not that I encourage such illegal behavior). But over here in Santa Cruz, we don’t have many multiple lane intersections. Roads are never straight and are only smooth for a week after they’ve been resurfaced. Worse is our freeway on-ramps. One of my favorite pass times in my old Mach 1 was slowly getting onto an on-ramp and then seeing how quickly I could get to free-way speed. But that was in Merced where on-ramps are straight and uphill (making power all the more important). Over here our on-ramps are all giant centrifuges that fling you onto the the freeway where you find the average speed of traffic is 45mph. Much unlike HWY 99 where the people seem to mistake the name of the road for the speed limit. What we do have here though is tight twisty back and mountain roads, and that lends itself to a car that maintains speed through corners rather then a car that builds speeds on straights.

All of this is then compounded by the experiences I’ve had in different cars. Since my days of hopping up old Mustangs (I still contend they are one of the best all around fun cars to work on and play with) I’ve driven a LOT of different cars from all over the world with all kinds of different drive-train arrangements. And what I’ve learned (what Ferrari has been preaching for years) is that its not about the numbers. Its about how a car feels.

There is a saying that, ‘driving a slow car fast is more fun then driving a fast car slow.’ Its so true. I’ve come to love old cars for their sensory input. For the noise and shakes that the cars make. So that when you’re doing 40 mph it feels like you’re riding a rocket ship ready to explode. That is more fun on a daily basis then sitting in an uber-Mercedes and when traveling 90 mph falling asleep from boredom. In that sense its also safer.

But none of that really mattered until I got over something. How I felt my car represented me. It used to be that if there was something wrong with my car, I had to fix it immediately. I wouldn’t ever have to say to someone, sorry, the car’s not working right now. This is important because my cars were always my projects and I felt these projects, because they were what I spent my time doing, represented me. I never wanted to say “I have such and such great car.” And then when asked if I could show it have to say “Well no, its on blocks right now, and primered and the engine is in pieces in my living room.” That was, in my mind something I would never let myself become, even though I knew such a condition was always looming.

But that was when I was single. Now I’m married and since my primary goal in impressing anyone was to meet women, I don’t feel so tied down to what a normal (non-car person, usually women) thinks of me. I’ve had some really great cars over the years and my wife’s opinion has ranged from not caring to not liking them. So I have no one to impress but myself.

It feels so much better. If a car has a problem now, I save it for a free weekend and actually enjoy doing the work. Its something constructive to do. The freedom also means I don’t worry as much about what the car says about me when I pull up to places. People (usually women) tell me how ugly such and such a car is (usually really famous race car that they know nothing about, just as I know nothing about Ballet) and I just shake my head and think, ‘they don’t understand.’ Which is great because opinions like those keeps value on certain fun, fast, but ugly cars low. And low value to others translates to affordability to me.

You may think then that because of my apathy towards image that I’m able to compromise and thus buy a less expensive ‘fun’ car. That is not the case at all. I’ve come to love ugly cars. I find that they are more fun then beautiful cars because you don’t worry about them. You don’t spend your weekends waxing them just to curse the rain and bird poop that came out of nowhere hours after you finished. Or have your day ruined by a new door ding courtesy of some careless person at Cost-Co (I will find you one day and take my revenge!). Ugly cars can be tossed, raced, enjoyed and not worried over. And to me, ugly is better then boring.

So why the Europa? Its got all the novel things I like; British, wood dash, mid-engined, non-powered steering. And it is what I love. It is FUN to drive. Sensory input galore, 30mph feels like 50, steering that makes a Ferrari feel like a lumbering giant (in comparison it is, this car makes a Miata look big). And despite its ugliness, it looks great in Le Mans style stripes (I’ve always wanted to paint these stripes on a car but never had one that would like right with them). Driving is a joy again. I make up excuses to go anywhere in the car, just because its so much fun to slam its gear shift around and zig-zag down straight roads just because the cars agility feels so un-earthly.

I also deeply connect with the spirit of the engineering in the car. Okay that sounds really bizarre but here’s what I mean: I’ve often dreamt up how I think a car should be designed. True I feel my ideas are better looking then the Europa but the engineering is in total agreement. Mid-engined, and light. I don’t need or even want all the things put into cars today that make them weigh 2 tons. 2 TONS!!! Why do I need to move 4000lbs around when 90 percent of the time I’m the only thing that needs moving? To put it in perspective, why would I pay for gas to move 4000 lbs just to move 170lbs? Even if I have a buddy with me, that’s still less then 400 lbs for both of us together. The Europa weighs in at 1400lbs. That means it takes a lot less power to go fast. Which means less fuel too. Which means less emissions.

Its then kind of a bonus, living in Santa Cruz where everyone claims to be greener then they are. I get to say, my vintage sports car AVERAGES 35mpg without overdrive (which I hope to add one day). Apparently I’m saving the environment one Lotus at a time.

And all of that is besides the wonderfully snug feel of the interior, the vintage gauges, the feeling that the car could convert into an airplane if I could just find the lever that makes it do that. And I can’t forget to mention that it is the easiest car to work on that I’ve ever owned by a wide margin. Or that its the kind of car I don’t feel guilty about customizing with my personal mechanical modifications and the aforementioned stripes.

So when you see me driving around in the tiny little British racer, looking like my legs have been amputated, you’ll know. I’m actually having the time of my life.

Buying A Lotus

2009-09-25T03:59:00Z

The problem with telling this story is that nothing interesting happened. Sure, I ended up with one of Chapman’s little Bread Vans, but 500 miles in a vintage Lotus during the blazing heat of summer should have been ripe with struggles. And it just wasn’t.

It all started with my last Lotus. I only owned the car a mere three weeks, but in those few weeks it left a lasting impression. I was hooked and bent on getting another one as soon as I could afford it. Unfortunately the term afford becomes awfully vague when saving up for a span of multiple years. Things inevitably happen. Changes that affect priorities. The first was my office moving from walking distance from my house to somewhere further. The distance wasn’t the problem though. The problem was that I did occasionally drive to work. Which was fine, we had parking at the old building. But in our new place parking was only in a multilevel garage with prepaid parking permits. And my only car has no roof or windows. So a paid for (and expensive) parking permit could be easily stolen.

That’s okay, I’ll move the time table up and get myself another Lotus. If I needed a car with a roof it might as well be a Lotus, right? I was going to save up more money then I spent on my last Esprit Turbo and get a nicer Esprit Turbo, one of the Peter Steven’s styled cars. But I’d be happy with a cheaper older Esprit Turbo if I had to get one sooner than planned. The older, and worse shape its in, the less I would worry about it. Great.

And then more changes. I went to Africa. I liked it. Wait, no I didn’t. It made the Valley in summer feel like Antarctica. But still I want to go back. And do more traveling in general. So what if I found an even cheaper car that was fun like the Esprit? More money saved for other things. Toyota used to make that MR2 thing. Lotus even helped them design the first version. But the second generation offered a turbo. And turbo’s are fun. I could get one of those for half the price of an old Esprit in bad shape.

Then Car Week hit. I couldn’t have a Toyota. That would be too wise or responsible or something. All things I aspire to avoid. I wanted another Lotus. But I want a mid-engined car and I need something with a roof. Now Lotus hasn’t made that many different models so that really narrowed it down. I had seen old Europa’s for sale before but never in person and thus never gotten to drive one. I didn’t know if it would cut it. Especially with my wife’s comments that it looks like an ‘alien baby hearse.’ All that changed at the Monterey Historic Races. I saw for the first time in person; a Lotus Europa. It was tiny. I loved it.

I went right home and found two for sale in the LA area. Not exactly convenient but doable (and the price was just what I was looking for). I should mention there was also one in San Francisco, and another in Monterey, but neither was running and the most important thing I needed to know about the car was that it was fun to drive. So after a few failed attempts to fly down there with a buddy, I made plans with my wife to visit her family in Bakersfield. The trip would provide a stepping stone to LA where I made arrangements to see one of the Europas.

The weekend came and with it, record heat. Santa Cruz was over a hundred degrees. SANTA CRUZ! The boardwalk was reporting 93 degrees a few yards from the waters edge. And this was the weekend I would be traveling inland and possibly driving home in a 40 year old car with no A/C, which I’m sure would break down, leaving me to sweat it out on the blazing hot asphalt ribbon running 500 miles between my start and stop points.

Seeing the car in person didn’t excite me to the point of forgetting the 108 degree heat out that day, or the fact that the car wasn’t in LA, but Costa Mesa, and extra 45 minutes south. It was even more awkward looking then I remembered. Its particularly odd shade of blue inspired my wife to call it the ‘Smurf Alien Baby Hearse.’ I knew full well why everybody save my two closest friends were either adamant that I not buy the car or avoided replying to my emails of pictures of the car completely. Its not as awkward looking in person as it is in photos. But it is awkward.

It was in worse cosmetic condition then I thought but mechanically impressive. I was expecting the opposite, and that threw me a little, but I progressed with the testing and took the car out for a drive. It was fantastic. It felt very little like the Esprit. It was a combination of the same nimbleness but with an old car simplicity. It felt classic. From the cockpit with its simple wood dash full of all the necessary gauges and lack of sound deadening, it reminded me of the Trans Am racing Boss 302’s that I dreamed of turning my old Mach 1 into.

Needless to say I bought it. And drove the thing 200 miles to Bakersfield. And then another 200 miles to Merced. All in 100+ degree weather. And neither I nor the car was fazed by the heat. I filmed much of the trip, hoping for some Lotus-itis to make for a memorable documentary about the crazy guy trying to drive a Lotus 500 miles without a breakdown and all the breakdowns he then endured. But the car let me down (by not letting me down).

I presented the car to my Dad, I would be leaving it with him for a week until I could come back and paint some racing stripes on it (I needed to do something to help the car’s looks). He warmed up to it. Perhaps just because I already owned it and there was no reason to berate my purchase. Or perhaps the drive in it changed his mind (he left some tire marks in the driveway).

A long week of sitting at work thinking about what all I’d do to the car when I paint the stripes later, I came back to Merced and fulfilled a long time dream of mine. To have a car with Le Mans style racing stripes. And for the first time in a long time, I had my own car again. A car which I tuned to my preferences and driving style. Which is modified in ways I think are better. Which is blue with white stripes (that I decided on, designed and painted). It feels right to. Not too showing, not expensive, plenty interesting, and not full of gadgets I don’t want, will break down, and add weight. Its like a race car. Its just right for me, and I now remember how good it feels to take a car out for a drive, just to take the car out for a drive. Criticize its looks all you want, I love it.

It made the last 100 miles to Santa Cruz without a hitch and its winning over the people who told me not to buy it one by one. Not that I care terribly much. I spent the money and I’m glad I did.

Lotus Esprit Turbo: Classic or Cheesy?

2008-12-07T22:08:00Z

Its an interesting time as more and more cars age on into the classic status. We’re becoming faced with what to do with certain cars whose styles haven’t held up to the test of time quite as well as others.

True beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I’m sure there are people out there who think a DeLorean is a quite the looker. I am not one of them. I love hot rods, I love pre-war cars of all kinds, I love cars from the 40’s 50’s and 60’s. Even some 70’s cars I have described as stylish or otherwise good looking. But deep in the 70’s and into the 80’s something went terribly wrong (at least for my tastes). Maybe all that LSD and free love had the bulk of its negative effects on car design (well music didn’t make it through unscathed either). But none the less, these cars are passing the 25 year mark in their age and that is the beginning of the process of classic-fication.

A while back you may remember that I was looking for a new “fun” car that would be a blast to drive, mid-engined preferably and not so good looking (anywhere from just not an absolutely perfect paint job to ugly) that I wouldn’t worry about keeping it in pristine shape, and could just have fun with. Take a glance at the photo gallery and I think you’ll see that I found exactly what I was looking for.

While I’m sure a Boxster is a better all around car, the 1985 Lotus Esprit Turbo you see here is cheaper, at least as fast, but more importantly, much more of a blast to drive.

Well let me qualify that statement. I don’t get to do a lot of highspeed, long distance freeway cruising anymore. I drive twice a week around small curvy roads which may or may not be traffic laden. What I decided I wanted then was a car that felt like you were blasting down the road even when you were doing 45mph. And let me tell you, I found one that feels like its going to explode when you’re doing 30. Boxsters are far too well engineered to act like that.

Sure the car will probably break down about every thousand miles (if I’m lucky) but what’s a toy car if you don’t get to work on it?

The answer to that question is fun, but lets forget about that for a moment.

For about the price of the cheapest new car you can buy on the market today, I picked up this silver Lotus and I have loved every moment of driving it. I was worried that the dated looking style would bother me (I think Peter Stevens did a much better job in his work on the later Esprits), that I wouldn’t want to be thought of as the gold medallion man (a phrase used inside Lotus itself) that drives the old Lotus. And the Esprit doesn’t have a rich racing history, and though Lotus does, I hardly see how their formula one success translates to this backbone-frame car.

But I don’t care. Two seconds behind the wheel and none of that matters. I’m too busy trying to massage my face from the pain of smiling too much.

The engine, its turbo whine and waste gate belching all happen right behind your head which at any speed is a satisfying bit of sensory input. And then there’s the steering and handling. With no power steering in sight, the feel for the road is more than you get in most cars and wiggling the wheel telegraphs to your hands that the car isn’t like a go-kart, it is a go-kart and is at least as responsive.

Then there’s the actual handling. While its amazingly composed on a mountain road, what I wanted was something that would be fun anywhere and this is. You can take 90 degree turns (which there are plenty of in any city) at several times the proper speed and the car doesn’t seem to care. It just does it. No lean, no understeer, no commotion of any kind. And the feel it gives is uncanny. Its like the moment before the tale breaks loose in any other car, but in this, no fishtailing, just this feeling of nothing keeping you from changing direction at any rate you’re brave enough to try.

So I have my new perfect toy. Well I did. Thing is the economy collapsed and we had some financial scares so I decided I better sell the car and wait for sunnier days to buy a mid engined British sports car. And unfortunately, the car is already sold.

I only had it a few weeks. But in that time its made a huge impression on my wife and I. She even likes its looks (no comment) but we both agree it is tremendous fun and we will get another one. . . someday.

In the mean time I should probably do some more growing up and saving money. But if you want to get a better idea of life with a Lotus check out this video we made before it went to its new owner:

Lotus Saturday Video

Oh and for the record: I’ve owned a Lotus that never broke down (while I owned it).

DIY in the 21st Century

2008-08-09T03:07:00Z

You don’t have to be a mechanic to know that cars have changed quite a bit in the past forty years. Gone are the carburetors you tune yourself with nothing more than a screw driver and mechanical distributor points that have to be checked as often as you change your oil.

In their place are computer controlled components that can only be accessed by special pieces of equipment.

The good news is that cars today are both much more efficient and reliable (which is funny because I’ve never considered computers to be reliable in and of themselves). Cars are also smarter than they used to be. When something goes wrong the car often knows and can tell you specifically what the problem is.

Well it could if you were able to read a check engine light, something only a mechanic can do. At least that’s what most people think. The truth is you can buy what is called an OBDII reader for around 50 bucks. What this gets you is a palm sized device that’ll plug into most cars made after 1997 (and some from before) and will give you a code number for why that pesky check engine light is on. Or if you want even more info, for $150 you can buy a connection to hook up a laptop or other computer to your car and not just read trouble codes but get detailed information on all what’s coming through the sensors in you vehicle.

The last time I had a check engine light tested (and it will forever be the last time) I had to pay $160 just for the mechanic to read the trouble code. So one home reading from a troubled car will pay for the reader and then some.

In fact the mechanic I visited showed me the recorded OBDII code and then handed me a copy of the Alldata print out on the code. Alldata is an online service mechanics use to get service information on any car. This means that a shop doesn’t have to have experts in every different make of car they service. Instead they just buy a subscription to the Alldata site where they can get detailed info on whatever car they have in the shop at the moment. What makes this significant is I already had an account with Alldata. In addition to the thousand dollar a year access mechanics pay for, Alldata also provides something called AlldataDIY where an individual can subscribe just to one make and model of a car at a time (whatever car you have) for around $15 a year.

If you are familiar with Hayes or Chilton manuals you’re probably used to problems like the supplied pictures being of a different model/option set of the car you’re working on and finding the information as a guiding point but not the best step by step instructions for something you’ve never done before. They also suffer from being based on completely dismantling a car which is rarely the case when just fixing something yourself.

Alldata is nothing like that. I’ve never seen such well laid out diagrams and pictures. And the step by step instructions don’t assume that you know anything. So getting back to that mechanic I found I paid $160 for information I could have gotten myself if I had just had an OBDII reader back then. And really, with the car telling you what’s wrong and Alldata explaining how to fix it, there’s just no guess work.

Hold on, here’s a little history:

In order for cars’ emissions to meet state standards, the cars must be running properly. The need for this gave birth to the check engine light to let the owner know if something is wrong. For example, there are sensors in the car to check oxygen levels in the car both before and after the catalytic converter to make sure the exhaust fumes are sufficiently cleaned. But having these senors also allows the vehicle to monitor its combustion process for efficiency by checking the amount of air coming into the car with the amount of oxygen left over after combustion in the exhaust. And having multiple sensors, the car can also determine if there’s a fault with one of them. So an OBDII code can tell you if you car is running rich or lean for some reason or if there’s just a faulty sensor. Further because of the myriad of sensors it can also narrow down a problem to a specific area, sometimes down to a specific cylinder or other component.

With Alldata and an OBDII read you can find these problems out for yourself regardless of if you plan to work on the car yourself. It can empower you to know a mechanic won’t be pulling something on you and to know whether you really need to see a mechanic right away or not. Sometimes those lights indicate nothing more than a gas cap that isn’t secure. No one needs to pay a mechanic $200 to fix that.

And if you’re like me you’ll also enjoy hooking a laptop up to your car and seeing all kinds of information about fuel consumption, engine rpm, temperature, air flow and ignition timing plot on a graph while you drive for no reason other than being a little geeky and thinking its cool.

Happy Father's Day

2008-06-15T18:44:00Z

In honor of my father, here’s a picture of his ‘67 Ford Mustang.

I’ll do an article on this Mustang later in the year, including the back story, the family mustang tradition, work that has been done to get it to this state, and what’s ahead.

This picture was taken on the farm, just outside the shop where my father does the work he can do himself. My son Micah is learning to drive from “Grampy.”

UPDATE: I’ve added another picture, of Grampy and Micah checking out my brother Ben’s Auburn Speedster replica. The picture was taken around the corner from Jardines in San Juan Baptista. We got together there to celebrate Father’s Day. Incidentally, though all in the picture were present on Father’s Day, including the Speedster, this picture was taken at a previous Jardines meeting. We like Jardines. We meet there often.