dave excell

Hi.

I measures the Toyota W58 bell housing and it was longer than the V8 bell housing by 26mm. So I am using the V8 housing with a 26mm alloy spacer. I aligned the Toyota geabox input shaft with the hole on the V8 bellhousing using a shaft that fitted V8 on one end and Toyota at the other. The  alloy plate was counterbored with the holes to fit the toyota box so they were slightly below the surface. This then left the plate clear to drill through holes to bolt the V8 housing on. There was a clash of one bolt on the V8 bell housing , so another was redrilled off set enough to miss. You would need a lathe to make the shaft up or a friendly machine shop owner. The spigot bearing in the V8 crank is swapped for the Excel one (same outer diameter but bigger inner) The two slide togrther perfectly. next job is to make the clutch friction plates with toyota splines instead of the AP clutch Reault splines. Apologies if this is not clear I am not very good at describing things. The geabox needs to be perfectly in line with the crank to avoid any reliability problems.

The tip I got about the V8 economy was from Phil at South West Lotus. He said keep the speed under 100mph and boost low and 30 mpg is acheivable. I normally get about 24 mpg from the Esprit using it locally. My Excel 2.2 does about the same with those dellorto carbs. Anns M100 does about 35 mpg on a run. All 3 cars have done the Monaco, Italy run and the Excel is the most uneconomical of all.