mike_sekinger

Hardpipes installed and everything connected up.

Easter weekend to get Simon's chargecooled V8 up and running. Gearchanger installed and finalising the plumbing for the chargecoolers. The feed and return to the coolant rad. will exit on the left hand side and join to the hardpipes that will run under the car.

A little more on the rear. It's really starting to come together nicely.

You should be absolutely fine with a flywheel re-surface and recon clutch option. If you have your flywheel re-surfaced, you should get it blanchand ground as opposed to straight machined. I've found that careful and progressive tightening of the clutch pack is also important to minimise binding.

356mm on the front 330mm on the rear This is just a refresh of the original modification going to 6-pot on the front, and moving the original 4-pots to the rear.

A little more progress today. Mocking up the new brakes and front wheel.

First time out in the garage for a while. Building up the rear suspension.

My recommendation for turbo recon work is Turbo Dynamics out of Christchurch. They are excellent in terms of technical competence, honesty and price. If you are running standard power, then you don't need the additional expense of going hybrid. You may want to consider taking the 360deg thrust bearing and staggered gap oil seal option.

It's running with the stock FPR.

I'm running a Motec M800 with twin wideband enabled if anyone want to follow that route.

The bearing spec was changed quite early on. As I understand it, the majority of the failures were due to insufficient torquing of the IMS bolt.

Sounds like everything is very much in the right hands. Fingers crossed that your crank can be reclaimed after your oil pressure failure. I would agree with your Workshop that for stock power there is really nothing that needs to be addressed apart from the IMS safeguard. Hope you are back on the road soon.

What is the scope and reason behind the rebuild? Was something damaged or are you just re-freshing/overhauling the engine? In general, I would not recommend the outlay of upgrading parts if you are really only after a stock power output. If you do not drive the car hard, then the stock components will be fine. However, if you are already considering installing some new stock components (e.g. new pistons and liners), then do the math and investigate what additional expense to take some forged pistons. In terms of advantages of forged pistons for stock output, there aren't really any. In fact there is a theortical disadvantage in that the forged pistons do not include the Big end thrust offset that is included in the 918 piston design (meaning that are truly symmetrical). Independant of the pistons, the other very worthwhile mod would be to install a scotch key on the IMS/primary drive. This will safeguard any issues with the IMS bolt not having sufficient clamp force and the engine losing cam timing. Who are you entrusting the engine build to? He should also be a guiding force in determining what needs replacing once everything has been inspected.

It's not difficult to remove the plenum and explained pretty clearly in the Service Notes. Just be careful as you will have fuel connections to remove. You might want to consider re-doing both plenum and cam covers and be free to choose a suitable colour/shade. Lotus used a variety of finishes over time, so matching either crinkle or splatter finished may not be easy.

That's a very similar intercooler arrangement to Dave Clare's V8, which uses an adapted Lotus Carlton chargecooler.

Sacha's R475AAH is back up and running since May 2020. It's a great idea to get the two cars back together for a social. I'd message Sacha (Mightymetro) and get a conversation going.

Yes, Johan Hybinette's legendary SuperBee. Johan really went balls-out with chargecooling, increased boost, Nitrous and Propane for additional intake cooling There is also a Drag Racing Esprit in Greece which is extremely fast, but it is not running the 918 engine.

Excellent. Well done for finding the problem.

I think that the pump would be the next step.

Nice work. I would be interested in a set of stainless brackets for the front bumper.

Yes, agreed turning the engine from underneath is easier. Popping up and down is a bit tedious. I've experienced dependable readings with changes but manually playing with the belt will affect the frequency reading. The tensioning positions and values for new belts were re-specified in a Service Bulletin in mid-1999.

Good stuff. It's definately not a job to rush. I dug out the images showing the comparison between the Clavis and the software app. I remember that I did source a decent low frequency microphone for this.

It would certainly help in getting the engine oil up to a decent operating temperature quickly. I don't have any empirical data on how long it typically takes. Based on observations, the oil temps come up pretty quickly even with the coolers in place.

Hi Alan, The filter housing does not contain any thermostatic flow control. I've not heard of anyone fitting one. I always bypass the oil coolers when starting-up a fresh engine, but that's just for speeding up establishment of the oil pressure and not normal running of the engine.

Then you have your answer 🙂 Now you know the reference point, make your crank position pointer and you are on your way.