Serious trouble V8

[Giniw]

50 minutes ago, MD355 said:

it turned out to be the front hood that pushed against the right light not allowing it to go up all the way !!

All of a sudden? Strange, but it's good it's fixed now!

I hope it didn't ruin the paint!

[MD355]

No damage to paint !! When the hood was unlatched/without safety engaged  the pop-up light both went up normally !!

As soon as I put the safety lock for the front trunk, apparently this would tighten / slightly move to hood down and to the front of the car and it would hinder the normal operation of the right light, which would pop half way.

Now all fixed !!

[andyblackman777]

I wonder how the crown wheel broke.......

 

[MD355]

I wonder too... It happened March 2019, all of a sudden at low speed driving in 1st-2nd gear coming out of a roundabout, a little aggressive on the throttle... As soon as I heard the noise and resistance to rotate, I knew something was wrong and loaded the car to the service truck.. My mechanic say "who knows what the previous owner did to the car"... We could never really understand why it broke

Now that I installed LSD torsen differential, we believe loss of grip will be more progressive, as opposed to before where you would get sudden loss/regain grip due to open differential

[Barrykearley]

CWP failures are often attributed to the backlash not being correctly set. Apparently mine was incorrect on the V8 when i broke mine and it was inspected for rebuild.

[Giniw]

You may post it there too! :)

 

[ramjet]

I've already moved it Giniw.  

[Giniw]

Ooops sorry it was still here when I posted, maybe just in my browser :D

[ramjet]

I was doing it when your post popped up.:)

[MD355]

UPDATE : 1000 mile / 1600 km service

So today I took my car for the scheduled oil & oil filter change after the initial 1000 mile / 1600 km after the break in of the rebuilt engine.

Overall I am very impressed with my car. I followed my mechanic's instructions for breaking it in and it has paid off. The car performs amazingly and is very reliable. It starts every time immediately, cold or warm engine. It idles perfectly. No overheating. No misfires. And it pulls hard. I was jokingly saying that my Lotus has become a German car in terms of reliability !!!! (let's not jinx it !! )    🙂

 

URGENT HELP NEEDED :

I was having oil leaks from the adapters of the oil lines that run to the front of the car and from the RH adapter to the oil cooler.

So my mechanic was planning to change just the adapters and keep the oil lines. Today he called me and told me he wants to replace the oil lines running inside the tunnel of the car because they are in bad shape. He already removed the oil line that connects LH to RH oil cooler. Now he wants to replace the 2 long oil lines too.

How do you get access to remove those oil lines ???????

Many thanks !!

Edited February 19, 2020 by MD355

[tmusc]

You have to take the shifter out, to cut several zip ties that are attached to them inside the tunnel. And be very careful with the fittings at the cooler themselves or you will be in the market for new coolers as well. Just did the job myself. The job itself is not that hard, just a PITA to do. 

Edited February 19, 2020 by tmusc

[Mightymetro]

Like above , not difficult but just a bit fiddly.  Tie the new lines to the old one and pull it through 

[MD355]

Thanks guys !! I will tell my mechanic tomorrow so we can make my Esprit perfect !!!

[MD355]

UPDATE : I just completed the 1500 km service after the rebuild and my car is running perfectly !!

This service turned out to be more complicated than the simple oil and filter change.

For starters, my car was leaking oil from the oil connectors of the hoses and my mechanic noticed that the front oil line that connects the two radiators was beginning to crack too. So first he replaced the front line and he insisted we replace the 2 main oil lines too. 
That turned out to more tricky but we managed to remove the interior transmission selector and get it done.

Furthermore, the differential was leaking, which my mechanic fixed.

And another issue I was experiencing was whitish/blue smoke from the RH exhaust.

It turned out the turbo thrusts of the journal bearing were damaged. In the beginning we though it was attributed to metal shavings from when my engine broke. But the Turbo experts said it was oil starvation. This happened when the oil pressure release valve got stuck... They tried to fix the turbo, but it still smoked, so for the price of a repair, the decided to replace completely the internals with new.
(See photo of damaged thrust bearing see the lines)

Now the car is perfect... It does not smoke...

My mechanic said I need to break in the turbo for 300 km. Basically no full throttle high boost... 

And finally, I jokingly asked my mechanic if he would rather A) get a mild dose of Coronavirus or B) rebuild my Lotus engine... 

He chose (A) and said he is packing to go to Wuhan China right away !! :-))) Hahaha

[MD355]

Update : Some nice blue flames

I've been enjoying the car since the engine rebuild... and the other day my friends asked me to rev the car and see some flames.. I know it is not very good to rev the engine without load, but I did it when the engine was warmed up, and for a little bit...

So here are some nice blue flames..

 

 

[v8GTmac1]

On 30/10/2020 at 07:28, MD355 said:

Update : Some nice blue flames

I've been enjoying the car since the engine rebuild... and the other day my friends asked me to rev the car and see some flames.. I know it is not very good to rev the engine without load, but I did it when the engine was warmed up, and for a little bit...

So here are some nice blue flames..

 

 

So which cats are you running?

i have 2 sets and don’t know which is factory. 

[cweeden]

The factory ones are ceramic internals, I would expect all after market offerings to be of metal matrix construction.

Take a peek inside and you should be able to see what type you have.

[MD355]

@v8GTmac1

if you are asking me, I don’t have cats anymore.. Just straight pipes. Cat delete and muffler delete.. 😉

[MD355]

It's been a while, since my last update on this thread, and I wanted to let you know that I installed the 350 Sport ECU and the car is performing great !!

I actually saw for the first time today 0.75 bar turbo boost in 3rd gear, which I had never seen before.. (I installed turbo boost gauge from 1998 Esprit V8)

My question is regarding the Blow Off Valves... When I bought the car, the previous owner had installed 2 Forge BOVs... The modifications I have done to the car are : forged CP Carillo pistons, straight pipes with car delete, K&N air filters and 350 Sport ECU.

Do you think I should keep the BOVs.. ?

My mechanic believes I might be losing boost pressure from them...

Any opinions ?

Edited December 26, 2020 by MD355

[Giniw]

Hi,
As for the potential boost leaks I think it's always a good idea to check whether the intake is air tight anyway, and it's easy to test just by putting regulated compressed air at the turbo compressor wheel. You can use an old bike tube to make a cheap adapter (cut in half, a knot on a side and the other side plugged on the turbo housing at the compressor wheel instead of the intake hose from the filter, and using compressed air. It should be air tight, if it's not then you have a boost leak. You just have to be sure to regulate the air pressure you put in at the maximum permissible boost pressure (like the 0.75 bar you were referring to for instance, I am not sure what it is for a V8 engine)

2 hours ago, MD355 said:

with car delete

Now that's unfortunate! :D

[mike_sekinger]

As it has been said before, peak boost of 0.75 bar not high and the T25s are really small and responsive.  Unless you are somehow addicted to the noise, you can probably remove the BOVs and still observe no detrimental effect on in-gear acceleration.

[v8GTmac1]

The .75 bar regulated pressure won’t really work as most of the air built up will escape past any open valves. 

So you have to just keep going until either your boost gauge reads or you hear something. 

 

I like the idea of the bike tube, it’s strong enough!

[Giniw]

(I feared the air would escape though any open valves too but it actually doesn't, or maybe the air enters the piston and stays there with the closed exhaust valves. I tested both on the Elan and the 4 cylinder Esprit without bothering about the crank position and it worked for the two cars. Maybe I was just lucky, but that would be strange on several verifications over time -- I checked at least two times on the Elan and once on the Esprit). My guess is that the valves timing don't overlap.

Edited December 26, 2020 by Giniw

[MD355]

I drove my car again for another 30 km of spirited driving with lots of turbo boost and there was no coolant missing..

I am starting to believe that the problem lies in the header tank..

Attached is a photo. When we fabricated a metallic coolant tank , my mechanic asked me if we wanted to retain the sensor and I insisted we do..

If you look closely, there appears to be red coolant on the plastic indicator, so maybe I should do away with this and just plug this opening too..