Restoration of 2358R

[BDA]

Another great video, Certified!! I might have to watch it again! 

[literarymadness]

  Well done!!! Gratitude for allowing those who could not attend an insider's point of view.

[tedtaylor]

I LOVE it.   Even though I'm actually in the video having lived it, I still get a kick out of watching it.    I still occasionally watch the one from last year.  Just search "LOG38 road trip" on YouTube.

[Certified Lotus]

Thanks for the complements on my video. Glad your enjoying it (already at over 570 views). It was a fun trip with lots of great memories.

I’m back from Europe and it’s such a glorious day here in Princeton I decided to go for a back country drive in the Europa to visit a friend (who happens to do very expensive exotic sports car restorations). 

Driving the Europa is intoxicating. It’s very comfortable, goes where you point it with minimal effort and the extra HP of my TC engine really gets it up to speed quickly and with authority.

This car gets a lot of attention. People stare, wave, give thumbs up. Other sports car drivers wave (two Porches today were very enthusiastic) and I had a car pull over just so they could follow me for a while.

My current front suspension set-up has 8 inch 140lb springs and a fair amount of camber. The cars corners with a flick of the wrist (really just a twist of my fingers) but any medium bumps in the road and the shocks hit the bump stops. Great for a race track but not for twisty back road country driving.

I’m going back to the 10 inch springs. It’s a day of work in my garage, but I think I’ll be happier with the spring travel for back road driving.

I also have a few details to complete on the interior and a few other nit picking items on my list.

Now I just need to find some time........

[BDA]

If any other car generates as much attention as a Europa, I don't know what it is. You'll just have to get used to it.

What rate are your 10" springs? I would think if it's less than 140# it might be worse about hitting the bump stops unless you raised the nose up, but then you could do that with the 8" springs too. Have you considered stiffening the shocks or have you stiffened them already?

[Certified Lotus]

BDA, I could have sworn I answered your question (still jet lagged) and then I realized I posted my responses on another post. DUH! So just for sake of clarity (at least for me) and the continued quest to finish 2358R here are the main points:

(CL) I’m following up on this thread as I now have almost a 1000 miles on the 8” x 140# front spring set up. My AVO adjustable shocks have 11 settings and I have experimented with each one of the settings. The stiffer settings (8 and above) create the right rebound but the car sits too low for back country road driving without adjusting the springs up fairly far in the perches which then allows the bump stops to hit on medium bumps in the road. Additionally the chamber is very negative. That would work extremely well for Autocross, and the car turns just by thinking about a corner........

I’m going back to the 10” x 150# springs which is what Dave Bean suggested in the first place for a “fast road” set up.

I love the stance of my Europa and am torn to reinstall the 10 inch springs, but it needs to be street-able (my friend Bruce has the same 8"set up and he has similar issues) .

More to come.

(BDA) Have you considered getting adjustable upper A-arms to set your camber? Alternatively, I've seen where some have made slotted their lower wishbones and made plates to adjust the camber (not a very good description but hopefully you'll get the idea).

(CL) I really wanted to stick with as much of the stock components as possible considering this is a road car. The adjustable arms enter into a different territory for continuous adjustments. My track cars had these. One day I’ll see if I can locate the pages and pages of documentation I made for my suspension setups, tire pressure and tire temperature of my track Exige S. It all got to be overwhelming, especially when I kept modifying the aero along the way.

Colin had it right, let Lotus do the engineering and leave it alone. Now, saying that I am fully aware of the changes I have made with adjustable shocks. But that is as far as I am willing to go for this car.

Hopefully.......maybe......probably......

[Certified Lotus]

When I was dismantling my interior the trim around the rear window vents it came apart in pieces.  I knew there was no replacement so I saved all the pieces in a zip lock bag. Well, I glued/taped all those pieces and made a template for a new one. Now I just need to cut it out, place it on the window and trim for a custom fit and then glue on the black vinyl trim that I got to match the original (or at least as close as I could get).

[dakazman]

   Certified
I have a small bag of pieces just like that . I thought they were for inside the A pillars. Thanks for posting that picture.
  You should have 571 / 572 views on the road trip😃. I’m going to have to beam it to my large screen to really enjoy the scenery and cars.
  I didn’t like the comment the f40 mechanic said about the Europa rear suspension 
  Dakazman

[Certified Lotus]

Glad I could jog your memory Dave.

Don’t take Rogers comments personally, I’ve heard/read worse. He was a hoot to meet! There is a local guy to me who is the same age and has a wealth of sports car knowledge who works with me every once in a while. He is exactly the same as Roger. But, you can learn a lot from these guys as they have real life experiences that you can’t replicate.

Appreciate the wisdom of your elders for they see more than you at your stage in life........especially old cranky sports car garage guys 

[BDA]

Colin had it right, let Lotus do the engineering and leave it alone. Now, saying that I am fully aware of the changes I have made with adjustable shocks. But that is as far as I am willing to go for this car.

I'm not interested in trying to influence your plans for your car - nor would I think you'd allow me to influence you in the first place - but just remember that Colin was constrained by regulatory regimes over which he had no control. I certainly don't think Chunky wanted to put the TC nose up in the air! 

[Certified Lotus]

Totally agree BDA! But I remind myself that Dave Bean recommends the 10” springs for fast road and they have more experience than most of us. I think I’ll call Ken tomorrow and talk to him about it. He was right about my Elan front springs. Which is why I had a pair of 8” springs in sitting in my garage  to begin with. I second guessed him and was wrong......

[BDA]

I'm not sure you were wrong. There are lots of ways to skin a cat. Ken suggests 10" 150# springs, Richard recommends (or recommended to me) 8" 250# springs. Both could be right but certainly different and might appeal to different people. That points out a cunundrum we have when multiple experts give contradictory advice - which do you go with or do you try to incorporate both. I think it's usually safer to pick one and stick with that. I don't think you could go wrong with either Ken or Richard. If you started with Ken, it probably makes sense to stick with him.

[Certified Lotus]

I’m back from a 350 mile road trip to our local Lotus club’s “Garage Tour”.  We had seven of these this year with Don Butler’s “Union Jack Exotics” in Maryland being the last tour of the year.

Great turn out with a number of us starting the road trip to Don’s from RD Enterprises to drive all back roads. Two Elan’s and two Europa’s made the trip together with over 2 hours of mostly twisty back roads along Amish farms and small towns. Ray’s recently completed Elan S4 restoration is a thing of beauty (and not just because it’s yellow).

As some of you know (from a separate post) I had a mysterious electrical problem that impacted all my front lights that got fully resolved before the morning of the drive. No horn at the moment, but my front lights all work!

Nothing like a several hour back country road drive to get to know your car in great detail. Although I have over a thousand miles on my Europa since completing it, I’m still experiencing all the small aspects of this car that bring great sports car enthusiast smiles to the memory bank.

I know I’ve mentioned this before, the power range on this motor really suits the car. It really moves quickly and the sound of the Weber’s and exhaust winding out with anger are intoxicating. And the steering is telepathic. Really. I’m used to driving racing carts where the slight movement of your head would steer the cart through a corner (because you arms follow where ever your looking) and the Europa is the same.

Now you need to understand I have some extreme camber at the moment (which will change when I go back to 10 inch springs) so the turn in is very very good.

With the 8 inch springs on the front shocks the car stance is wonderfully low and aggressive looking. But the sway bar is the lowest point of the car and I’m always on the look out for large bumps or road transitions that would cause the car to fully use the suspension travel. I’ve bumped the sway bar too many times and hit the bump stops on the front shocks. The 8 inch, 150 lb springs are coming off! This setup is for race track smooth roads only.

Big turnout for the garage tour event. We had about 20 Lotus cars over the course of the day with Don and Debbie being wonderful hosts!

I spent most of the day answering lots of questions and receiving a ton of complements on my Europa rebuild. Got to take TurboForce for a quick drive to give some perspective of what it’s like to be in a Europa at speed 

All in all a great day of talking about all things Lotus. The road trip home duplicated the drive down only this time Bruce was leading in his red Europa Twin Cam until we split up to head to our separate home locations.

[BDA]

It looks like you guys had a good turnout and a lot of fun! Congratulations on finding your problem with your headlights! 

[Certified Lotus]

Off with the front shocks, removed the 8 inch 140 lbs springs and REINSTALLED the 10 inch 150 lbs springs. I'll finish everything tomorrow and realign the front end.