Esprit

The foam shielding comes from Forman Insulation and is a product called "FormShield". There are "better" products out there for both heat-shielding and for sound deadening, but this is lighter than all the other options out there and it also most closely replicates the form and function of the OEM shield, which was the look I was going for.

Well I've been gathering bits and pieces this last couple of weeks and this weekend is a busy one on the car. Today I've been fabricating the new firewall heat shield.... the improved V2.0 version! Here you can see the old heat shielding I've pulled off the firewall. You can see that I've cut a "window" where the damaged area was. You can see this damaged area in my previous update when the shield was sitting on the firewall. From here, I've fabricated up a new one. I've painstakingly cut it to size and shape and then with this one, I've spent a good number of hours carefully edging it with heat-barrier aluminium tape. This should prolong the life of the shield as they always seem to degrade at the edges. It's also a move I've taken after talking to people who specialise in installation who have said that aluminium-taping the edges will greatly reduce the risk of the foam shielding smouldering in the event of an engine bay fire. You can also see the "window" of the heat shielding that's been filled with "lava mat" high-temperature heat shield. This shield SHOULD be a bit more tidy in installation than the last one, and should be both more resilient and effective. I've still got to cut out the recess for the fuel hoses in this shield, and I'll do this in-situ as I want to cut the shield closer to these this time around. That'll be done tonight when I install it.

Well it's the weekend, which means more garage time to spend on the car as per usual. Today I got the roof off and interior stripped out, which will give Glenn the access he needs to the loom to make the pinout changes on the ECU. Meanwhile the rear window and surround also came off to give access to the firewall to allow me to remove the heat shield. I removed this because it had begun to break down where the shield had been all but touching the manifold heat shield that sits right up against it. Despite my ceramic coating of the manifold and the Cirrus heat shielding around the manifold area itself, there's still too much heat getting to the firewall foam heat shield. In the following photo you can see the square of affected material. The OEM Lotus heat shield failed in this same area so it's obviously a problem, however the OEM shield as well as this one seems to have held up very well elsewhere. Furthermore, in the heat-affected area the foam was still in good condition and it was only the glue between the foil and the foam that had failed... although over time I'd have expected the foam to fail too. Ever since I fitted this new heat shield over a year ago, I've had my doubts about it. It seemed a bit fragile when compared to the OEM shield and it didn't seem to stick to the firewall quite so well. However, in tearing the thing off, I can see that it's actually stuck bloody well, and it also appears to be a chunk more rugged than I gave it credit for! I chose it because it seemed to be the closest fit I could get for the OEM shield material-wise, which is no longer available. It seems my choice might not have been too bad after all! I had planned to replace the firewall heat shield with something like "Thermo-Tec Cool-It", but now I'm in two minds. I'm now thinking of getting some more material like I've just removed and remaking another similar heat shield. I'll then cut a small "window" in the area where the heat-soak appears to be highest. On the firewall where this high-heat area is, I'll lay a heat shield like Lava-Mat (of which I have some), which should cope with the higher temperatures better. The bonus is that the Lava Mat is a thin, carbon fibre-like cloth that has nearly zero thickness. This compares with the foam insulation that has a ~10mm thickness. This will allow a larger air-gap between the firewall and the manifold heat shield, which should reduce the heat flux into the firewall insulation. Te bonus is that this'll allow me to keep the light and effective foam shield over the bulk of the firewall with just a small area of high-temp barrier where it's needed near the manifold. This second time around I'll also try to cut the shield material a little better and reinforce it with some aluminium tape around the edges in the interest of being tidy. I've got a bit more research to do tomorrow before I make up my mind for good. I want to get the new material procured this week so I can begin cutting and refitting next weekend.... it's a hard, boring slog right now but this is a job I'm just looking forward to having signed off and out of the way! More tomorrow.

Well, managed to trailer the engine and box over to Ken today and he's going to start stripping it down tomorrow. First task is to get the codes off the crank and crank ladder so that we can size the bearings properly and get that order underway. Looking at it in better light today you can clearly see the liners of the two cylinders that were a bit leaky in the valves were more glazed than the other two... this reinforces my decision to be a sensible lad and rebuild the bottom end... I'm glad I'm doing it now. Getting quite enthusiastic about the old girl again now.... quite a nice feeling after a few months of despair!

Another stint in the garage this afternoon, and the engine is out of the car again... for the FOURTH time in this project.... let's hope it's fourth time lucky huh? Here you can see the vacant engine bay. You can see the crinkly section of the firewall heatshield where it sits close to the manifold heatshield. It's not terribly damaged, but over time, I can tell the foam is going to degrade as it's too thick (and sits against the manifold heatshield) and it's just not up to the temperatures it gets in that local area. Also, because of the potential fire risk of this foam should it continue to degrade I've decided to sacrifice a bit of sound dampening for superior heat protection (and light weight!). It's never going to be a civilised car anyway and it's not going to make much difference at all. And here's the sorry sight of the engine sitting on my garage floor again.... le sigh! I'm going to steal the work wagon and trailer tomorrow at lunchtime and get the engine transported over to KW for stripdown. It'll head over with my newly rebuilt cylinder head and a box of bits to rebuild it again. By the time it's all stripped down, cleaned and inspected, I should have the new bits here from DVAPower and it can go together again. While this is happening, the seats will come out, the rear trim panel will come off, as will the roof, rear window and rear window frame. This will allow me to remake the firewall heatshield and make it look really tidy. It'll also allow me the access to switch a couple of pins on the ECU, since Glenn wants to reallocate the pin of the wideband lambda heater to a different output as it's throwing an error code right now. If there's a silver lining to cock-ups like this, it's that it gives you the excuse to do those bits and pieces that you probably wouldn't bother doing otherwise. Time for a beer.

Right, well with Toni now in the UK for a month and with my move into her apartment now complete, I've FINALLY got some time, and some motivation to get back in the garage and work on the bitch. Today was focussed around getting the fluids all drained off, the wiring all disconnected and the shortblock and gearbox ready for removal.... AGAIN. This all went fairly smoothly and all going well, by tomorrow afternoon, the remains of the engine will be hanging from the crane and will be ready for transporting off to KW to get another rebuild. Some new liners, rings, bearings, gaskets, seals and head bolts will be winging their way soon from Dave Andrews, who has been brilliant help in getting the engine bits together and rectifying this whole issue. The head is sitting there, freshly rebuilt and ready to go and as soon as the bottom end bits are here, the engine will be dummy-assembled, clearance-checked and then final-assembled ready for reinstallation. Here's some photos of the current state of the garage and the car... a pretty sorry sight. While the engine rebuild is happening, I'm going to pull the roof and rear window out to enable me to re-do the firewall heatshield, which I can do better than I did before. I'm also going to use the Aluminium sheetmetal rear heatshield support I made up as a template for a carbon-fibre piece I'll lay up, which will have heatshield material attached to it. It should be better than the original shield and substantially lighter. When the engine's in, it'll be filled and primed, and then started. As soon as it's able to fire, it'll get the rear bodywork reinstalled and the car fully reassembled prior to getting trailered up to GDS automotive for a run-in day on the dyno and some extra mapping tweaks. After a dyno bed-in, it's going to get a good few hours of road-tuning before the 1000km road run-in period. Targeting that in mid-August... so hopefully the car will be in rude health and ready to rock by the time Spring arrives. Game on!

One would assume not.

Hehe yeah well I know of 5 Elises in Hawke's Bay and 2 of them being involved in separate accidents in the same area in the same month is quite unlikely for sure. It's funny, this last month a couple of people have asked me questions about Dad's accident.... things like "I heard he was speeding" or "I heard he was being chased by the cops".... stuff I just dismissed as Chinese Whispers getting the story wrong... now I know why they may have thought that! But no, this guy (despite also being an almost identical age to my father) is not my father. I'm pretty sure I've bumped into him before and chatted though although I don't know him personally.

Just to clear up any confusion (as some people have asked), this accident wasn't my father: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/artic ... d=10730709 coincidentally, this accident happened nearby to where my father had his accident and they were both in April, but they were completely unrelated. My father's car was a '97 Elise S1, and he was stationary when hit from behind by another car. He was not fleeing from police at the time.

Well it's been a while since I've done an official update of my build blog, so I guess this will hopefully be the start of getting things back on track. I'm down in Hawke's Bay again this weekend visiting my family and it's good to finally see my father outside of a hospital and back mobile again. There's still a few months of crap to endure for him (and us all) but hopefully he will recover just fine in time. It seems to have changed him a little personality-wise, but I guess he's been through a lot so only time will tell whether he gets back to being the same person he was before the accident. I went out to see my father's car today with him. It was the first time he's seen it since the accident. It's been written off by the insurance company and we were taking a look at it to see whether it'd be worth looking at buying back with a view to eventually rebuilding it. Sadly a cracked glue joint in the front suspension and a massive kink in the left-hand chassis rail where the radiator return hose comes trough it means the chassis is toast and will never be a car again. Our little Norfolk Mustard friend is only worth spare parts value so I don't think we'll be reinvesting any money in her. A very sad end to an 18 month love affair that taught me how wonderful basic S1 Elises are. Back onto the topic of my car. I've had the cylinder head off and away being rebuilt for the last two weeks. It would seem that the valves were beginning to leak because some of the valve seats had gone out of round. When the head was rebuilt, larger valves were installed, necessitating the cutting-out of the existing valve seats. For whatever reason, during the run-in these distorted or shifted and this has led to them no longer sealing. The head has now been fully rebuilt here in New Zealand, new valve seats have been inserted, cut and lapped. The head has been pressure and crack tested and given the very lightest of skims. All the valves have been cleaned up, the valves all re-shimmed and re-sealed and the head is now ready to go. I've noticed that in the cylinders that were weak, the bores appear a little more glazed than in those that were working as they should have been. Due to this, I want to rectify this problem and run the engine in from scratch again. This will ensure that when the engine is FINALLY run in, that it will be in the best shape to be healthy and make good horsepower from the word go. Given that to glazebust the bores, I'd have to pull them out as well as replacing the rings, I've decided that the best thing to do is to just pop the old liners out and bin them. I'll put new ones in from scratch, add new rings and also new bearings at the bottom of the engine. It seems ridiculous to replace parts that are less than 1000km old, but at least this way I'll have a good idea of what things were like when we removed them and I will be back to square-one on the engine and it'll be like new again... it seems silly to invest all this time and money on getting the top-end issues sorted if the bottom end lets go or has some other unseen issue... I just couldn't take that kind of heartbreak now! So I'm currently placing an order for new liners, rings, bearings, gaskets, seals and head bolts and we'll get the engine out of the car and reassembled in the next 2 months or so. This will enable me to get it back in the car and straight off to the dyno (at least this time we can get the engine under load from the first turn of the key as the existing map should be pretty damned close). The engine will be run right in under load from the word go and then we'll get t straight on the road for 600 miles of progressive run-in before seeing what power it makes. Second time lucky eh?

Unsure exactly what engine it runs, but it's effing quick

On track, with semi-slicks, a stock S1 Elise weighing 680kg and only having 120bhp will melt them without too much effort. Given you're a little heavier and a LOT more powerful, I'd not risk it. They'd be ok for hillclimbs/sprints over short distances though. You'd have to butcher them to get them to fit though, or make custom hubs... then accept that when you need to replace them you can't buy them except second-hand and they're worth their weight in gold

Heath, no... if we buy it back, the brakes will be spare for dad's next Lotus. Besides, on your car the brakes would be useless... they'd melt.

You saw it on Turners? Wow, that was quick, we've not even been told it's written off yet (although undoubtedly will be). It's not economical to repair by a long way and we suspect a bit of chassis damage, which would mean a new chassis needs to be ordered (you can't repair the chassis or suspension pick-ups on them at all). And yeah, I do a bit of writing for G-Force. I'll be covering the Exige rebuild in every issue and afterwards as I use it. It's just a ragular column on what the car's like to live with etc. I'll be writing other stuff for them too

Thankfully, he's mobile in his brace. The halo keeps his head still relative to his torso. He can live a pretty normal life for the next three months other than not being able to do anything too vigorous, work or drive. He is very active so he's going to have to throttle back a bit but I'm sure he will find things to keep himself occupied.

Near as we can tell Dad wasn't sitting centrally in his seat when it happened, his head was rotated like he was looking around or something. If he'd realised he was about to be hit and had sat central in his seat he'd have walked away with not even a scratch, like his passenger. The gash you can see in the photo below is dad's scalp literally splitting open from the force of his skull (now not attached to the rest of his body) trying to tear out of his head. A very nasty accident indeed. The good news is that the doctors down in Christchurch and the national spinal unit at Burwood have done a fantastic job and he'll be coming home today. 3 months in a halo/brace ahead now, but he should eventually make a full recovery.

Traction is nasty. He's currently got a "halo", which is a large metal ring which is screwed into his skull. There's then weight/pulleys trying to pull his head off. This keeps the vertebrae straight and helps it to heal right. This halo will stay on his head for 2-3 months, bracing his neck and keeping it straight and stopping him from damaging his spinal column.

PROJECT ON HOLD UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE: Hi all, just putting this up here as I'm going to have to call a halt to things for a week or seven. My father was involved in a massive accident in his Elise today, where he was hit behind while stationary by a Porsche after stopping to avoid some horses that had escaped onto the road. He has a broken neck and is very lucky to be alive. He's not paralysed but it's a miracle that he's not. He's not quite out of the woods yet, but he's been in surgery and is now in traction, where he will be for a few months at least. Obviously the Elise is worse for wear, how bad we're unsure but it doesn't really matter... with what's gone on in my project lately and now with my father coming to grief, I'm not really feeling very Lotusy right now.... I'm sure I'll be back on the horse soon enough, but for now I have other things that need my urgent attention. Cheers and drive safe everyone!

Right, well I'm organising the cylinder head inspection/rebuild today, but I thought I'd take the chance to post up a photo from the weekend. As part of the E-Type's 50th anniversary celebrations this year, the Jaguar Drivers' club held a little shindig at Taupo on the weekend. My father and I were in attendance with his immaculate S1 3.8L roadster. As well as driving some nice open roads, we were also treated to some parade laps at Taupo motorsport park. While it was pretty hard to misbehave when following a pace-car in single-file, I did manage to get the old girl sideways once or twice It was nice to get away from Auckland and the Lotus for a few days, but I'll admit that after having such fun in the Jag, I'm almost tempted to get one for myself now!

Thing is, at the moment, there's nothing I can really point to that indicates something's been put together wrong... There's no smoking gun, it's just not working as it should and there appears to be more than one issue here.... either way, I think the only person that'll be accountable here is me and my wallet

That's just the head gasket sitting up that makes it look like the liner has moved. Also, I know not to move the engine fullstop. Having said that, the bottom end is coming to bits anyway. The engine was already drinking oil at higher RPM (witness the amount of carbon on the pistons!) so something's amiss down there. For the cost of it, I'm thinking new liners and rings will be the way to go, I suspect something's not right with them, and given that it's coming to bits, for the few hundred extra that liners and rings cost, doing those and new bearings is a worthwhile insurance policy. Cunt's fucked and it needs fixing.... thank god it's winter and I wouldn't have been using the car anyway.

Right, well after a number of delays on the sodding car we're back on deck again. In stripping the thing down, it's become clear that the heatshield I've got on the firewall is struggling where it sits behind the manifold heatshield. Being about 10mm thick, it touches this heatshield and has promptly delaminated and is on the way to melting. This is precisely what happened to the OEM heatshield and why I pulled that off in the first place (although the OEM shield was way further along the degradation path). Given that the car's already half in bits again, I figure that I'll figure out a better solution while the engine stuff happens. Rear clam will come off again shortly (it's already unbolted), the roof will come off and the firewall will be stripped and re-lined in another product or products... with more of an emphasis on heat protection than sound absorption, since I can handle some noise, but can't handle the car burning to the ground. Onto the engine, I FINALLY managed to get the cylinder head off tonight. The good news is that there doesn't seem to have been any valve to piston contact and the bores look good. The valves all appear to be in good nick, with no OBVIOUS damage, but this is only after a cursory inspection. Given that I've come this far, I've decided that I'll strip the bottom end as well. I'd HATE to just rebuild the head and then find out there was another issue like a cracked ring that the valve issue was masking.... it might be a bit over-cautious, but I figure the engine's 2/3 stripped and going to be out of the car so what the hell? I also have a weeping driveshaft seal that's come about from all the engine in/out business so we'll replace that at the same time. So here you can see the head as it came out. The suspect #4 inlet valves are at top right. The remaining images are of the bottom end. #4 cylinder at left. Still a bit over the whole thing to be honest. Running out of space to do things where I am, so it's all cramped... I'm completely out of enthusiasm for the project at the moment, and really hating every minute I spend on the car right now. I've been here before though, and I know it'll pass, but I'm struggling right now. Having spent an awesomely fun weekend thraping around with my father in his E-Type Jag, I'm almost tempted to sell the Lotus and start looking for a nice Jaaaaaaaaaaag.

Well, last night I did a little more on the car. Made up some brackets and bought a shiny new digital DTI (I've been looking for an excuse for a while) and got to work checking the cam timing. This was to see whether the problem was caused by improperly set cam timing or a cambelt jumping a tooth or slipping on the verniers. With the exception of a few hundredths of millimetres though, everything seemed pretty close to being on, so it's unlikely that it's bent a valve through touching a piston unless something's let go on the bottom end. Tomorrow I whip the head off and begin the open-heart surgery.

Tonight I got back into the garage again for another couple of hours slog on the sodding car. Got a bunch of trim removed in the engine bay and the undertrays as well as a couple of litres of coolant drained off in preparation for pulling the head. I got the inlet manifold removed as well... everything looks to be in order so far as I can tell... Tomorrow I might make up some brackets to allow me to check the valve timing before I go about pulling everything apart... and might buy me some decent DTI gauges as I could do with some and I'll need some to set the cams up at the conclusion of the job. Ho hum.

Well tonight I finally plucked up the courage to get back out in the garage. I got the cam cover off and set about checking the valve clearances. I was expecting that this would have shown whether some of the clearances were either very low, perhaps indicating a recessed valve seat or failing valve, or a very high value indicating a bent valve. Based on the figures that Dave Andrews gave me, most of the valves were in spec. Of the ones that were out of spec, they were only just out and some of these were on the best-sealing cylinders... in short, I've yet to stumble across a "smoking gun" so to speak. So I'm not sure what more I can really find out without taking the head off... which will probably get tackled this coming weekend.