Project GT2 - Lotus Esprit engine introduction #02 (Jan-22)
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- čas přidán 9. 01. 2022
- Still finding my feet with these and deciding how I want to show the project.
This episode is all about getting the 910s engine onto the engine stand. It is usually sunk well into the Esprit's bodywork so it make s change to be able to see all around this motor when it is out of the car.
This episode set me back about 2.5 weeks to complete and is why I never really wanted to do a vlog - the work involved with this was horribly time consuming! Plus the delays with parts...
#Lotus #Esprit #projectGT2
Music Credits :
- Nightingale Lofi - Be Right There
- Unicorn Heads - Nine Lives
- Dan Henig - Subway Dreams - Auta a dopravní prostředky
Great video for Lotus geeks and something I’d like to do one day. You’ll probably find it’s a slow burner, but a series that will find new viewers for years to come. Thanks for putting it out there.
Glad you liked it, I agree, it should have value in the long run. I doubt it'll be the 1st and only time I have to work on one of these engines, so I might get the chance to film it as a tutorial, not a story at some point :)
Cool project. Came here from the stop motion Esprit project (George?, Soup something or other??). Anyway somebody in the comments there mentioned an Solidworks FEA on the Esprit chassis which is like catnip for car nerds, so here I am. I’m just getting started on the video series, I hope you’ve kept up the enthusiasm. Thanks for documenting!!!
Great to see another video in this series. And they're getting better. Keep up the good work, but wear some bloody shoes when lifting an engine!
haha thanks for the encouragement. Not sure my shoes would have been much protection against a 190kg crumping but I agree though it wasn't the best look! Some thing you only notice after you say 'I'm not doing that take again".
thanka for this. I'm about to do mine myself. You've inspired me to maybe document it too
Excellent video and information. A few pictures of the car would be nice. Can't wait to see the NEW turbo.😁
Thanks - the car is in kit form at the moment, however if you go to my channel you can watch Episode 1 and some of the other videos to get an idea of what is in store.
The narrow slot entry into the plenum is sort of like a dual plenum setup, its helping to even out the airflow coming into the plenum, ideally it would be wider as it looks to favour the centre two cylinders as is, but doesn't look like a bad setup despite what you might think on first glance :)
Yeah you can clearly see there will be flow issues to cylinders 1 and 4, it seems to handle it ok thou, especially with forced induction. The only other way you could do this is with a tubular manifold into the throttle, but at what cost?
I did a flow simulation a while back and you can see the uneven flow rates and layer sheer which doesn't help the overall flow rates and these can be improved significantly by porting. Some people also overcome this by adding a 20mm spacer on the plenum to increase the plenum volume which in theory is a good idea. Later in the series I want to do some serious CFD on the intake - I know the race cars got the CFM losses down to an extremely low value compared to the road cars by porting some of the serious mismatches in the castings.
Great video
I’m building a Sport 300 race car myself
Just finished the gear box with Quaife gear set straight cut first and a shorter gears. It has a Ford spline so we have a great choice of clutches
Thats awesome, I'd be really interested to see more. I've yet to plan out the gearbox. I wanted to go for a racing box until I saw the cost, so factored just running an uprated UN1 and LSD. Only company I know is GTO engineering but I haven't approached them yet as too much of the car is in bits as it is. Clutch was another issue I've not thought too much about yet but will be coming around soon.
@@JonHimself Hi Jon, I'm enjoying your videos.
I'm looking at getting the hatch, roof, front splitter and bonnet made in carbon fibre. I have been getting quotes from "Top Stage Composites" here in Aus.
Is there anywhere in the UK that does this sort of thing?
It is very expensive. I have the spare front splitter from the Sport 300 that raced here in Aus.
I ran it for a while on my other Sport 300
@@allenmoving I was gonna do all the composites myself. My previous employment was composites based so I have some knowledge but sadly not the facilities any longer. As far as light weight panels... no-one I know of makes them here specially, you'd have to get them made.
Yes it can be expensive . I have seen people cut out the flat sections of the tail and then bond in super light autoclaved carbon sheets / foam core to save on the tooling cost which would be incredibly high for the tailgate.
Roof is an easy cast over an existing one. I've a few options to consider but it wont be until later. I'd love to get the over sized rear wing done in carbon.
I suffer from chargecooler envy. I am very curious what turbo option you end up going with.
Your videos are awesome. Keep them coming please.
Thanks, I really enjoy your videos too 👍
There's a few Esprit projects on the go right now and they're all different which is great !
I've no idea on turbos yet - and I am not sure whether to go modern or old skool. From my learning the S4S/S300 manage 40 more HP by simply having more volumetric flow and a larger flow turbo vs increasing boost pressure alone. So that is step one, PLUS I want to keep the original ECU which has its limitations on boost control and sensors span.
I think once the induction system is completely flowed we can look at the volumetric efficiency and match a turbo to this to get my HP target of ~ 350.
Its a shame there is limited info on the real race cars, I know the info is out there but so little was put into the public space - not sure I want to just blindly copy it, other than use it as a basis for my own ideas. In the end it'll probably be done that way, but the point of the project was to homage the race cars. Sadly very few people realise how good they were.
I suggest going with a small ball bearing turbo for the 350hp level for quick spool and efficiency. Throw some bigger injectors in adding a piggy back system to “trick” the ECU airflow reading. Ideally though something to adjust timing would be superior too. I agree there isn’t a lot of info on what is best for upping the power in these cars including what accompanying modifications are needed to handle the power.
The nice thing about your goal is you should have no problem meeting it on pump gas and no meth injection. Probably increasing your chargecooler size will be beneficial.
@@SlippingTime getting a road car to higher performance is fairly easy, a few people have done it (search Dermot O'Hare) and loads of info on Lotus Esprit World / WC engineering. That's not the ultimate goal of this project. I want to build an accurate as possible replica of the race car which is where the info dries up fast, even Lotus dont know!
The car will be very much sympathetic to the GT2 rules so no big chargecoolers etc - as far as I know the system Lotus ran was fairly stock apart from the turbo and exhaust cam. Hopefully this series might bring out some of the info
@@JonHimself lotus may have added some secret sauce or maybe just turned it up hoping for the best. I would have thought they would have some info they could have shared or even a contact that worked for them back in the day that is still around.
@@SlippingTime You'd be surprised how many people I have asked over the years, and their position at Lotus. Lotus are/were not a company to hold back this kind of stuff so I genuinely believe its past memory. The closest I got was the original S300 race car sales brochure. I do however have a few good leads and I'll keep chipping at it, if nothing turns up, I'll go my own way which wont stop me and I am completely happy with :)
Its just a shame as I think it'd be great for others to see and I love a good research project, but knowing the history of the cars I can see why they have faded into obscurity somewhat.
Such a cool project. You're not tempted at all to slot a V6 in the hole? WRT the 4 cylinder, would it be worth removing the ITBs and fitting a large single throttle body? Is there an advantage to ITBs in a boosted application? The airflow path seems quite tortuous to accommodate them, the IC core could go in their place if the TB was nearer the turbo.
Very much enjoying watching along, production seems excellent to me!
Hi Adam, the project is a nod the original endurance cars which ran Lotus' 4 cylinder. Its the engine that is synonymous with the car and besides it's actually a good engine. I am modifying a lot of the car but in the end it has to be identifiably a Lotus.
The ITB allows you to have much faster engine reaction esp with a turbo and high boost. If I went single throttle near the turbo you'd get a large surge of mass air flow which is undesirable. This rapid de-compression would also cause a huge drop in turbo pressure, possibly causing surge and stalling.
With the ITB and large plenum, there is a large pressurised volume waiting to be ingested by the engine and it only has to travel 4" to the inlet. Pressures are much more consistent and manageable. This is also the argument people have against fitting blow off valves and something I will be looking into at a later date with a conclusive answer.
@@JonHimself interesting, thanks for the detailed answer. The charge of pressurised air downstream of the turbo is an interesting point I'd not considered. Appreciate you want to keep the i4 it looks like an interesting example of the breed! Will you be fitting modern management or keeping with the original systems? It's going to be great fun following along.
@@AdamDUrso sadly the original ECM needs to stay for it to still be the car I want it to be. I say sadly because tuning the original ECU is nigh on impossible, a modern ECM would have been so much more fun and featured but again it would have detracted from the originality of the car. This also potentially limits me to ~ 1.05 bar (15 psi) of boost, so in order to hit my power target I have to do some trickery elsewhere. Sad thing is the number of people who know about these cars is only getting less, I'd like to take that mantle on one day. Maybe I can piggy back another ECM onto the original to help? It's something I've got to research over the next few weeks.
@@JonHimself That is a shame but I appreciate your desire for originality... There are some cool aftermarket options out there for the dedicated tinkerer, clearly something to research down the line.
Great video, the detail that you go through is very inspiring to anyone wanting to work on a 910S motor. Will you be using one of the new dual scroll turbochargers to replace the factory one? The advantage being no turbo lag and fast response time.
Thanks - it's what I want to achieve in this series, it might be boring for some but I wanted to show the detail in a way that was still somewhat entertaining.
I've not looked at turbo options yet, I'm still collecting and waiting on information about the build. My concern is the exhaust manifold which as you can see is not well balanced and may not serve a twin scroll correctly to gain the benefits, this is where I intend to use experts on the subject to give a pro-con answer. The ultimate goal would be to go towards a tubular manifold where the correct headers match up to the turbo correctly, but cost, time etc.
Main thing is to get the engine built and running then explore options as I hope this is going to be a long term project and not the last time I will be fiddling with the engine.
Thanks for the feedback.
Bell Smash #bingbong
What's your plan with transmission? I have seen people putting Porsche boxster transmission in it. It would really cool to get a PDK working on the car. There is company called HTG that does standalone controllers.
Right now the power train is on hold as I've drawn a lot of dead ends. Most people don't want to do bespoke work like this, and/or the cost goes thru the roof. Clutch is a major problem right now. The strong possibility is that I buy a second engine and just run that whilst developing the final concept as these things can take years. I dont really want to run another OEM gearbox, if I went this route I'd be looking at something from Quaife or similar aftermarket.
@@JonHimself Yeah. I read the original used Hewland. This is an awesome project. Really appreciate you sharing with us on CZcams!
@@landdevil Yep it was a Hewland DG300. Thanks for the encouragement - it is being worked on every single day.