It's Just Like Christmas

I use a number of sources for parts, some more reliable than others. It really helps to get familiar with all of the Lotus Esprit parts manuals that are available out there for this kind of conversion. I have a couple of 80-87 manuals - one for UK cars and one for US cars. I also have PDF files of most of the other parts manuals, such as the S1 and S2 models, 88-92, 93-95, and 96-97 vintages. These can be had from various sources, such as Lotus Esprit World (you have to join Club Lotus to get access), individual websites where owners have scanned in copies of their manuals and making them available online, RD Enterprises has a website with the S1/S2 guides, and some people sell bootleg copies on CD, usually on eBay.

One problem with these electronic manuals is that most are graphical scans - they can't be searched for text, so finding part numbers is a real pain. Some are secure files, which means I can't use Adobe Professional to convert them to searchable PDFs, others are low-resolution scans, so even if they can be converted, the results aren't that great. So, as part of this project, I have created a spreadsheet that contains all of the parts manuals that I have managed to glom onto. It has taken about 3 months of evenings and weekends to transpose everything into Excel. I'm just about done, with some updates for the 80-87 turbo manual, and LEW has a 96-04 book that I need to compare against the 96-97 V8 book I've already converted, plus an S3 book I have on the way from the UK. Oh - and a lot of proofreading to make sure I haven't made any mistakes. I have taken some liberty with the formats of the manuals to fit them into a common table structure and I've tried to improve the consistency of part names and abbreviations used. The result is I now have a searchable list of a whole bunch of Esprit part numbers. What is missing, and what I will be working on in my spare time, is a parts chronology - a "horizontal" list of part numbers by section that shows when parts were added, deleted, and modified. There appears to be enough information in the parts manuals to take a good swipe at it. The problem so far has been trying to come up with a format that works.

The work has paid off, as I can now piece together all of the individual parts I need to glue everything together. More importantly, I know what I don't need to buy, so I can avoid jumping on a "rare" part that "might" be necessary. I can also understand the differences between various vintages of parts like wiring harnesses, fuel tanks, shift mechanisms, and other systems that are specific to model years. I'm counting on it to reduce the amount of wasted expense and the amount of rework I'll need to do on the parts I use.

Speaking of the parts I use, they are starting to arrive. There have been a couple of opportunities that have been too good to pass up that are stretching the budget a bit. Fortunately, my wife is a darned good banker, with flexible loan terms. The biggest source so far has been the Lotus Aftersales list. Lotus in the UK has been having garage sales for all kinds of parts for most of the road cars they have produced over the years. There are some Really Good Deals on this list, especially now that the dollar is stronger. Lotus opens up the factory for a day or two to punters, who pick through the parts and purchase what they need. For those of us unable to get to the factory, we can order parts through a Lotus dealer in the UK. I have been using Bell & Colvill. I send them a list and a credit card number, and Andy boxes everything up and ships it overseas. The first order arrived a few weeks ago, and I have another one in the works. I have found brakes, cooling system parts, wiring harnesses, ductwork, and shifter parts that are brand new for much less than retail. The wiring harnesses are a particularly good find, as I couldn't get the connectors and wires to make the harnesses for the price of the Lotus factory part.

Another great source of parts lately has been Martin Creech at SGT, also in the UK. They have recently announced a 75% off sale on some of their Lotus parts inventory. They have filled in some gaps in ductwork, clutch parts, and other bits and bobs, again new parts at good prices - even when shipping is added.

Other parts are coming from individuals parting out cars all over the world. I find out about these through the various forums out there that support Esprits. The hard part about this method is that in many cases, the owners of the parts don't set prices - they want the buyer to name a price and the negotiation starts from there. Sometimes, the price I pitch is apparently insulting, and that's the last I hear from them. Frustrating. Other times, deals can be worked out where everybody is happy. eBay seems to be the easiest route, because the market is a little more open, and the prices paid are set competitively - for the most part.

JAE is my preferred source for all things consumable, like hoses, suspension bushings, rebuild kits, gaskets, bearings, and brake parts. Jeff is an incredibly knowledgeable resoure, and he has the connections to find parts that are a little harder to find, like brand new hi-torque UN-1 gearboxes. He is a living encyclopedia on Esprit parts and has helped me figure out which routes to take when options arise. I wouldn't be able to do this without his help.

Clearing Out the Interior

One of the interesting things about this project is that everything seems to be falling together easily. I've been following the Lotus parts market for a long time, first to find parts for my '83, and then for this project. Since I bought the blue car, there suddenly seems to be just what I need popping up on eBay or LEW or somebody decides to part out a car that has just what I need. A case in point is carpeting.

Tony Grasso is an Esprit owner in Arizona. A year or so ago, he decided he wanted to recover his interior. Now Tony is not like most other Esprit owners. Instead of finding a good automotive upholsterer, Tony bought a sewing machine, some leather and a sharp knife and taught himself how to redo an interior. He then started making headliners for other owners and advertising them on the turboesprit list on Yahoogroups. About the time I decided to scrap the carpeting, Tony announced he was going to do carpet sets, and he was looking for patterns for as many Esprit models he could. Soo....

Out came the carpeting. It's one thing to remove carpeting from a car if you don't care about how it looks when you are done. It's another to try and peel it up so it can be used as a pattern for its replacement. Automotive carpeting is designed to be light, inexpensive, and conform to the contours of the interior, which includes some pretty tight corners. As a result, the backing is not very strong, at least when compared with the glue Lotus used to stick it to the car.




It eventually all came out. Above is the drivers side. Tony is also going to reproduce the luggage compartment carpeting, so I took that out as well. It is all now in Arizona, serving as patterns for Tony. Sometime after Christmas, a grey set and a black set will fall off the UPS truck. Later he will turn his sewing machine to the luggage compartment sets.

In addition to removing the carpeting, I started to pull out the rats nest of an alarm that was installed in the car. It was actually well-installed. All of the wires were routed along with the rest of the wiring harnesses in the car, so finding them wasn't a problem. Its just there were a LOT of them. The driving lamps installed in the front air dam were installed at the same time, so I took those out as well. I'll need the opening for airflow to the oil coolers anyway, so they won't be missed. There is one more wire to go that seems to wind its way into the instrument cluster. That will be removed when I pull the binnacle for redying.

This is the stripped out passenger side. The hoses and cables running along the sill are the AC lines and wiring harnesses for the dash and front of the car. These hoses will be replaced, as they tend to get porous over the years, and there is no better time to replace them when the sill is out. The carpeting won't go back in until the car is on the new frame, as the carpeting is glued over the access holes to the bolts holding the tunnel to the frame. The dash will be redyed in place, as it forms a structural part of the car.

Looking Inward...

The interior is a light grey. Everything is light grey - seats, console, dash, instrument cluster, headliner and carpeting. I have one other car that also has a grey interior. It gets driven year round, and Minnesota winters are not kind to light interiors. From the looks of it, neither is California. At first I thought it would clean up, but after working it over with a couple of different cleaners, it got better, but not good enough. So, the entire interior will get the Leatherique treatment this winter. I will also replace the carpeting, as that has taken a beating as well.

The materials in the interior are in pretty good shape overall. A lot of older Esprits start to have separation problems with the glue holding the leather to the dash. The glue gives up and the leather starts to pull away from the edges. This is almost impossible to fix without taking the windshield out. Fortunately, this car has not suffered that problem.

Another problem area is the corner of the seat bolsters on the outboard side of the seats. The seam splits and the foam starts to get damaged from getting in and out of the car. Before Lotus started installing seats that reclined, owners would often swap the passenger seat for the drivers seat when the bolsters got bad, so sometimes you see damage to the passenger seat bolster next to the console. The reclining Esprit seats still have the bolster wear problem, but the big 'ol knob on the outer side prevents the seats from being swapped. This is the passenger seat. As you can see (sorta), the bolsters are in good shape. Whoever the previous owner was, they must have had many passengers.

The drivers seat is another issue. Here you can see the seam has started to split, and there is some scraping on the seatback. I'm not sure what the scraping is from. The only way to fix it is to redye the seat. Bremseth has an interior guy working next door who does fabulous work on custom auto interiors (I really need to remember his name...). I'll have him take a look at the seam to see if it can be repaired. It's kind of a moot point since my wife can't drive Esprits with non-reclining seats. The fixed rake on the early seats is too far back and she can't see over the instrument cluster. I replaced the original seats in my '83 with V8 Esprit seats (reclines and has a lumbar support - Bonus!). They drop right in and don't look too much out of place. At the time, it was cheaper to go that route than to recover my original seats. I'm not sure if that is true anymore, but if somebody knows of a set of V8 seats out there looking for a home, let me know. In the meantime, I'll fix these up.

Leatherique will match the original color if I send them a sample. There are plenty of places where I can snip a bit of unexposed leather. I'm thinking I may make a color change, however my taste is pretty questionable when it comes to this stuff. I've considered moving the tan interior from the '83 over to this car and putting grey in the black car. We'll see.

A huge benefit of the Leatherique process is that to really make it work, you have to strip as much of the old dye off of the leather that you can. It takes some care to not wreck any stitching and you have to stop before you start making suede. Once the dye is removed, the Leatherique rejuvenating oil really has an opportunity to work. I redid the '83 interior more as a learning experience because I thought the leather was so far dried out that it was not salvageable. I was impressed with the results - the leather is much more supple even after 7 years. There will be lots to blog about when I start in on these panels.

Now Checking - Exterior

There are a couple of issues with the exterior of the car that will get addressed eventually. Some of it will get done while the frames are being exchanged because the parts that need refinishing will have to come off the car anyway. Others will take more thought.

The front and rear bumpers have their original finishes. They don't look too bad from across the room, however up close they have issues. The front is rippled slightly and the top of the rear bumper has stress cracks. The rear bumper will probably come off during the swap, so I will have the guys at Bremseth fix it up for me.

Both bumpers are the original semigloss black. When I had my '83 repainted (by Bremseth, by the way - they did an awesome job), I stayed with the semigloss front bumper but went with a gloss rear. I'm not sure what to do about the bumpers on FrankEnSPRIT. I think I may want them painted body color. Matching the finish may be a trick given how old the paint is.

The character line molding needs to be replaced. It has some sun damage and it is coming off the car on the right front corner. This stuff is still available so it should not be a problem.

The side marker lamps have a rubber mount that holds the lenses and a bright trim piece. These are dry-rotted and will be replaced. I think Moss Motors still has these new. I've seen them used on eBay now and again.

The CHMSL has a cracked housing. This is also black, so would be a good candidate for painting to match the body. If I do the bumpers, this will get painted too - after it is replaced.

The inner door seals are dried out as well.

The mirrors look pretty good. The mounting pads have discolored. If I can find replacements, I will change them out when I take the door panels off to redye them.

The front screen deep in the lower air dam is the only place where I have found rust. Bremseth found a guy to make a stainless mesh replacement on the '83 that really came out nice. I may do that again once I know what the final shape of the air dam will be. With the possibility of splitting the oil cooler like the later cars, I may want to use an '83 version that has some divisions in it already, or modify the '87 to better direct airflow.

The biggest problem is the top. The car has the composite roof with the old-style post and clip retainers at the rear. The top can't be removed without unscrewing the posts. Fortunately there is access to them from the engine compartment. This is not a new problem, as the top has some damage to it from someone trying to either pry the top off from the outside or push the top off from the inside, as the fibreglass around the posts is broken. This may be a simple matter of adjusting the clips. I think I will wait until the car is on the new frame, as the fact that the engine is out and that the rear frame brace had not been installed for several years may have allowed the body to change shape a bit. It was an effort to put the brace back in, with lots of raising and lowering of the car with a floor jack under the lower frame hoop to get the frame to open up enough to get the bolts in. On the plus side, those tiny posts and clips really secure the top.

I'll reserve judgement on the paint until I can polish it up. I've started using a system from Griot's Garage that is pretty slick. I have always been uneasy about using a power polishing system as I was afraid of burning the finish. The random orbital machine in this system is clutched so the pad will stop moving before the paint is damaged. It really works, and they have a good line of polishes to work with. It will be a good project to do while I'm waiting for parts.

The Evaluation Starts - Electrical

Now that the car is clean, parts have been inventoried, and a place for the car has been found in the barn, it's time to start documenting what needs attention. I've already mentioned a few things, such as the missing BBS front wheel, the condition of the interior leather and the carpets.

I hooked up a battery to see what systems still worked. With the starter out of the car, some temporary wiring needed to be done in the engine compartment to hook up the battery. The positive power post on the starter is the place where the positive battery cable is attached to the car. There is also a ground post on the frame right next to where the starter goes that hooks up the primary ground. After making the connections, I attached the battery to the car with jumper cables. I wanted a quick way to disconnect power in case something started smoking. Fortunately the car passed the sniff test.

Without an engine, you can test about half of the cars electrical systems. Accessories like power windows, audio systems, lights, blower motors, wipers, and radiator fans is about as far as you can go. The charging system, gages, and all of the engine control stuff is out of reach. Testing could have been complicated by the fact that there is an aftermarket alarm system installed in the car. There are no instructions for it, so I don't know how to disable it. Long term this isn't a problem, as the alarm will be one of the first things to go.

Here is what I was able to test:

• Windows - both worked fine
• Audio - Receiver worked, antenna went up and down
• Wiper - wiped. Couldn't tell on the washer
• Lights - Both headlight pods raised and lowered more or less at the same time. Headlights and brights worked. Taillamps, running lamps, turn signals, worked. Can't tell about backup lamps or switch on gearbox. I did not test the brake lights as I didn't want to press on the brake pedal with the rear calipers cabletied to the frame.
• Blower motor worked, but was a bit noisy.
• Horn did not work.
• I couldn't tell about the dash lamps, as there was too much ambient light.

Once the alarm is out I'll take another run at the horn, and a couple blocks of wood will make dandy brake disc simulators.

Lots and Lots of Parts

The previous owner of the car had said the engine had been disassembled in an attempt to track down a problem. He wasn't kidding. This engine was well and truly taken apart. The parts weren't packed well for long term storage, so I was worried that I was going to find damaged parts, and worse, I would not find the one or two Very Expensive parts that I would eventually need to put the rebuilt engine into the '83 Esprit. One by one, I emptied the boxes onto the floor. We had some rainy/snowy weather on the way back from California, so many of the boxes had started to come apart, opening up gaps where things could fall out.

Armed with my trusty parts manual (THE most important document you can have for any car, in my opinion), I dove into the pile. Most of the big pieces were easy to identify and as I marked them off the list, I organized them as they would go together. This way I would be able to identify parts that might be missing quicker. It got a little harder when I got to the head, as there are a lot of little bits holding the valve train together. The bigger pieces went to a local machine shop to take a trip through their parts washer to remove all of the oil and grime. Smaller parts got a soak in my parts washer.

All of the little bits, like valve keepers, shims, bolts, washers, tappets and anything else that looked like it could get lost easily was stuffed into ziploc bags and labeled with an indelible pen. Then everything that could fit went into a big plastic bin and put on the shelf . This will make it easier when things go back together.


I was very pleased and quite surprised to discover that everything was there with the exception of the rear air conditioner compressor bracket and the bolts that attach the sump to the bearing support. These bolts were going to get replaced with stainless parts in the rebuild, so they aren't a big deal. I'll turn to the web to find a replacement bracket. There is still a lot of measurements to take, and there are no markings on the pistons or bearings to indicate which piston goes with which liner, or how all of the valve train matched up. There is no indication that there was piston to valve contact, which is a Very Good Thing with these engines. I'll probably never know why the engine was dismantled in the first place, but as long as it goes back together well, I suppose it doesn't really matter. And it makes the story better.

Home Sweet Home

In this post, the car is now home. These pictures were taken after the engine compartment had been unloaded and a trip to the car wash. The building in the background will be its home while the transformation happens.

Overall, the car is in better shape than I was expecting. At least parts of the car have been repainted at one time, and whoever did it did a reasonable job. There are a few stress cracks in the paint here and there and it could use a good buff and polish. I don't think I will need to worry about paint any time soon.

The interior is another matter. The leather is complete but quite dry. The good news is there is only one split seam in the drivers seat. These usually take a beating over the years as people slide in and out over the bolsters. The seat padding is fair on the drivers side. It's a little hard to tell for sure since the leather is stiff. I had already planned on redying the interior, so this is not a problem. I used Leatherique on the '83 and was very pleased with the results. Their rejuvenation oil works great, especially if you remove the old dye before applying the oil. I should get good results with this leather. The carpeting is very dirty and will need to be replaced in both the passenger compartment and the luggage compartment.

There are a few fibreglass bits to fix. The trunk floor has a crack in it and it looks like the engine cover got dropped on a corner somewhere along the way. The car cleaned up great - you can tell it spent most of its time in the west, as the steel parts show hardly any rust at all. The wheels are fair, with some pitting on the polished aluminum. It should polish out ok, but the real problem is one of the front wheels is missing. The car is currently riding on the spare tire. These wheels are pretty hard to find, so if anybody out there has a lead on a polished rim BBS front wheel for an Esprit - please let me know.

Next up - More cleaning and an inventory of all of the parts in boxes.

Project Takes Another Turn - Introducing FrankEnSPRIT

Fast forward to the middle of last year. About June or July of 2007, an ad for a 1987 Esprit Turbo was placed in the Golden Gate Lotus Club newsletter. The GGLC is one of the largest Lotus owners clubs in the world. They run lots of track days, drives, dinners, car show meetups, and general Lotus camaraderie, plus the run the West Coast Lotus Meet. They also provide a lot of technical assistance to owners and wannabe owners world wide. In fact, some of the members of the GGLC were instrumental in me buying my first Espit. The previous owner sent me a video tape tour of the car. I was able to show the tape to a number of GGLC Esprit experts for their evaluation of the car. I would up buying it, partially based on their advice. They also provide a ton of documentation, advice and technical information on their website. That alone is worth the fee for joining. There are a couple of other Lotus resources that we will get to in the next few posts that are worth looking into.

Anyway, back to the ad. The car was described as being in pretty good condition, however the engine had been taken apart. The color of the car as described was one I had never seen on a G-bodied Esprit before, so it sounded kindof interesting, however the price was a little high for a car in it's condition. The ad ran in the newsletter for several months in a row, when I noticed that the price was coming down with each passing ad. Eventually it got to the point where it was an interesting deal.

As you may recall, I started this whole exercise with the idea of putting my later frame under my recently painted '83 Esprit. The more I thought about it, the less I liked the idea, because of the chance of wrecking the paint lifting the body off of the old frame. By now, I had gotten the bugs out of the car and it was (and still is) running great. I also decided that I liked the carburetor setup on the car. The induction noise is like no other fuel injected setup, and I am pretty darned good at balancing the carbs. It takes about 20 minutes start to finish to keep them running at their peak. So, I got to thinking that this partially disassembled '87 Esprit would be just the ticket for my project. I could take the old frame of the '87, put in my "new" frame and drive train, sort out all of the bugs, and still drive my '83 - and have no deadlines.

Plus, I'd have a bunch of extra parts that would be handy for the '83 when the cast aluminum pistions finally melted and I'd have to rebuild the engine. Pretty much everything would be useful, even the extra Citroen gearbox. About December of last year, the price finally got down to the point where I called about it.

The car had a bit of a history to it. It seems the seller was an artist (still is, actuall) and had a loft studio in the San Francisco area. There was some extra space in the studio, which he rented out for storage space for cars. Apparently, the owner of this Esprit stored the car in the studio and disappeared. Eventually, the seller wanted to leave the loft and move out of the city. He tried to locate the owner, but was unsuccessful. He went through the process of obtaining a title for the car, as it had been abandoned. He moved the car to his new location and put it back into service.

The engine had some sort of problem - a knock, loss of power, something. He took the car to a trusted mechanic to diagnose the problem. One thing led to another, and the engine was removed from the car and totally dismantled. The mechanic presented a bill for $10,000 to put everything back together. The seller didn't like the sound of that, so he had the parts packed up and the car hauled out to a shed in Petaluma. There the car sat for quite some time before he decided to try and sell it.

Now we come back to the GGLC. I put the word out that I was interested in the car and asked if there was anyone in the area who could check out the car for me. Roy Nakamura volunteered to drive out and take a look. He reported that the car was cosmetically in pretty good shape, including the interior. It was a little dirty after having sat for so long, and the leather had started to stiffen up a bit. Tires all held air, and it seemed complete. There were boxes and boxes of parts stacked behind the car, but time and space didn't allow a complete inventory. Most of the big engine parts seemed to be there. I talked to my wife about it and convinced her it was a Really Good Deal based on the price, Roy's report and the spare parts I would have. Once she agreed, I pulled the trigger and bought the car. I sent out a check and worked out a deal to come pick up the car when the winter weather moved out of the Rockies.

A few months later, my wife and I found ourselves in the area (how convenient, eh?) for a vacation in February, so we took the opportunity to meet the seller and check out the car. I was very pleasantly surprised to find the car to be in better shape than I expected from Roy's description. We still didn't have time to inventory the parts, but there didn't seem to be anything major missing. When we got back home, I started rearranging the barn and making plans for the trip out. Oh - and we took some pictures....

We finally got calendars and passes to align in May for the pickup. My dad, brother and I turned it into a guys week out and drove out to California to pick it up. The trip by itself is worth another blog, as we packed up the pickup and dragged an empty car trailer over 4000 miles there an back again. You can see pictures of the Great Western Roadtrip here:

http://mikegriese.myphotoalbum.com/albums.php

There are a lot more pictures of FrankEnSPRIT there as well.

Suspension

The suspension on Lotus Esprits has undergone a number of changes over the life of the car. It would take a book to go over all of them, but the most important ones for FrankEnSPRIT are the transition to a lower front 'A' arm instead of a lower control arm located by the antiroll bar in 1985 and the move from inboard brakes to outboard brakes on the rear when the Citroen gearbox was changed in favor of the Renault UN-1 gearbox in 1989. The bulk of the changes since them are evolutionary details on a theme rather than revolutionary changes.


The frame I obtained for the project had the newer front suspension arrangement and could accept either the inboard or outboard brake arrangement at the rear. I had purchased a spare Citroen gearbox for my '83 Esprit back when I was having so much trouble with the pinion in my original gearbox. Since this would bolt up to the Emme engine with no modifications other than a new spigot bearing in the Emme crankshaft, I planned to use this gearbox and an inboard brake arrangement. So I kept my eye out for the appropriate parts on the Lotus Esprit Forum, Lotus Esprit World, eBay, and Yahoo Groups turboesprit forum. I was eventually able to find everything I needed for the back end of the car.

Here's the outboard brake version of the rear suspension. The parts wrapped up in towels are the driveshafts...




For the front suspension, I wanted the most adjustable pieces I could find. The original Esprit front suspension did not have caster or camber adjustment. You got what you got when everything was torqued down. Later models provided full adjustment, so that is what I looked for. I got close enough on an Esprit SE that was being parted out in Arizona. I got the complete front suspension, steering rack, gearshift mechanism, and rear suspension and driveshafts. All of the rubber parts of the suspension will need to be replaced, as well as the ball joints and bearings. There are still some bits I would like to upgrade to, such as the later V8 lower front control arm bushing arrangement, the upper front control arms for camber adjustment, and an adjustable upper link to set rear camber, but that can wait until the car is on the road. I have enough to build a working suspension that will get the car driveable. I'll also be able to find out where I might have some interference between the front wheels and the front wheel openings. Wider wheels with a greater range of adjustment at the front will cause rubbing of the front tires on the bodywork somewhere.

Here's the front suspension. Note I haven't hooked up the rack to the steering arms...

Springs and shocks will be another decision down the road, as I'm not sure just how much the finished car will weigh. It will be heavier than a stock '83, but not nearly as heavy as a '95 S4S, so a combination of stock Lotus parts probably won't work out. Brakes are another area that need some thought. I want bigger brakes, but just what to use (SE, S4, S4S, Early V8, Brembo, AP Racing, or go outside and use Wilwood) is still a mystery. Wheels will play a role in this decision as well, as the brakes have to fit inside the rim. I figure it will depend on what is available and what I find first - brakes or wheels.

The Frame

Replacing engines in an Esprit is not terribly difficult to do, as long as there aren't any differences between what you are taking out and what you are putting in. When you make changes from carburetors to fuel injection, or non-chargecooled to chargecooled, the problem gets a lot more complex, as there are significant differences in plumbing, fuel delivery, and electronics. Fuel tanks are different, tubing in the center backbone is different, wiring harnesses and relay compartments change, and you need to find a place for the engine control unit.

After doing some research into the various systems, it became clear that if I wanted to minimize the amount of time the Esprit was down while making the conversion, I would need to sort out the differences outside the car. The easiest way to do this seemed to be to build up a completely separate undercarriage that could be swapped for the original frame and running gear. I doule work out all of the bugs in a lot more open environment and still drive the Esprit while I was doing it. This also opened up the schedule, since I wouldn't need to cram everything into a sinle winter. This path had the additional feature of allowing me to upgrade suspensions without having to mess with cutting and welding the original frame, which means I would have a much wider variety of wheels, tires and brakes to choose from. And the fact that Keen Young just happened to have a spare frame cluttering up his shop made the decision a heckuva lot easier.

This particular frame started out life as right-hand drive. This means that the mounts for the pedal box are on the right side of the front crossmember. A previous owner installed the frame in a left-hand drive Esprit racer. A second set of pedal box mounts was welded to the left side of the front crossmember, and some welds were made to the central box section to anchor a rollcage. Other than a little warping from the heat of the welds, the frame is in very good condition. The plan as of now is to grind off the remainder of the rollcage mounts, clean up the welds for the added pedal box mounts, and have the frame coated. I'm not sure what to use at this point, but there is plenty of time to sort that out. First, I need to add the suspension, plumbing, shift mechanism and other various bits and pieces to get the drive train tested out. That will take some time (and money!). Then I will disassemble everything, refinish what needs it, and then put it all back together again.

The Engine

A curious happenstance helped get the ball rolling. Back in the mid-nineties, a Brazilian company was building a supercar called the Emme. It was built around the Lotus turbocharged 4-cylinder engine available at the time, what is commonly known as SE-spec. Eventually, the compay failed (after only building about a dozen cars) and the remaining parts inventory was sold off for liquidation. For some strange reason, the liquidator chose to announce the availability of the engines to the world - still in their original packing crates as shipped from Lotus - on the LOON website. Our tiny little organization in the middle of Minnesota was the first to find out about them. The price for the engines shipped to your door was less than the cost of a set of replacement pistons and liners, so a whole new engine could be had for less than the parts cost of a rebuild.

After convincing my wife that this was a Really Good Deal (a theme that will present itself over and over again in this tale), I contacted the seller and ordered one up after asking for pictures of an engine as it was uncrated. I was astonished by the condition of the engine when I unpacked it. It was perfect. It included all of the accessories, belts, wiring harness, ECU and even sensors. The bolts and other cad-plated parts were still shiny and bright. There were still signed assembly and dyno test tags attached to the intake manifold. The exhaust manifold was made for a front engine rather than mid-engine installation, and I would have to source a chargecooler. The only problem area found was the water pump. Some coolant was left in a pocket when the engine was drained and rusted the impeller. One of the other LOON members ordered an engine after seeing mine, and after a water pump rebuild and gasket replacement, the engine fired right up. I now had an engine that could run up to 350 or so horespower - a significant upgrade from the 212 provided by the carbureted engine in my '83 Esprit.

And the rest of the engines? Once word got out, they were snapped up pretty fast. Some by individuals, others by some of the parts houses. They're all gone now.

In The Beginning

I got the idea to do something like this about 3 years ago. I have a 1983 Esprit Turbo that was a bit rough when I bought it in 1998. Over the years, I have been steadily improving the car, fixing exhaust leaks, oil leaks, gearbox leaks and other various and sundry mechanical issues. I've rebuilt the gearbox (twice!) due to a munched pinion and an ill-advised replacement part made by a gear house in Australia. The going rate for pinions and the exchange rate made it seem like a good idea at the time. Since then, I have found Harry Martens in the Netherlands who is able to provide most any part you need for the Citroen gearbox. Dave Bean Engineering and JAE are also excellent resources for parts and technical advice (Thanks Ken and Jeff!). I have recarpeted the car front and rear, redyed the interior, and had the car repainted. I guess you could say the car has been pretty much restored. It has been driven to a number of Lotus Owners Gatherings, and has never failed to place in the casual concours.

I joined the local Minnesota Lotus club (the Lotus Owners Oftha North - or LOONs) early on, and they have been invaluable with providing help, advice, tools, and encouragement. My wife would call it enablement. Tim Engel, Jeremy Engel, Dave Lindemann, Dave Cammack, Jess Hartley, and Keen Young have been particularly helpful in getting my '83 into the condition it is in. Another great resource is the turboesprit list on yahoogroups. What we can't figure out locally, the list can usually resolve within a matter of hours.

But I digress. Keen Young got started with Esprits by finding a repairable car and doing the bulk of the repairs himself. Watching his progress with his first car, the work he did on his second Esprit, along with helping out with gearbox rebuilds, engine rebuilds, along with all of the other work I helped out on for other LOON Esprit owners convinced me that there really isn't much to this stuff as long as you are willing to make the occasional mistake. Armed with a service manual and (most important) a parts manual, there isn't anything I won't try on these cars. I have gotten to the point of picking up some of the original Lotus service tools, and have had fixtures made for tools I couldn't find. For anyone who is rebuilding a Citroen transaxle, I have a kit with all of the factory tools necessary to properly locate the pinion, set differential bearing preloads, and torque the speedo gear. Let me know if you need the kit and I'll send it out. You pay shipping both ways, use whatever shims you need, and put your old parts back in the box to replace the parts you take out.

I digress again. After having driven my Esprit for a number of years and taking it out on a few tracks, I have begun to want more power. More power means more brake and tire, and in the case of the Esprit, more brake means bigger wheels. One of the peculiarities of the early Turbo Esprits is the inboard location of the rear brakes. This leaves a lot of room at the hub for some pretty radical rear wheel offsets. Lotus used this to put together some great looking BBS wheels, but because of the offsets, no generally available wheel with a larger diameter is available. Wheels can be made, but they get pretty spendy as you are automatically into a 3-piece wheel at the rear. So, I got to thinking.

Keen's experience taught me that the hard points of the Esprit have not changed in the 20+ years the cars were made. This means that the frames are pretty much interchangeable. As are the drivetrains, brakes, suspension and anything else that goes under the car. My original thinking was to build up a later frame with all of the running gear, suspension improvements, plumbing, and accessories sourced from the Lotus parts bin. I would then swap out the '83 frame for this new frame over a winter. This way, I could work out most of the bugs on the new parts and still drive the car. My original idea has changed, and as the blog goes on, I'll get into the reasons why, and how I am going about the task of building FrankEnSPRIT. Some of this is past tense, some is happening now, and the rest we will learn about as we get there.