A very late Happy New Year to all! Again. Where does time go? Long time no update. So here we go!

It has been a while since I have had the chance to look at my car. I got distracted by my employer offering me the opportunity to work overseas for a while. This led to a flurry of Lotus parts selling in order to clear the garden and garage, along with other activities all of which drew my attention away from getting the green car going. I have sold the sand and JPS cars as part of the going away clear up the place plan.

It goes without saying that the whole relocation process is taking a lot longer than anyone thought, and we will be here for the first quarter of this year (at least). So I will be around for our annual trip to North Wales, and I would like to go in the Plus 2 (Having failed to get it going for last year's trip).

You might remember from where I left off that the head gasket had gone, and the top of the engine was awaiting reassembly. In the end the head was given a minimal skim and the valves cleaned up and lapped in. Well, that has been done and it is back safely on the car.

While I was having the engine grief I was thinking (and not for the first time) of doing a Zetec engine swap. I even went as far as getting an unused 1.8 Zetec engine (pic below) ready, but have since sold it. I still want to fuel inject the Lotus engine though.

The car is currently without an MOT, and is running, but badly. The compression is OK and even on all the cylinders so that is good news. Also there is no oil or water smoke. Even though it never used be to I am a little surprised at the lack of any oil smoke on start up because the guides did seem worn. I know that they are not supposed to be tight, so maybe it is normal to have a bit of play.

The MX5 seats that I slaved over to fit have found a new home in my brothers Triumph Spitfire. The thinking was that if I was leaving the country and had to sell the car it would be easier with the standard seats fitted. Also his seats were water damaged, and he really wanted the MX5 ones. I have not refitted the standard seats yet, and want to replace the rubber diaphragm underneath before doing so. The part is unavailable new, so I will be getting hold of some webbing and reinforcing the existing diaphragm.

Other things on the list for the MOT is to get the brake servo reconditioned, and get the headlights working and adjusted. And fix the handbrake of course. I had some H4 halogen lamp units to fit but sold them. Now I have to buy some more!

I am sure that the poor starting and running is due to a a fault with the ignition system, so I have been playing with that. The spark seems very weak. I have a complete alternative system with Lumenition fitted, but cannot get that to work at the moment. I will have to set it up off the car (kitchen table) and see where I am going wrong. Picture of the system being tested below. I also promised to put up some pictures of the rear of the car showing the ride height difference at the rear following the spring change so please see below.......

Right, I have spent some more time on the car and here is where we are………

Well, having got the Lumenition system working I have now fitted it to the car. I got a bit confused and ended up retiming the car about 5 times. I also put distributor back on 180 degrees out and got the plug leads in the wrong order leading to a few backfires of galactic proportions. Now all that is right I have found is that the car is incredibly hard to start and the plugs are sooting up quickly. I am using some platinum tipped ones from my brothers 300 (ex) ZX and they do seem to help. I have made some further adjustments to the carbs (thank you to everyone on the Sidedraft forum on Yahoo) and (very importantly it seems) cleaned the spark plugs with Redex and a toothbrush. Now I have a pretty good idle and the car drives reasonably well, although there are still some tuning issues to deal with because the carbs still spit at light throttle openings, but all in all I am fairly happy for the moment.

As far as preparations to getting the car MOT’d I have got the standard seats back in (I still want to reinforce the webbing but that will have to wait). I have also got the bad earth in the front indicator fixed and so now all the lights and indicators work as they should. Since fitting the connecting bar to the headlights they go up and down beautifully (together) but the beam will need adjusting. Actually they only stay up for 5 minutes before starting to sag, so I will have to run through the system looking for air leaks.

Also I have changed the front roll bar for one I made earlier (actually from my yellow car) because one of the bushes on the one fitted to the car had split and slid down the bar (see below). Some oil to the air horns has them working well, and I have rigged up the horn push on the steering wheel. That necessitated making up a contact inside the push because there was not one there!

I have greased and adjusted the handbrake and it seems to work. I am sure that the mot tester will have something to say about it, so I always take along a socket so I can tighten the callipers up on the spot and loosen them off for the drive back afterwards!

My biggest current problem is the missing brake servo. I have not had it rebuilt yet and I really want to get the car MOT’d this week. That way I can take the car to Donington and onwards to North Wales at the end of the month. My main hope is to borrow the one from Simon up the road’s car. I really do not want to spend £100+ on a Lockheed one while my Girling is being rebuilt. Update: Simon did not seem keen so I have refitted the original servo which worked but leaked internally. I am hoping that it is a very slight leak and lasts for the MOT and perhaps Donington and the Wales trip. Needless to say I will be keeping a very close watch on the brake fluid reservoir. I actually found that I still have the Girling (old style fitted to early cars) unit from the sand coloured car. It looks in reasonable condition and has passed the sucking test to see if it holds a vacuum. I have fitted it (see pic above) and get a great pedal, and it works, but unforunately the brakes lock on occasionally (common servo problem) so no go (literally) with that one.

I bought a good tool the other day. It is a Gunsons Trackrite and is used as the name suggests to measure the tracking on the car. I have wanted one of these devices for a while, as having it done at a garage is expensive and I never really trust the equipment. The trackrite goes on the floor and you drive the car over it to get a toe in/out reading. I thought mine looked toe out and on measuring so it was. I have now set it to toe in slightly. It only took 15 minutes. My brother’s Triumph Spitfire was even easier to do as you can reach the steering rack tie arms from above.

I have the MOT booked for this Friday the 16th. Wish the car luck!

Pictures to follow ASAP..........top

Well the very good news is that the car passed. Much to my surprise the handbrake got full marks and I am actually now using it as nature intended rather than slacking it right off after the test as I used to with my yellow car.

It was about 45 minutes to the MOT centre on a Friday afternoon so there was much traffic. The car behaved itself really well and drove nicely until about 3 minutes from our destination whereupon it started missing badly, and finally cut out right in front of the door of the MOT centre. I had to take out the plugs and get the garage to clean them before the car would restart! Typical. At least it did not strand us a mile away which is what one would normally expect. On the way back we had another plug fouling episode and nearly had to call for help, but eventually got the car restarted again. I am not sure what was causing the fouling, but it could be a combination of a poor spark and the wrong plugs. I had some platinum tipped ones from my brothers 300ZX fitted. I have changed them back to the standard NGK's with a 6 heat rating. I have never been convinced that the ignition system is performing as well as it should, so as a temporary measure I have fitted a ballast coil to spice things up. I say temporary because from what I have read it will soon burn out. I will keep a spare standard one in the boot.

Because of the plug fouling (and my Mother planning to visit) I decided not to risk a trip to Donington. I hope to have any faults fixed for the long drive to North Wales on the 29th of March. I will be running the car in the dark this evening (again) to see if I can spot any ignition arcing. I have a suspicion that it is going on, but have failed to find any evidence in the past. This time I will get under the car and look from below as well. (Update .... saw nothing).

I was in Halfords today wandering around looking for anything that caught my eye (not quite the same as Donington) and I saw something that I had previously only seen advertised abroad, and then only in a left hand drive version. It is an interior blind spot mirror (pictures above). My car has no external mirrors and is a right pain to drive sometimes as a result. For cars like mine this mirror thing is absolutely brilliant. Apart from a good view up the side of the car, it also lets one see out of a good portion of the back window, all at a glance from my normal driving position. Result!

Having now had the benefit of driving around with it a bit more I think that it might be better to mount it a little higher on the window. I do not fancy unsticking it right now, having just stuck it there, but maybe sometime later I will experiment with the positioning. In fact I have moved it up to eye level and it does work better (see below), although it does create a bit of a blind spot when you look to the right. Well, it is a blindspot mirror. top