You are right, the engine sounds great. My only worrys about this
installation would be first if the frame could take the torque of the
engine in the rear section and second how big a tire are you going to
put on the car.
My twincam is bolted in with some pretty flimsy looking tubing motor
mounts that are quite long. I don't think these would be adequate
for a V8 even though it might weigh about the same as the 4. Even if
you beefed up the mounts, is the frame up to the torque? Have you
compared this frame with a regular 23? Has it been beefed up for the
V8? The 19s do it pretty regularly so there must be a solution.
The loti that normally run with V8s are the 19s and they run pretty
narrow tires for all the HP. If the tires get too big, even the
available chrome-moly suspension bits might not take the beating. If
they do live, the frame mounts might not. I don't think you should
put superwide tires on the car. Just learn to be easy on the gas
coming out of corners. Look at what tires the 19s are running.
Good luck with the car. It sounds like a very interesting project.
Don Stark
--- In L23Registry@..., "marinmcgreevy"
<marinmcgreevy@s...> wrote:
All,
I have placed a MPEG (movie) file in the files folder. This movie
shows (and lets you listen!) to the car's original engine being
started for the second time since 1965. The first time was a
couple
of hours earlier. I do not know for certain if this is true but I
have put together the following story from several sources
regarding
the orgins of the engine.
Engine was built by Travers and Coons (TRACO) in 1962 for the
Scarab
mid engine sports car that was first owned and driven by Lance
Reventlow and then owned by John Mecom and driven by AJ Foyt. This
particular engine was obtained by the California Racing Partnership
in 1963 when Mecom converted the Scarab to small block Chevy power
(again by TRACO) and sold off the Olds V8 engines. This particular
engine is 4 liters and was dynoed by TRACO at 308 horsepower when
running on four 45DCOE Webers. The Weber manifold was built by
Phil
Remington. The engine was sold to the Calif Racing Partnership
without the Weber manifold so they used this Edelbrock manifold
with
2, two barrel Rochesters. I have the original Remington manifold
and
the Webers sitting in a box. I believe this engine was last run on
August 21, 1965. I have owned the engine since 1987. I bought the
engine from an individual who purchased it from the original owner
of
the 23. It was sitting in his garage with all the accessories in a
box. I also have three addtional Olds blocks and heads that were
obtained from Mecom. All four engines have the same modifications
for racing and installing in a mid engine car.
I am now at the end of Phase I of my four phase restoration plan:
Phase I: Assemble car with all original components to running stage.
Phase II: Fit body to car
Phase III: Dissasemble car, catalog and inspect everything
Phase IV: Restore/replace all components and assemble car
This leads me to a few questions to those of you who have already
restored a Lotus 23:
1. The original frame has been damaged and repaired. The repair is
evident and ties to the two documented crashes that the frame was
subjected to. The frame is straight as far as alignment but the
items
like the outriggers are not straight even though the pontoons are
aligned. Do I restore this frame or use a new one? I have a new
frame built by Bert Curtis that is an exact replica of the
original.
I like the fact that the frame shows the history of the car and
that
it was built by Arch motors. However the car does have 300
horsepower...
2. After reading about the front suspension failures I am a little
concerned about the viability of this car as a long-term vintage
racer. Even if I replace all the suspension components, they still
were designed for much narrower tires and less power. I have seen
other 23s that have been converted back to "original" configuration
with twin cams and wobblies. I could re-engineer the suspension
components and have new, vastly stronger, suspension components
fabricated but that would be more work than converting the car back
to "original" (narrow tires) configuration. I guess my question is
would any of you vintage race your car with your existing
suspension
and brakes but with 300hp and 9" & 10" wide tires?
I hope all of you can hear the movie file I uploaded. The sound of
the car is phenominal. I still am in awe that the car was able to
be
assembled from a bunch parts in boxes and be a "runner". All the
parts were dispersed for years and now they are coming back
together
with very little effort. Other than finding an old Corvette
radiator, fabricating some coolant manifolding, and replacing the
fuel lines, everything is original.
Evan McGreevy
