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Hello, This email message is a notification to let you know that a file has been uploaded to the Files area of the L23Registry group. File : /NEWBOY.TXT Uploaded by : steagall99 <steagall99@...> Description : Letter to 'newbys' You can access this file at the URL http://groups.yahoo.com/group/L23Registry/files/NEWBOY.TXT To learn more about file sharing for your group, please visit http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/groups/files Regards, steagall99 <steagall99@...>

Hello, This email message is a notification to let you know that a file has been uploaded to the Files area of the L23Registry group. File : /23 Parts Supplier Uploaded by : silvenm <Nigel@...> Description : Xanthos Cars You can access this file at the URL http://groups.yahoo.com/group/L23Registry/files/23%20Parts%20Supplier To learn more about file sharing for your group, please visit http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/groups/files Regards, silvenm <Nigel@...>

Gary, First of all, thanks for the info., your participation, and the good words about the site. Next, I want all to know that Lotus made three types of Lotus 23s: Lotus 23 Lotus 23 Series 2 Lotus 23C You will note that Lotus never identified a car as a Lotus 23B. This is contrary to common belief, but true. In the past we have not been fussy about this, but we are now trying to be more careful about car identification. I would really like to share your car's history, that is, put it in our files. It will be available only to future buyers. I am attaching for you a file (about 1/2 MB, text format - ASCII - of all the newsletters we once published. Many still find them interesting. I am also attaching a questionaire and a 'newboy' letter. I hope you find all of this interesting and useful You beat my restoration time by two years! Good luck racing your 23, Bill Steagall Secretary and Registrar

I have placed some additional photos of the California Racing Partnership Special showing the original radiator installed on the car. The radiator is from a 1964 small block Corvette. The original subframe was fabricated to capture the bottom Corvette mount and a bracket, mounted on the chassis front bulkhead, holds the top of the radiator. The coolant runs through the frame tubes, with both the top and botton longitudinal tubes being 1-1/4" OD. The external water pump is driven off the V-8s crankshaft and pushes the coolant, through a manifold, through two inlets, one on each side of the block. The oil cooler, not yet installed, is mounted just above the radiator. It is a 1950s aircraft oil cooler with a built in thermostat. Next step is installing the fuel system and wiring. The tank is a fabricated and welded aluminum tank that was held on by two sheet metal straps that were pop-riveted to the frame tubes. Plan to have car complete and running by early spring. Nothing has been restored in any way. I am sifting through numerous boxes to try and determine the original configuration. Once it is all together and running, will begin to see what is good and bad operationally and correct deficiencies. Once that is complete, it will all come apart for refinishing. The goal is to keep the configuration as close as possible to the original, as it was raced a single time in 1965. Evan McGreevy Mill Valley, California

I second Don Stark's comments regarding L23 suspension checks. I had a similar failure of a right front, lower A Arm without any warning. Fortunately, my incident happened just after I had braked hard for a turn and I was able to go straight off the course onto an escape road. The car doesn't steer at all with one wheel jammed in the wheel well! After bringing the car home, I checked all the other A Arms and found the lower left front one had a slight downward bend and was out of round. A failure waiting to happen. These A arms were brand new when I restored the car three years ago. So check those components between each race during a weekend and during your pre- race prep. Gary H.

All, Thanks for the encouragement. I have a set of of 23 frame drawings and have compared the car to those. The wheelbase, track, chassis height, width, etc.. are all the same as a 23B. There are some significant detail differences in that the diameter and wall thickness of many of the chassis tubes are larger. For example, both of the bottom longitudinal members are different. Where on a 23B these tubes are 1-1/2 by 3/4 rectangular tubes, this car has heavy wall 1-1/2" diameter round tubes. It appears that every tube that has compound loading such as compression, torsion and tension, has been made larger. Where a 23B has 1-1/4" diameter tubes, this car has 1-1/2" tubes. There are also more tubes around the engine, aft of the firewall. I have spoken directly to individuals who had first hand exposure to the car when it was new. Their recollection was that the frame was actually designed, using the 23B as a starting point, by Motor Racing Developments (MRD)/Brabham. They did the design work to make the 23B frame more robust for the V8. My concern is that while significant effort was put into beefing up a 23B frame for the V8 and the HD-5 Hewland, standard 23 suspension links were used. I have posted some more photos that show some details of the frame. The replica frame built by Curtis was based on my frame and not a 23B and thus has all the original differences. Both frames look like 23B frames but with all tubes larger in diameter. The quality of the Curtis frame, made about ten years ago, is excellent. The tubing used is Chrome Moly instead of mild steel and the welds (nickel bronze "welding") are of very high quality. I have not found any markings on the original frame. It does have three coats of paint. I have looked at all the common locations where Arch Motors would stamp the frame, but have not found a single mark anywhere. I may find something when the frame is media blasted. I have to rely on the recollection of the original owners on the origin of the frame. The frame is 40 years old. Bill Webb, the original owner did indicate that the car was "fast". He did only drive the car once, back on Aug 21, 1965 and he crashed. After the car was rebuilt and running with a F2 BMW engine, Gus Chofre raced the car several times at Riverside, Laguna Seca, and Sears in SCCA B sports racing His recollection was that the car was an excellent and stable race car. All of the suspension components have been crack tested and all were crack-free. I will have more non-destructive examination, NDE, performed on critical components. More to come...

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

I appreciate this is a bit OT but always worth the ask! I have recently done a P/X on a replica 23 (he wants it for road use and already has 15, 22, 23) for a genuine 20 in bits. Car is original and spent most of it's life in Finland. There is very little evidence of any crash damage and the body (though pretty dire now) also looks original and not smashed so it appears the car had an easy life. A full restoration will be started soon but the car is FOR SALE in any state of re-build from 'as-is' to 'on the button'. If anyone has an interest or knows anyone then please let me know. The car will be fully eligable for FIA historic Formula Junior. Many thanks

All, I have taken the Lotus 23 Chassis drawings (David Platts) and compared the drawing to the frame and made a quick sketch that compares the frames from the firewall back to the transmission crossmember. The locations of all the tubes, suspension pickups, and a crossmembers are the same. The size and wall thickness of nearly all the tubes is greater. The motor mount location on each side of the frame is considerably stronger with more tubes converging at this point. Also, there is an additional motor mount, a sort of torque arm, that mounts to one of the cylinder heads and goes to to the corner of the firewall. The lower reversed A-arm mount on the frame is significantly more robust, being fully boxed with additional gussets. All these features are original to the frame indicating that the intended use for the frame was for a car with significantly more power than a standard 23. One other interesting difference is the transmission mount. On the 23B drawings the center to center dimension for the transmission mounts is 9-1/2". On my car, the center to center dimension for the transmission is 8". This mount is also fabricated from a 1", 14ga tube joined with a 1/2" tube. These two tubes are joined with a fillet weld on the longitudinal axis. This makes sense if the car was design to take the Hewland HD-5 transmission. The suspension components are original and appear to be standard 23. One of the front upper A-arms has a serial number engraved: 8598. I went over my notes from my discussion with the second owner. He showed the car in the 1970 San Francisco Auto Show held at Civic Auditorium. The car was painted green and called the "Big Tube Lotus 23 BMW" I have portions of this body (Green #98) I have uploaded the frame sketch, both as a Word document and as an Autocad DWF (Drawing Web Format)file. I very much appreciate all of your input. As a mechanical engineer who has to make mechanical integrity decisions on a daily basis I know that the more heads involved the better. The attraction of the car to me is that it was obviously NOT a successful design or there would have been more made. That makes it unique. My job is to restore the car and make it as safe as possible while keeping it unique. Thanks! Evan

Hello, This email message is a notification to let you know that a file has been uploaded to the Files area of the L23Registry group. File : /frame comparison.doc Uploaded by : marinmcgreevy <marinmcgreevy@...> Description : Frame Tube Comparison You can access this file at the URL http://groups.yahoo.com/group/L23Registry/files/frame%20comparison.doc To learn more about file sharing for your group, please visit http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/groups/files Regards, marinmcgreevy <marinmcgreevy@...>

Hello, This email message is a notification to let you know that a file has been uploaded to the Files area of the L23Registry group. File : /lotus 23 comparison.DWF Uploaded by : marinmcgreevy <marinmcgreevy@...> Description : DWF File of Frame Comparison You can access this file at the URL http://groups.yahoo.com/group/L23Registry/files/lotus%2023%20comparison.DWF To learn more about file sharing for your group, please visit http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/groups/files Regards, marinmcgreevy <marinmcgreevy@...>

Hello All: While at the CSRG Vintage race two weeks ago at Infineon Raceway, our paddock area suddenly became open as my mates took off for a race in their production cars. The only car left was the beautiful Lotus 11 LeMans so my friend Jack and I decided this was an opportunity not to be missed. We wheeled our two Loti out alongside the 11 for a photo op. Not too often do you get a chance to put three different Loti together. Mine is the red one, and Jack's is the Lotus 18. Three of Colin's best. Gary Horstkorta

Hello: I suppose it would have been helpful in my last email to tell you that I have posted two pictures on the L23Registry page. Gary

O.k. I keep trying to open photo albums....help

Nigel: Based on previous emails regarding frame modifications to 23s for taller drivers, please see the photo titled "Frame Modification" which I have posted in the photos section of this site. The car in question belongs to Don Stark who was my paddock mate at last weekends Monterey Historics. The car was modified for a tall driver which included moving the seat back as far as possible. Hope this picture provides you with a useful solution. Gary

Nigel, if you are not already using AP550 or AP600 fluids, give it a try. I've had brake pad material give up before this fluid does. Mike K.

Nigel, I have a 23B with nothing between the radiator and the master cylinders. Also, the clutch slave is on the side of the bell housing just behind the headers. My headers lead down so that they are under the slave by about a foot as they go under. I also have a pretty good flow through muffler just before the exhaust dumps out of the body work. I have not experienced any difficulty with shifting or the clutch operation. I have a Hewland, so maybe this is the difference. On thinking about it though, I don't believe that the fluid in the clutch operating system could get hot enough to really affect it's operation. It is after all, high temperature brake fluid. It would have to get hot enough to boil and cause bubbles in the line. Otherwise, just warming up the fluid would only cause the excess to move back into the master cylinder reservoir. It might boil if it had been left too long in the system and had picked up water but this is unlikely. It still would have to get over 212 deg. before it boiled. If you think about it, the brake calipers get much hotter than anything in the clutch system and they seem to work fine. Maybe there is something else getting hot and causing the problem. It could be the cross shaft bushings or the bushings on the thimble between the t/o bearing and the clutch. Another thing is that the pilot shaft bearing might be dragging when it gets warm causing the input shaft to keep turning and this would make the syncros work harder. The big question is can you shift into gear from a stop after the race without grinding. If you can, things in the clutch system are ok and you need to look at the trans itself. If not, you have to look at what in the clutch system is causing the input shaft to still turn. Bubbles might cause you to not be able to move the clutch arm enough but I would think that pumping the clutch would eventually get the clutch to disengage. I really think that the hydraulic part of the system must be working ok and you should look elswhere. When I first got my car, it was a bear to push in on the clutch and the actuating arm sticking out of the bell housing was heavily reinforced. During my first weekend, the arm broke and then I blew the hydraulic line leading to the slave cylinder. I took the trans out and found out that the cross shaft bushing was a cheap plastic VW part that was causing the cross shaft to bind. Also, the internal bushings in the thimble were cracked and falling apart. (Mine are quite thin) After putting a nice oilite bushing about 3 times wider than the plastic one in and putting new bushings in the thimble and putting on a smaller diameter master cylinder, the clutch system has been working without complaint for the last 3 years. I'm even using a normal actuating arm and it doesn't look like it is stressed at all. When I had the trans out I talked to a number of people about the internal slave cylinders and they swore by them. The only problem is that if they leak, you have to remove the trans to fix them. I was told that this is not normally a problem. The one tricky thing is setting up the t/o bearing. If the slave moves too far, it will slip out of it's seal and then you have to take it all apart and start all over. You have to keep track of the clutch wear and the freeplay. I hope this helps in solving your problems. Don Stark

Nigel, I was just thinking also, that if the clutch plate either gets warped from heat or sticks to the flywheel or pressure plate that this could cause your problem. If there is an oil leak getting on the clutch, it could cause it to stick and if it is a stock rather than racing clutch, it might like the heat and warp. Both of these could cause difficulties in shifting. The test is the same however, if you can shift into gear at a stop the clutch is doing it's job. Don Stark

Nigel, As I mentioned earlier, there are more things than the clutch itself that might turn the input shaft. First is the pilot shaft bearing. This is in the end of the crankshaft and supports the input shaft at its end. If this bearing lacks lubrication, it might work when cold but drag when hot due to the lubrication thinning out with the heat. Also, there is a thimble that surrounds the input shaft and bridges the gap between the normal VW cross shaft/t/o bearing and the clutch itself. This rides on the input shaft and turns at engine rpm when you are actuating the clutch. If there is drag between the thimble and the input shaft, it will cause the shaft to turn. I used Bosch grease that is normally used for distributer cams on these items so that the lubrication stayed in place even when hot. The simple thing would be that due to the way things are set up you just need a little more throw in the clutch hydraulic system. There is a stop on the slave cylinder that is adjustable. Maybe giving it a little more movement would allow the clutch to work better when hot. It would be good to observe how this works when the car is cold and then again when it is hot to see if the range of motion changes or if you are hitting the stop when things are hot. Replacing the plastic bushing that is right next to the actuating arm would be a good thing. The old VW part was a brass bushing so you might look for one of those. I think that they are a different size internal dimension for a smaller size cross shaft though. I had to make mine on a lathe. Putting aluminum around the front of the framework right around the footbox is a good thing to keep out heat, stones, dirt, etc. My car has the footbox competely enclosed and it is shaped somewhat like the bodywork at the top to minimize stuff getting into the cockpit. My protection is behind the master cylinders though so they have no protection from heat or stones. I should think that you would especially need this in England where you folks think nothing of running in the rain. Good luck! Don Stark

Many thanks for all your emails. I was using a standard DOT 4 product and changed it to Castrol Response which I understand to be a DOT4 compatable racing fluid. This had no effect so perhaps it isn't the fluid as I sugested. Clutch plate and presue plate are AP racing items recommended for track use (but perhaps not race) with a Twin cam. Engine is a road item so only has 120bhp or so. I also changed a rubber hose to the slave for a braided one, again with no improvement. The problem is one of getting a gear when stationary, once in gear and on the move there seems little problem in changing. As mentioned this indicates the input shaft rotating and hence the clutch is dragging. I'm thinking this can only be because the operationg arm isn't moving enough to fully dissengage the clutch and hence must be a hydraulic issue. I do wonder about the old VW release actuating arm though which does have an old plastic bearing but even if this was sticking I would have thought the hydraulic presure would overcome it. I can see how it not releasing back and possibly causing clutch slip if jamming? Anyway there are certainly a few mor things for me to concider and look at. I thinks I'll measure carefully the movement in the operating system before I next use it and then make the same measurements if (when!) it happens again. Meanwhile I also like the idea of a shield between radiator and resevoirs. I wonder if this might also help my feet from boiling up!! If it also limits the bucket full of marbels I seem to collect in a day then this would be good also. When I take a passenger they says it's like being hit by shapnel as it comes flying in through the bodywork somewhere! Thanks again all.