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Re: Lotus Europa

To: kburtch@pts.mot.com, megatest!bldg2fs1!sfisher@uu2.psi.com
Subject: Re: Lotus Europa
From: Dave Van Horn <davevh@microsoft.com>
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 93 14:10:49 TZ
| > Has anyone ever dropped a 3.5 Rover aluminum V-8 into one?

A one-off, called the Lotus 47D, was built by GKN Products (they make 
bearings, etc)  and still exists.  They had to stretch the car a few inches.

| > How about a rotary?

Yah.  The head of the Auto Engineering (?) school at Western Washington 
State University in Bellingham has one. (I've never seen it, it was 
mentioned in an article on the program.)  If you're interested in doing 
something like that, I imagine he'd be able to provide considerably 
more detailed information than the usual shade-tree mechanic.

| On the other hand, a full-race Twincam rebuild won't run much more than
| that, and it'll end up being a much more valuable car than a rotarized
| Europa  And you can get 175 bhp out of a Twincam.

175 (real) hp is really pushing a TC.  It can be done, but it will be a 
lot more finicky and a lot less reliable than 175 hp out of a rotary.  
Of course, you could put in a Cosworth BDR (basically a TC with a 
different head), but that's some serious bucks and it's not much more 
original than the rotary.

Dave


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