Saturday, June 15, 2019

Lotus Elan S3: Chassis and drivetrain ready for display

Colin's little masterpiece is ready for display, and I hope I did it justice.



The Gunze Sangyo High Tech kit, with photo etched and white metal parts, is challenging but detailed, and very nice once complete.



 Not much to be said here except that the minimalist design is brilliant. Of course, it was designed for a 1.6 litre motor making about 100 horsepower, and given Chapman's razor-thin design margins, probably wouldn't survive installation of a 110 hp motor.



Torsional loads due to suspension deflection will twist this sheet metal structure pretty easily, but the fibreglass floor pan and body shell will contribute to reducing this substantially.



With torsional stiffness taken by the body shell, the beam-like structure is visible here.



The rubber donuts were perfect for 100 hp at wide open throttle, but my recollection is they led to a bit of a rubber band effect if you tried to drive it gently. But why would you buy one of these if you were going to drive it gently?



Modifications performed by owners over the years include much heavier but torsionally stiffer constant velocity joints in the driveshafts, but it is my understanding that the associated dynamic loads tend to want to fracture the chassis; a new chassis then becomes necessary, and it is possible to find pictures on the Interweb of new tube frames with CV joints and A-arms, instead of the so-called Chapman strut, essentially a MacPherson strut for the rear.



Next step is the body shell, which will take the chassis stolen from the regular Gunze Sangyo kit of this car. That kit, completed many years ago, is curbside and was built up pretty poorly by yours truly, so I am quite happy to volunteer it as donor.



Stay tuned!

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