View single post by Sylva
 Posted: 04-19-2007 08:42 am
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Sylva

 

Joined: 09-14-2006
Location: Malaysia
Posts: 54
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 The early Elite etc ran the 5 speed from the Elan 2+2, which was also fitted to a few Elan Sprints (both cars using the 1558 Ford/Lotus Twin Cam with up to around 125 BHP). As i remember the case was made by lotus, but the gears and internal parts were from the BMC Maxi 5 speed.

 

The Maxi was a front wheel drive car and run the O series engine, at 1500cc and 1750 cc, configured like a mini so the box was the sump of the engine and the gears ran in the engine oil.

 

The box was Ok in the Maxi, and gave a good cruising car. It would cruise all day on the German Autobahn’s wiht the car fully loaded. It worked OK in the Elan 2.2,, but as we all know Torque is the big killer of gear boxes and differentials, and when it was mated with the 907/912 it proved unreliable.

 

Kelvin

 

Eventually I was abandoned and as is said above Lotus raided the Toyota parts bin for the latter box. In the Excel