Lotus gets a fancy water pump

I know it has been a few months since I posted anything. I have been working on cars, it is just that at the same time I have been working out more with the goal of doing my first triathlon. By the time I even think about writing I am too tired to start. As it turns out, swimming correctly as is required for triathlon is a lot harder to master than I thought, so I never did make one this year. After the Honolulu Century Ride in September I turned all my attention to preparing for the Honolulu Marathon on December 8th. Did the whole marathon prep race series, including to HMSA 30K, but after that I discovered I had a hernia. Just got it fixed on the 18th, and after a month not working on cars I was back at the shop today and felt great.

On August 1st I decided the time had come to push out the E9 and bring in the Lotus Europa for it's new water pump. I bought the cartridge type from Dave Ban Engineering. So, yeah, this time the head and oil pan have to come off, but not next time.

So far I have pulled the engine and transaxle, stripped the paint off the block, pulled the head, dropped the pan, replaced the front cover with the new modified version, and just today got the head back on.





Now that it is set up, time to take stuff apart.







 
Guess I didn't take any pics of the paint stripping, good thing because hard to get hands clean and dry. Took multiple coats and a lot of scrubbing to get the old enamle off. I painted this motor back in the late 70's when I had the valves redone.

These are from today. Finished with head on but rushing to get out the door. I'll try t start tomorrow with a shot of the head back on.