Lotus Cortina - SVO 497 G

The Story so far...... (click on the pics to enlarge)



In March 2008, having searched numerous classic car web-sites we eventually sourced our donor car from the auction web-site; E-bay at a cost of £8,200!



Our new pride and joy was a Ford Lotus Cortina MKII, Series 1 and was a very clean and tidy standard example brought back up to spec by an enthusiast.















The car had an indicated 92,000 miles on the clock and was in a generally good mechanical condition, having apparently had a fairly recent engine re-build.



At this stage little did "Colin-the-Cortina" as he was now named know what was planned for him in the coming months!



My wife (Ces, short for Cecilia) and I ran the car over the Summer months to identify any issues that had not been apparent at the time of purchase. Quickly we found that the gearbox was on it's last legs and the rear-axle was weeping oil at an alarming rate. Apart from these minor faults, the car was a solid as a rock.



Once the Summer season came to a close, Colin was delivered to Simon Scott-Russell of Lotus specialists; Brooke-Kensington, Bicester, UK.



The drive-train and engine were removed and the upgrade work commenced:











The gearbox was re-built in-house and the engine was sent to Steve at Vulcan Engines, London, UK.



Once stripped the engine showed some signs of wear and at this point a full re-build was commissioned.











Some weeks later and at a cost of £6,800 the engine was re-built and dyno tested, the results were astounding from a 40 year old engine.











http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4w0I3gF0F34



The engine was developing 142bhp and this was despite running a very low compression ratio of 9:1 (reasons to be explained later).



A handbuilt manifold and exhaust system was made to compliment the new engine by Neil at 105 Speed at a cost of £ 600





The engine was re-fitted to Colin.......











Road testing began and almost immediately we suffered a complete electrical failure from the dynamo and for reliability reasons this was changed for a high-output alternator.



After some extra road testing, in late October 2008, the car was then delivered into the capable hands of Simon Ayris and Andy Inskip of Rally Preparation Services, Standlake, UK (http://www.simonsrallyprep.com/)



The car had been entered into a classic endurance rally running from Tunis to El Gouna, Egypt, starting from Tunis on Sunday 25th January 2009 and Simon would be carrying out the prep work.

(http://www.endurorally.com/) The previously mentioned low compression ratio is to allow for poor fuel quality.



The modification list is to say the least, extensive, so here are some pictures of the build!















At the time of writing the Blog it is still a work in progress, so watch the space for updates! My intention is (subject to Internet access) to upload a daily diary and pics from the event as we progress from our home in Oxfordshire to the finishing line in Egypt!

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Clive