gemellocattivo.com

Hey fellas. I am a long time lurker from the ferrari life days. Needless to say I haven't been on that site in a while. I have been in the shadows for a while here and figured I should go ahead and post my project.
In this company my engine is quite tame. Hopefully the modifications will make an interesting result. It is a stock 2.0L zetec engine from a boring old Ford. I have the original twin cam, but have decided not to rebuild it at this time (Carburwhaters?). I grabbed an SVT lower manifold on ebay that is popular in ITB swaps. I am using TB's from an r6. I need to modify the linkage for the butterfly valves as the lengths have changed.

Just for fun I 3d printed a matched mold to make a carbon intake trumpet out of some scraps I had just to see what would happen (no I didn't tune it...)

The result wasn't too bad considering that the mold was very flexible... I plan to machine up an aluminum mold and do a nice set for the engine when it gets closer to running.

My next project for it is to machine up an exhaust flange and weld a set of stainless headers. I am relatively new to machining, though in some ways I am very fortunate. There is a wonderful co-op workshop in Dallas that has a VF-2 and CAM software available for public use.

I am glad to be here! Here is a pic of the car as it sits now.

Cool project - always had a thing for Europa's, especially the later ones like the JPS models, but never managed to own one.

Those Zetec's are hot motors!

Thanks! It was a JPS once upon a time and will return to that color once spring rolls around! So far I have managed to paint the wheels and the chassis. I have never driven a Europa (or any lotus for that matter)....I am counting the days til it is done!

Very cool project!

Did you make the gas tank (it looks like) or is that something you bought? Nice looking piece either way.

Nice work on the chassis cleanup too....did that need any metal work or just a good blasting and painting?

I'm thinking next winter (it I'm not fixing my engine) that it will be time for me to start fixing the little bits of rust I have here and there and hopefully getting it painted and these things are not my expertise so I love any chance to watch it being done by someone else

On the enigne, what do you expect it to put out when it's all done? What are you doing for an ECU?

The Europas are a lot like karts, and just as much fun! I first became acquainted with them back in the early 70's when one of my university professors brought his out to an AutoX on normal street tires, and dusted the best of the rest with it. I'm sure you'll love the car and its handling once you have it back together.

You're probably already aware of this guy in the UK, but if not, he can help you with hard to find parts: http://www.banks-europa.co.uk/index.php. Back in the early 00's I wanted him to build me one of his 62S cars, which are gorgeous: http://www.banks-europa.co.uk/cars/cars_type_62.htm. but I wanted to put a small (4.0L) naturally aspirated aluminum DOHC V8 in it. He was convinced that was too much engine for the chassis (although he has done them with twin turbo 2.5 or 3.0 liter Alfa V6's) and wouldn't do it. I was disappointed, but respected him for sticking to his guns.

Good luck!

Mark, The gas tanks were actually made by my friend. They are 5052 aluminum and started life as a flat sheet! I do not have that kind of talent!

I did have to do some cutting and welding on the frame, but not as much as I had initially thought given the look of the tanks. I plan to run pretty close to stock power to start off to get a feel for the car. Originally the federal cars made a staggering 105 hp...The zetec is set at around 125 from ford, I imagine mine will be pushing a bit more with ITB's & exhaust. Ideally I would like this engine to be close to 200hp, but I am in no rush to take it right to it. I would be thrilled just to drive it even with a mere 105! There are better (and lighter) motors than zetec out there. I chose it because it was cheap and bolted up to my transaxle (Ford kept the same bell housing pattern from the Twin cam's Kent/Pinto block all the way up to zetec). I have been looking around for an engine management system. If I can't get the factory ECU to play nice with my throttle bodies I will probably go with megasquirt, but I have not done all the homework on that yet. I have heard of frames getting cracks from just running a worked over twin cam....If it gets to be a problem I will end up making a tube frame. Banks has his own version of the frame that uses a arms in the rear instead of the factory trailing arms connected to the stressed drive shafts.

Cribbj on the topic of Banks, the guy is a legend in the Europa world. His 62 is THE car! I saw one in person in Atlanta and it is stunning...The curves on it just boggle the mind when you are looking at it in the flesh. I think it looks meaner than the gt40 ever did. I have heard on the forum that Richard at Banks considers 300hp to be the logical conclusion to a Europa and anything more than that is too much. That said there was a one off car based on the 47 (factory race europa) called GKN-47D. They stretched the frame to accommodate an aluminum 215 Buick v8 that was taken to 4.4L and purportedly made about 300hp. It was mated to a hewland box and was good for 180mph in the late 60's.

I must confess now that I also own another very early type 46 europa that has a bonded in chassis, fixed seats, and plexiglass windows like the 47...and I plan to put a v8 in it with more than 300hp...but that is another matter!

That's what Richard told me as well, and when I mentioned that my little V8 only made 275 naturally aspirated, and I felt that would be plenty for the car, he still balked. His frame as you probably know cured all the ills of the factory backbone design, but I think he was still afraid of the V8's torque wrecking the transaxle. He did finally fess up and admit he'd put a SBC in one for a guy here in the US, and it was the first & last time he'd ever done it.

If you haven't committed to which V8 is going in your 47, you might want to take a look at the later Lexus motors like the 3UZ's. They're 4.3 liters, all aluminum, forged crank, 6 bolt mains and have pretty nice flowing heads out of the box. The only downside (for me) is they're VVTi, which I personally don't like because of the extra work involved in controlling/mapping. The earlier version, called the 1UZ, from the late 80's to early 90's is the same basic engine, but 4.0 liters and no VVTi, and the heads don't flow quite as well (and no, the VVTi heads won't "quite" work on the early engine). Firing order is the same as the SBC, so it does sound sorta like a small block at low RPM, but definitely sings its own song above 5K.

Wiat...you've never driven one but you have 2 of them in parts for engine swaps?


Well done!!!!

It looks like your making good progress, any (lying to yourself) thoughts on when the first one will run?

Personally, I would say 300hp is just barely marginally adequate for a car that size....but I've never had much sense so take that for what it's worth

They did a europa on overhaulin that included a new rear suspension...it didn't look too bad to build. Adding more structure to the frame isn't that hard either, but I guess you won't need to worry about any of this until you get to the V8 project.

I have lied to myself, my friends, and loved ones numerous times thus far. Most recently I said I was going to have the Lotus painted early summer. I still stand by that today...but we will see.


One major hurdle will be mending the firewall. For those not initiated with the Europa's innovative value engineering, the firewall was made from MDF (they didn't even bother to seal it with fiberglass)...during the score of hurricanes my car endured sitting in a field by the Gulf of Mexico it disintegrated. I am replacing it with a carbon/kevlar/aluminum honeycomb panel. Not exactly cost effective...but I wanted some practice with the material. I have this about 70% done, but it will still be a challenge to get the thing in there.

I was also thinking about bonding some aluminum honeycomb to several critical areas to stiffen up the body and also increase my chances of walking away from an impact. In a race prep manual from the early 70's it is said that above 80mph with a decent front spoiler the nose of the car has been known to flex downward from the air pressure. They combated this by adding a heaping dose of fiberglass under the wheel arches, but I think they honeycomb skin is a much better alternative.

The Foose crew also added a literal ton of fiberglass and resin to the floor board. While admittedly the floor is alarmingly transparent when you sand the paint away...I think honeycomb will provide a much stiffer and impact resistant alternative with a more modest weight penalty. You can get it pretty thin so I don't think it will cost me too much headroom. Not that I need to worry about that because I am 5'2" and the car is a pretty perfect fit! On a side note the twin cam is much roomier than the S1. I have a friend who is 6'3" and he drives a twin cam regularly. The S1 on the other hand...If you are any taller than about 5'7" forget it! I am actually going to have to make custom seat pads because my shoulders are too broad for the originals.

This kind of stuff is what will likely make me a liar again because I have not yet applied any to the car. I am sure it will end up being time consuming to vacuum bag it all in there with epoxy.

The Chassis components are ready to be assembled and I hope to get it on 4 wheels soon so that I can start laying out the headers. As soon as the truck can be rolled outside that is the plan.

The black frame is a factory 47 style, the tube frame pictured was made by one of the europa forum members. Seems pretty straight forward to do, though I plan to cast my own rear hubs in aluminum instead of using sheet metal.

The tube frame in the pic has some serious structural problems if it's finished....don't copy that because it will flex horribly. A did space frame analysis for my sr. design project many years ago and found it's critical that ALL intersections be supported in 3D....many in the pic are only 2D so it will twist badly under load. All point supported in 3d, no exceptions.