New Owner

[DavidOliver]

These postings are very interesting, I realise that Lotus were playing around with the changes from LC to HC.
Peter mentions Lotus had his car for three years and may have used it to try out intended changes and may not have got round to changing the rear wing or fitting spats.
For the record my LC was registered 21 August 1985 and engine number is DZ.....22553. How many LC´s were made after this?
The coolant reservoir is a single tank, dizzy has no vacuum advance, cam pulleys are rectangular teeth, carbs are 5324, no spats, cam covers are black saddle type with the Oil filler cap at the rear of the engine.

Another feature I have seen on SE cars is a Lotus badge at the base of the door pillar. Not on Peter´s car, perhaps another Lotus later mod.

I assume engine numbers also increase with the engines used in Esprit cars, does anyone know?

Dave the cog.

[bash]

Mines a 1986 se and it doesnt have a badge on the 'b' pillar.

Bash

[Doc Si]

Mines an '86 & does have a badge on the B pillar ! clearly very variable.

[Alan_M]

Mines 85, but 86MY and has a badge, but who knows if added by a previous owner?

[Ray-s]

Mines an 88.. Badge on pillar, twin coolant tank ,black dash, oil filler to the back but no vac take off hoses Eng DZ 25626 ( its an LC.)

Should I put a non HC badge on it?

[Jean Pierre Lunie]

Once again, thank you everyone for the responses and information. So to update:

The teeth on the belt and the pulleys are semi-circular.
The carbs are tagged 5324
The VIN is 1998
Engine nr is 22691, begins DL
None of the extra pipes
Contrary to what the photos seem to show the cam covers have no paint on them, they are bare metal and grime.

A top end rebuild was done by GST @ 67k miles who unfortunately do not list part numbers on the invoice but did this years after HR Owen & Bell & Covill had been fitting HC parts to it. They replaced the cam pulleys but not the cams. GST did a compression test 3,300 miles before the rebuild, and 1-4 were 130, 120, 150, 160

I am coming to the conclusion that until I take the cam covers off we won't know for sure, and as we all seem to agree it is not the be all and end all anyway, so to be as bang on trend as people seem to be in the wider world now I have decided to declare my Excel as non-binary