The Lotus Grand Tourers

I am after a 1986 - 1988 Excel SE with air-conditioning. It must have a manual gearbox. It should have traveled less than 80,000 mile. The colours I am after is blue, green or silver. It must be in excellent condition. Anyone know of any?

Why those specific years? The Excel went on until 1992.

I would hazard a guess that this answers the question : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_impor ... #Australia

Well theres a bonus.................No getting rid of Angus and his Excel to Aus................

Yes amarshall you are correct. It is very hard to import a car to Australia built after December 1988. That's why I am after a pre 1989 model.

thought the excel was fdr'd my dad had a 82 and a 85 in sydney from new so might be worth checking if they are already type approved

what no £10 assisted passage for angus and lotus then jerry

Thanks for the help guys. I have managed to track down 2 Excels, in Aus, and both with AC, through the help of people on this site. I actually did not expect to come across them so quickly. One is a 1987 SE and the other 1984 model. The 1984 model has had the same owner for 14 years, the owner is a Lotus club member, and is in great condition [from the photos]. Although not a SE or wide body model I think it would be the smart buy.

What is involved other than new pistons, rings and liners to get a LC 912 engine to HC?

Jimmy

Well done tracking down 2 Excels. The HC is quite a different motor, running Nikasil liners and with a different (better in my view) cam box design which doesn't leak. I don't believe that the pistons and liners are interchangeable between LC and HC motors, though others may know more about this.

Robert

The spigot on the nickasil liner is a different size so I don't think they can be swapped (not sure which is bigger though).
PNM Engineering do a cast liner of euqivalent size to a Nickasil so I guess you could run high compression pistons in cast liners from an LC engine.

The inlet cam on the HC is a 104 intead of a 107.

I think the new cam case is just an improvement - the flat-top cover doesn't leak like the saddle cover, it's not specific to the HC.

The other difference is that SE's used DHLA's with an extra "power" jet - and a lot of other detailed differences according the parts manual.

Regards
Bill

Thanks for the information Bill.

Look like I have found my Excel. It is an 1984 model which has had the same owner for 15years and has AC. The car used to be owned by the lead singer of Indecent Obsession, David Dixon here is a taste of what you have missed out on www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN21hpma0OQ - I love the 1980's!!!

irishwolfhound wrote:what no £10 assisted passage for angus and lotus then jerry

MMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm its a thought...........

Indecent Obsession - theres a name I haven't heard for some time. Went digging through my CD collection and yep - I have their one (an only??) album in there. My excuse is I was only 12 at the time of purchase, so surely can't be held accountable.

I'm confident you made the right choice going for the earlier example. I've test driven an SE as well as my LC and don't seem to miss the couple of extra horses.

Let me know if you're ever in Melbourne - I know two other LC and two SE's already so it's starting to turn into a community

Cheers

Brad

Yes there do seem to be a few Excel's around about Aus - which I did not think when first considering to import on to Australia.

I wonder how many Excel's are ment to be in Aus? That would be interesting to know. I have only ever seen one red one on the roads up here in Brisbane before I purchaced mine.