Roger Garnett says, about the Jensen-Healey he saw:
| I do know: Vaxhaull derived Lotus Twin Cam 2 Litre engine ...
Urr, no. The engine is the one later used in the Esprit and all later
Loti except the new Elan. It's an aluminum 2 litre, DOHC, 4-valve
per cylinder, slant 4. It's an original Lotus design. (Lotus studied
a Vauxhall-based moter, but decided against it. That the Vauxhall name
nevertheless adheres to their engine is said to be a source of
considerable annoyance at Lotus.) Valve adjustment is with shims.
(The Lotus Twin Cam is different.)
I have a friend who's putting the BL 3.5L V8 into a Jensen-Healy.
This sounds to me like the hard way to build a TR-8, but it makes sense
to him: Having been an exoticar and/or British car mechanic for a long
time, he feels the stock JH is a $7,000 car with a $5,000 engine.
The Lotus engine is just too complex and finicky for a car like the JH,
in his opinion. He points out that it cost $350 for a valve _adjustment_
back in the '70s. And of course the parts are all unique to the Lotus
engine, so they are priced for owners of Turbo Esprits, not of JHs. The
bare block, for example, costs well over $2K.
Dave Van Horn microsoft!davevh
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