Silly idea

[sgrant]

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/LPP-FW-Coventry-C ... _500wt_943

Ridiculous....

Must....
resist.....

[erictharg]

Nice idea. And that's it. Nice to dream about. Expensive to convert to road spec. Fragile. Less power than the A Series. Unless your goal is the closest replica to the real thing, don't!

[techbod]

They have gone up about fourfold from the last time I looked. OK that particular one might have something magic about it that justifies the price but they used to appear regularly on ebay for approximately £200 or so.

Also those that have managed to convert them don't see to be forthcoming with he exact steps they took. I have found a few sites and have a file saved somewhere that aggregates all the web the information on converting I could find. One post basically says your more or less keep the block and one or two other parts as is, and the rest need replacing or modifying. Might be a trifle pessimistic? Might depend on what pump you start with of course.

If I remember correctly, a chap that had been taken very ill, had subsequently been given a climax firepump engine as something to get him going on the road to recovery. He converted the engine and built a Lotus Eleven replica (ie not Westfield) to put it in. If I remember correctly it is road registered properly as a Lotus Eleven etc. (I might not be correct about that last bit).

I did find a web user abroad somewhere (in Canada perhaps??) that kept a kind of blog on his conversion attempts but despite saying he had completed the conversion the full details didn't appear. Mind you I haven't checked for a couple of years or so. Maybe he has by now?

Still with the stupidly rising prices in crossflow engine and parts, the climax route may suddenly seem less ridiculous

[sgrant]

I *knew* you would shoot me down in flames Charles - that's why I posted it.

I've been so impressed with the A-series; I didn't realise it was so robust and so on, and it's just perfect for the eleven. But I'd love to build a pukka climax from a fire pump engine, even if it didn't go into the eleven; I imagine that it would be a really rewarding project. But, as Marcus says, finding out what you need to know to make the conversion just seems impossible. There's so much contrary information out there and the few people that I have spoken to about it in the historic Lotus community are extremely cagey about what information they provide, for understandable reason I guess, given the difference in price between an ebay firepump engine and a "race spec FWA". Someone's making some decent bunce on that trade....

[techbod]

What about a Hillman Imp engine for a project build to give you the flavour of the climax without the associated cost? OK the heads are completely different, its all alloy, its a slant engine - but apart from that... You could do it the other way round and convert a Hillman car engine into a fire pump. Silly Idea

[sgrant]

I'd love to (make an Imp engine, obviously, not turn one into a fire pump), but - again - where are the instructions/spec sheet/useful information?

It's taken me 4 months to build half an MDF landrover, with a manual, so the chances of me building an engine successfully without one are not great....

[erictharg]

I think the chance of you building an engine are good. But the world might have run out of oil altogether before you finish it! Which half of the LLR have you finished?

[sgrant]

OOOoh - look at you; scratch your eyes out!

http://www.westfield-eleven.org/toylander

sigh - still a long long long way to go.....

[techbod]

Found the stuff on youtube from the Canadian chap who documented his build (both car and engine) from scratch. Although it doesn't give you blow by blow details he says;

"All that will be used from the Climax pump is the block and a couple of smaller pieces. It requires a lot of work to make it an automotive engine."

Slide show here which gives you a bit of an idea. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YI8G0a2e ... ideo_title

[sgrant]

fffffssssssssssttttt........

as my idea of making a climax engine from a fire pump gently evaporates into the ether.....