Vintage Lotus F1 part?

[Beginner100]

Hi Everybody,

Can anybody verify that this is a genuine vintage Lotus F1 manifold? This has been offered to me, apparently this was used during testing for a new Lotus F1 car in the 60's or 70's......I'm not an expert but I like the look of it, almost like a piece of art.

Your help is greatly appreciated
Many thanks in advance.
Emily



Sent from my Galaxy

 

[JonathanBenn]

Hi there Emily - that's incredible. You're right, it is indeed a work of art. Someone will absolutely love it.

I'm no expert either, but a few points:

-Eight trumpets means eight cylinders. That seems to exclude 1958-1961, where Lotus used four-cylinder engines.
-The F1 engines between 1962-67 were by Coventry Climax or (briefly) BRM. This doesn't seem to fit the latter, and I'd be surprised if Lotus made their own manifolds for the Coventry Climax.
-Lotus F1 cars used Ford DFV engines from June 1967 onwards in this period, so unless something very strange has happened it isn't from their F1 car after that date.

So my best hunch is that it's not from one of their F1 cars. But they were also very active in lots of other motorsport formulae, plus very high-performance road cars.

And I could be entirely wrong. If you have a Twitter account, @ScarbsTech is the person to ask.

Do keep us updated!

 

[Beginner100]

Thank you so much for your valuable info, all new to me. Let's see if the puzzle gets solved, I will keep you posted with any news I'm getting.
Thank you again
Emily

 

[Gevatter]

You could also send an email to Classic Team Lotus, if anybody knows about Lotus engines from the olden days, it should be them:

Contact

Established by Team Lotus as the Works historic motorsport activity to maintain and operate Lotus F1 cars.

classicteamlotus.co.uk

team@classicteamlotus.co.uk

 

[Beginner100]

You could also send an email to Classic Team Lotus, if anybody knows about Lotus engines from the olden days, it should be them:

Contact

Established by Team Lotus as the Works historic motorsport activity to maintain and operate Lotus F1 cars.

classicteamlotus.co.uk

team@classicteamlotus.co.uk

Thank you for the info, I have sent them a mail, will keep you updated if there are interesting news.
A

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

Holy moly that is AWESOME!

 

[Rob Every]

The best place to verify this would be to contact Classic Team Lotus, that is run by a relative of Colin Chapman, they will probably have drawings and know exactly what this part is if it is real, it looks like an inlet manifold for a DFV or something similar, maybe the Climax 1.5 litre engine but that ran carbs, this is running fuel injection.

 

[blekenbleu]

Check out the Climax FWMV used by Lotus.
It went thru several intake configurations, including:

Intake trumpets for each bank on DFV engines tilted inward.

 

[jgf]

Not likely an F1 component, probably from a sport racer, series 30 or 40. These were powered by a variety of small block V8s in the sixties.

 

[Daniel Watkin]

I'm no expert, but my best guess is that this is off a Lotus 30, which ran a Ford 289 engine. See picture below.

Referenced from this webpage

I'm purely speculating here. But the part you pictured seems to have a cut and weld just above the Lotus logo. It looks to me like it has been widened slightly? Maybe to fit onto an engine it was never intended for. That would give some credence for it being used for testing, as you mentioned.

 

[blekenbleu]

best guess is that this is off a Lotus 30, which ran a Ford 289

That seems a good guess; coolant ports seemingly match this
Ford SB 260 289 302W Downdraft EFI Stack Intake Manifold.

seems to have a cut and weld

I had noticed that weld, but supposed it had more to do
with difficulties casting that cooling port in one piece...