I wouldn't doubt that Lotus argued with GM on bore spacing on the ZR1. Although Gm tried to say the engine was a Chevy engine I heard the only thing in common was the displacement of 5.7 liters and the bore spacing. I heard someone refer to the ZR1 as the engine with the "chocolate crank" which I guess means it had the rigidity of chocolate. Are the engines in disrepute? I still haven't found a Lotus expert who can tell me of the meeting between Lotus and Ford where Ford tried to buy the Elise or an offshoot of it. Anybody got a line on what went down and why it didn't happen? Thanks Bitzman
Answr to Mark IV: on Lotus
- Thread starter bitzman
- Start date
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I wouldn't doubt that Lotus argued with GM on bore spacing on the ZR1. Although Gm tried to say the engine was a Chevy engine I heard the only thing in common was the displacement of 5.7 liters and the bore spacing.
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Lotus designed the ZR1 engine, but it was built for GM by Mercury Marine.
I wouldn't doubt that Lotus argued with GM on bore spacing on the ZR1. Although Gm tried to say the engine was a Chevy engine I heard the only thing in common was the displacement of 5.7 liters and the bore spacing.
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Lotus designed the ZR1 engine, but it was built for GM by Mercury Marine.
Two Lotus engineers (in a meeting at AC Cars when they were pitching the Type 908 V8 for the AC line) told me they had the ZR1 engine design done when GM discovered the bore spacing was unique and not the same as the 350. Lotus argued for the wider spacing as it improved cooling and left more meat for any future overbore/displacement increase. Chevy wanted to advertise the engine as a version of the "classic smallblock", Lotus said "why, you won't be building it, it will not share any tooling or machine operations?". But GM won out after all, they were signing the checks!
Rick /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
Rick /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
