Bell housing adapter(45mm billet), flywheel, flywheel with attached pressure plate, clutch housing, and harmonic balancer(5.25 lbs. vs. stock LS376/495 9.75 lbs.)

 

So if anyone interested in this conversion wants to cheat and skip right to the end, the car from their YouTube video is up for sale:

Broad Arrow Auctions | 1999 Lotus Esprit V8

Chassis No. SCCDC082XXHA15830 The Lotus Esprit, one of the longest-running modern production models in British sports car history, underwent its most...

www.broadarrowauctions.com

Here is the YouTube video of the car when it got built:

 

So FYI for anyone following, the Renegade Hybrid car sold at auction for $70,000 USD.

 

Now where's the fun in that?

 

Not just a little misleading.

 

The auction listing? Yeah, when I first looked at it, I wondered why the predicted price was so low. Then as I scrolled thru the pictures, I understood and said to myself "hmmm, this looks familiar". I'm guessing they will actually post a full listing writeup as the auction gets closer. But maybe if they don't and there's no interest in the car, could be a good cheap buy for someone. Heck, I'd take it for $20k no reserve!

 

Installed the Renegade LS3 accessories mounting plates w/serpentine belt and a Corvette oil pan that's shallower than the stock GM Performance Camaro pan, now tapped for an oil temp sensor. Pretty clean fitment, except that you won't know that Renegade's supplied harmonic balancer pinches against a bolt on the timing cover until you've torqued the balancer to 235 ft-lbs... The bolt is non-critical and was cut off in situ with an angle grinder. Also needed to tilt the front coil-pack to clear the Powermaster 220A alternator.

 

Tidy - Cant remember - is that electric wapter pump on the lower right?

 

The Boston Audio speakers that I installed in the late 80's had rotted long ago.... so here is a new setup with drivers drawn from Focal's current Utopia, K2, and Flax Evo ranges. The alum flange on the dash includes a removable SS cut-out for a frame tube similar to Erik's set-up-- should I get to that later on.

 

The water pump sits nice and tight to block, clocked in the correct position to prevent cavitation.

 

The curse of lead bobbins found in older Lotuses rears its ugly head. During the teardown I found that the passenger side seat belt bolt was completely detached from its anchor buried somewhere inside the sill(no diagrams in the G-car service manual.) Turns out the outer lead bobbin that retains the bolt inside the side skirt had burst from its GRP encasement and was rattling around in the side skirt cavity. During exploratory surgery of the sill, I learned that Factory's practice was to fill the sill cavity with medium density foam.

 

Hmmm what will repair look like on this? Cut out a larger section and re glass the bobbin in place? Or something more?

 

Yeah, nothing wrong with the bobbin itself, just needed to enlarge the cavity around it and envelop with West System epoxy and their strongest filler, Colloidal Silica 406.

 

Claudius's replacement fiberglass front bumper required lots of remediation of waves, air pockets, and stress cracks, but in the end is nice and straight and ready to paint. First step was to add two locating pins through its marine plywood core to fix the bumper to the body for straight drilling from the outside in for four brass thread inserts and four side T-nut mounting points.

Relo of the battery to the front bonnet enabled removal of the stock battery box, now capped with a GRP panel. This frees up ample space for dual exhausts...

 

The modified center console is done except for padding, leather, and a blanking plate for window switches. The elevations seem about right. Styling attempts to blend teutonic with traditional Lotus lines and a touch of racing. The angularity and horizontality feels right for a G-car.

Shift cables will run through the gap between the backbone and the GRP on which the cushion rests.

The Beau clips that fix the fiberglass arm pad platform to the console are typically used by boaters to mount cushions. Very nice durable and flexible plastic with heads that can be trimmed to reduce their stiction rated at 15 lbs.-- which is relatively high for this application.

 

Final installation of the Boyd tanks. After messing with several types of rubber, I chose thick soft Neoprene for padding above and below. 1" and 1/2" sheets below were sculpted into a supportive flat bed that fills in around the narrow fiberglass ridge on which the original tanks rested/rusted.

The OEM marine plywood on top is replaced by 1/4" fire retardant GRP. The immersed fuel pump is a Holley 12-131 that necessitated fabrication of an alum ring to reduce the width of Boyd's standard opening. The Holley will have a very short dead-head returnless line through a 10um filter to the LS3 fuel rail. The pump has a built-in 60 PSI regulator with a return inside the tank. It has a Hydromat sock that sits inside the tank's swirl pot and across the bottom of the main baffle. The mat absorbs and holds gasoline to the extent that tank baffling becomes less critical.... Not sure if a returnless design is the best decision, but I'll face that later on.

The stock seats and rails were badly deteriorated, so I salvaged a pair from a Honda S2000. They're very close to a perfect fit.

 

Where did you source the GRP

Is that a marine thing?

Thx

 

So far all GRP sheets have been from McMaster-Carr. I thought about aluminum honeycomb or aluminum/foam laminates, but am learning to like that the slightly heavier 1/4" fiberglass with dense resin content is easily machined and accepts a tapped thread if needed.

 

That is surprising but it was a. Clean install

 

All exterior lamps now converted to LED. Headlights draw 2-2.5A each, running lights and turn signals 1- 1.5A each.

Headlights are a 5 3/4" Harley Davidson fitment from Eagle Lighting with Sanj's conversion kit.

Stock front side marker/turn signal replaced with a Diode Dynamics sequential turn signal/marker designed for a GMC Sierra. This entailed lite mods to the threaded mounting bosses of the housings and making a few simple brackets from alum angle.

Stock rear side marker replaced with side marker/sequential turn signal from--ouch-- a Mazda MX5. I was looking for something small but pretty for this position. Once the hole is cut they snap right in.

Stock front marker/turn signal pods in bumper accept standard 1156 and 1157 Morimoto bulbs. The edge of the alum base on the 1157 needed to be slightly beveled to seat.

Taillights and back-up light are all Morimoto-- two 1156 bulbs and two proprietary LEDs with pigtails into Amazon 1156 sockets.

Over the years the lead bobbin mounting points for the belly pan had all failed. Now replaced by Dzus quarter-turn fasteners into a frame of alum sheets mounted to the surrounding GRP.

 

BTW while at 45K miles the galvanization has stood up pretty well, I found light rust on tubes facing the turbo and a few small spots on the backbone in the engine bay. I stripped those areas to bare metal and applied ZRC cold galvanizing compound. We'll see how that holds up over time. Any experiences with cold galvanizing? ZRC claims it may equal or surpass a bath.

 

BTW while at 45K miles the galvanization has stood up pretty well, I found light rust on tubes facing the turbo and a few small spots on the backbone in the engine bay.

I found the same areas of missing galvanization when I did my engine-out refresh 10 years ago. I forget which specific product I used, but it is holding up fine, tho' I don't track our Esprit any more. (Just looked, luckily the Esprit is on the lift for yearly oil change/maintenance)

I can't find the picture I remembered of a red hot, glowing exhaust manifold on an 4 cyl Esprit, but it looked similar to this V8's exhaust.

 

 

Hi All!
Just heard from Scott of Renegrade Hybrids.

Renegade Hybrids

They are the ones that did the G-body Esprit LS V8 conversion a while ago and since last year, have been talking to them about specs and pricing for a kit that the Esprit community can use to convert an Esprit to an LS V8 or a kit to do the Porsche Boxter S transaxle conversion that they use in their conversions.

Sadly, things were delayed due to a tragic accident last year, where they lost one of their own, but now they have pricing and info for those who prefer to do the conversions on their own. As always, they are still offering full conversions at their facilities in Las Vegas. Be sure to check out that Esprit LS V8 youtube link below as well.

Here's is the announcement and pricing, as well as contact info, that I received from him below:



Renegade LS-V8 Lotus!

Thank you for your interest in our new Lotus Esprit LS-V8 conversion kit. As of Spring 2017, we completed the engineering, construction, testing, and the first small production run of Lotus Esprit conversion kits. The test car you saw in the video used our production parts with obvious success. We are so pleased with the outcome to say the least!

Then came a very unfortunate and tragic delay...

The development team at Renegade Hybrids has consisted of a pool of engineers in Vegas at the shop, as well as two brilliant engineers/machinists/fabricator/consultants that have been contributors to our 30+ years of success from the beginning. Shortly after the first Lotus production parts were completed, we lost one of extended family in a tragic accident. It took us a 'second' to find our collective way back to this project with good reason. Thank you for your patience and your hundreds of emails.

Now, let's have some fun!


Here are all the parts we offer:


$3895 - Adapter Kit (Flywheel, Clutch Disc, Pressure Plate and Hardware)

- Rear Custom Lotus to Boxster S six speed Transmission Mount

- Front Custom Engine Mount uprights and rubber isolators


REQUIRES Bolt-on outboard brake system from later Esprit


$995 - Custom Axle Kit

$995 - Electric Water Pump Kit


This kit requires the six speed Porsche Boxster S transaxle, shifter and stock cables, and may require an outboard brake conversion kit. The Boxster six speeds are readily available for roughly $2000 on Ebay or through your local salvage yards, and outboard conversion kits can be sourced for as little as $1200.

We use a front accessory kit to put the AC and Alternator up high from Dirty Dingo Motorsports GM LS Gen 3 LS1 Gen 4 Conversion Swap Engine Mounts and Accessory Brackets who specialize in front belt-drive serpentine systems. Some modifications will be necessary to make it shallow enough to clear the Lotus fire-wall.

If a reliable Lotus Esprit with loads of cheap power is in your dreams, let a Renegade conversion kit wake you up to reality:

Thank you for your continued interest, your patience, and your persistence. It's time to for Renegade to go British!

Sincerely,
Scott >>> Renegade Hybrids
Renegade Hybrids
702-739-8011

Good luck dealing with them. They sold me the clutch kit, then stopped responding to me when it came to the axels, is like they were confused because the splines weren't matching what they said they should be. I called and emailed them multiple times and never received a call or email back. So, I ended up putting the clutch kit to the side and found a good used Lotus V8 to put back in mine.

 

Regarding axels, the pair that I purchased in 2022 are standard Lotus part numbers manufactured in 2006, re-terminated by Renegade inboard with Porsche CV joints. I have not yet fitted them to the Porsche 6-speed trans, but can confirm that the splines fit the '89 Lotus outboard hub carriers, bearings, and hubs that I salvaged for the G-car conversion. I recall Renegade mentioning that they sourced a fair number of such axels from JAE, who had purchased much of Lotus's remaining NIB stock. JAE confirmed this and mentioned that while there were improvements to the axels in the final years of production, the fitment to prior model years is identical.

 

Been working toward completion of electrics in anticipation of turning to the LS3/Porsche 6-speed swap in summer. The bonnet firewall is fully wired and ready for programming. Power distribution evolved into a second ECUmaster PMU to handle all of the original loads plus more. The back of the firewall houses a Supercapacitor to stiffen the main battery and back up a hidden alarm ECU and GPS tracker.

I followed forum suggestions and mounted Mercedes visors, discarded the OEM rear view mirror, and added a dash-mounted Wolfbox 12" LCD mirror with front and rear cameras. The passenger side Mercedes mirror lamp wiring was preserved for the wife...

 

Much time spent building a wiring harness for the LS3 motor that will work with a Holley Dominator ECU. The stock Holley LS harness left much to be desired, as most of its lengths and junctions were in the wrong places for intake runners and throttle body that have been reversed on the block for the mid-engine application. While recutting and repining that harness, I embedded wires for extra sensors(oil level, oil temperature, fuel pressure, road speed pulsed from OEM Lotus ABS sensor), and high current 12awg feeds from ECUmaster PMUs in the front bonnet to fuel pump, electric water pump, starter solenoid, AC solenoid, rear oil cooler fan, engine bay fan, Accusump solenoid switch.)

Everything out back will fan out from a panel of AMP connectors located on the stock air intake plenum.

 

I have been fiddling with some harness stuff associated with my roll cage install....that is fantastic - mine looks like something a 3 yo did /-:

Really nice work!