Monza GSE B580 UPR 1985 5 - Speed manual with ABS
6 years last November ago on my birthday I collected this
Yep I drove nearly 400 mile round trip to collect a free dead Monza – one point to note is that at this point I had already jet washed the car down on the trailer removing several years of green mould - I had to jet wash the lorry down too…….
I am the second owner - The Previous Owner - David Saunders - was a club member bought it in Germany brand new while serving in the forces. This is why the windows are etched with BPU 57B (this is the forces plate allocated to the car) - he brought the car back to the UK when he left the force and had it registered here. He used it for a couple of years comuting 120 miles a day but then he got a job in the far east so put her into storage. The bill for putting her back on the road when he retuned 4 years later was £2714.65. The storage conditions apparently hadn't been ideal! He then used her again every day for a year putting about 30K on her clock making a total of 180K before he was allocated a company car. His intention was to use her as a weekend car but due to lack of time as a result of work commitments and a rapidly expanding family she lay dormant outside his garage generally getting in the way and growing copius quantites of mould inside and out. David contacted me to ask if I knew anyone interested in the car - it had to go and go soon as he knew if it wasn't worked on it would never be recoverable and after some long conversations about condition and I was hooked - I borrowed an EX AA Transporter and made the long journey from Norfolk to Southampton to collect the car - no cash exchanged hands the purchase price of the car was the cost of Diesel to collect £87.67 to be precise.
So what was it like when I got it home - All four brakes seized as well as the handbrake - winching the car onto the transporter left long black lines from the driveway to the cab. The engine hadn't been run for over a year. It was covered in green mould due to the shaded nature of its parked position. The interior didn't look much better and absolutely nothing electrical worked even with a brand new battery. There were other faults found during the course of getting her back on the road but bottom line was it took me a whole month to get the engine running and over a year before she passed an MOT. The intention was to use her as an additional summer car and maybe finish of a few of the odd jobs that needed doing like the mechanical odometer on the digital instrumentation pack didn't work. (well it racked up a mile or so in a months worth of use and thats it)
So she was finally on the road and expenditure amounted to just over £1000 - battery, radiator, water pump, tyres, brake pads, discs, handbrake shoes, header tank, hoses, headlights, indicators, body parts, serviced items and a not unreasonable ammount of welding.
The same week she passed the MOT a club member locally had a major problem with the engine on his Carlton GSi and due to a financial commitment elsewhere he could not afford to repair the engine so I loaned him the GSE - FOR 6 MONTHS - I saw it everyday tho..... He commuted 60 miles a day 5 days a week which would have put 7000 miles on the odometer if it worked!!!! I got it back and continued to put miles on the car for 2 years without more than 50 being recorded on the dash (i'd bought another intrumentation unit but that had the same fault!!! Then amazingly enough the odometer started working and seems to be happily racking up the miles now.
I used her for everyday commuting - track days - car shows and occasionally because the hatch back arrangement is so handy when the seats are folded flat carrying awkward or large items.
Well I did!!!!!!
After 5 years of use it was well over due for a birthday so i took her off the road last winter and did a bit of work on her....... There is a full detail thread elsewhere so I'll try and just give you a feel for it here....
What does it look like now well it's a long story (covered elsewhere but it's last run out as a 12V car was a track session at Trax2005 and as well as getting ragged stupid on the track it had to suffer a run on the mobile dyno as a before (after will be a long time later) benchmark
Dyno run video footage if anyone is interested
Run up to speed
http://www.lotuscarlton.co.uk/DSCF2123.WMV Power run (this exhaust is a tad loud but to me sound perfect even the lass running the computer put her finger in her ears)
http://www.lotuscarlton.co.uk/DSCF2124.WMV - last time as a 12V just to see how down on power she was
163 bhp from something thats done over 200,000 miles most of them not exactly sympathetic either!!! Down from the Manufactures figures of 180 bhp but still respectable!!!
So as I like it as a track car I thought I'd strip it out and use it just for track days
Spec now after a winter rebuildLowered and uprated springs front and rear
Spax adjustable dampers
OMP eco seats
4 point momo harnesses
8 point custom roll cage
16 inch track day wheels and tyres
Completely striped interior
Analogue dash
Fully balanced and blueprinted 24V engine pushing 239 bhp
Poly bushed suspension
LSD
Custom flywheel to mate a Getrag 265 Box to the 24V engine (9Kgs)
If it moves and is attached to the shell it's powdercoated
24V Refurbished Front brakes (Drilled Brembo 300mm discs)
Std Refurbished Monza Rear discs Drilled to match the font
EBC redstuff pads front and rear
Probably a whole load of other stuff I've forgotten
What does it look like now
Videos Track day Video footage Pulling away from the pits to join the track
http://www.lotuscarlton.co.uk/Ian1.wmv And a couple of drive-by clips
http://www.lotuscarlton.co.uk/Ian2.wmvJoin me for a lap
www.zippyvideos.com/8813126435936306/dscf3505_reduced/http://www.zippyvideos.com/9461336265936866/dscf3504_reduced/So of course nothing left to do to her now apart from routine maintenance - Nope
The next stage......
The video is a big clue
Clicky for Monza on triple carbs
