Some of us Lotusphiles don’t know when to leave well enough alone. So what do you do when you are mechanically challenged, but still want to build your version of the ultimate Europa? Richard Winters of Europa Engineering in Banks England, has some “bolt on” tricks that even novices like me would have a hard time screwing up (more on screwing up later).
The plan for my version of the ultimate Europa has three phases: 1. The car should stop as fast as possible. 2. The car needs to corner without losing it 3. The car needs to accelerate as fast as possible.
So after checking out the Europa Engineering Website (www.banks-europa.co.uk), I parted with about $900 and started to implement phase 1.
Richard sells a nifty kit that replaces the rear drum brakes with 9” dia Ford disk brakes.
The kit comes with calipers, rotors, pads, and flexible braided steel covered brake lines with the proper fittings to mate with the caliper and the existing Europa brake line where the training arm attaches to the frame (you don’t need the existing flexible connection at the front of the trailing arm or the rigid steel tubing that runs along the arm. You will need to buy some plastic retainers (the kind usually used for wiring harness) and some screws to attach the flexible line and retainer to the square holes on top of the trailing arm (the square holes were for the original brake pipe retainers). THERE ARE NO INSTRUCTIONS WITH THE KIT (although Richard will eventually respond to emails – doesn’t like to type; and is helpful on the phone when you can reach him Banks is 8 hours ahead of the Bay Area, so you need to call in the morning, dial 011-44-1704-227059).
The biggest part of the job is dis-assembling and re-assembling the rear hubs. You have to do this so that you can take the drum assembly off the hub and mount the bracket for the calipers. Experts say that you can’t do a quality job with the suspension on the car. I know my limitations, so I removed the right and left quarters and took them over to Rich Kamp so that he could do the work on the hubs. Removing each quarter is pretty easy: 1. Remove the wheel. 2. Disconnect the parking brake cable from the drum assy 3. Jack up the drum assy so that you can drive out the pin between the transmission and halfshaft 4. Remove the bolt connecting the hub with the rear spring assy and lower link 5. Remove the bolt connecting the front of the training arm to the frame (DON’T GET THE WASHERS MIXED UP) 6. Disconnect the brake line at the front of the training arm assy.
Fitting up the parking brake to the new caliper assembly takes a little work. Fortunately, the Ford caliper has a bracket for the hub at the end of the parking brake sheath that is exactly the same diameter as the original Lotus bracket on the training arm; however the distance between the hub and the parking brake lever on the caliper is shorter, so you need to make up some spacers. I bought six 1/2” ID (1/1/4” OD) flat washers, ground them down a little so that they didn’t stick out so much (probably didn’t need to do it), then cut slot into them so that I could get the cable through when I fit them over the hub. That moves the hub at the end of the sheath back far enough so that the original clip and pin will fit up to the parking brake lever in the caliper.
Got the assy back from Rich Kamp, and everything went back together fine. (The holes in the rotor appear to be too big for the 3/8” studs that hold the wheel on – however, the diameter of the stud increases to ½” near the flange, so that once the wheel is on there is a tight fit). EXCEPT, I couldn’t get the pads to clear the rotor on the left wheel. After much head scratching (even started to sand the pads down), I finally figured out that the calipers are adjustable. So after sticking the end of an open-end wrench into slots on the edge of the caliper piston and rotating clockwise, I had the necessary clearance (told you I’d find a way to screw up).
So, how does it stop? It stops great. There is a noticeable improvement over the drum setup. Can’t wait for Thunderhill!