My K 24 powered Lotus 23

HI all, heres some details of a little buggy i built last year, its a scratch built Lotus 23 race car, originally built with a K20 Type R engine, but a minor mishap saw it repowered with a K24 Turbo unit.


engine is mounted in the rear in a north south configuration and runs through a Subaru trans axle converted to front drive and turned upside down.
engine is stock with a Skunk inlet manifold and manual 80mm throttle body and is dry sumped with an IT power integrated pump pan unit.
running on E85 with a mild tune it has 310 RWHP and 460ftlbs of torque, and in a car that only weighs 550kg its fairly quick to say the least.
Only major problem so gar has been the drive line wasnt strong enough for so much torque, the original Lotus 23 uprights ran a Ford Festiva CV and axle which we broke on its first outing, so i have had the uprights modified to take a chev CV and hub, with a much bigger axle so hopefully that will fix the problem.
It runs on 13 x 10" slicks on the rear and 13 x 8" slicks up front, same as a F3,
any questions, ask away and i will answer as best i can.
heres a few pics to show what it looks like.
and a short clip of its third run on a damp hill climb run , which was good enough for a first in class on its debut.
https://flic.kr/p/2gv4Y2X
cheers Kaspa
 

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Love it and nice to meet a fellow petrol head. Is it just a track day car or do you use it weekends?
 
Hi Guys sorry i haven't been around for a while health has been a bit of a hindrance so i haven't been able to do a lot on the rocket.
but whats happened in the last 12 months, well the K24 turbo came to an end. was way to much hp for the little girl and kept breaking things, then a wire came off the boost controller solenoid and according to the data it threw a rod out of the side at 38PSI in 3rd gear, scary.
so i rebuilt the K20 type R engine and put that back in, and only just finished it and got it running again the other day.
so now ill have to get it re tuned then try and get a practice day at the track to run it in. but with this covet nonsense lord knows when that will be. cheers kaspa.
 
Hi Guys sorry i haven't been around for a while health has been a bit of a hindrance so i haven't been able to do a lot on the rocket.
but whats happened in the last 12 months, well the K24 turbo came to an end. was way to much hp for the little girl and kept breaking things, then a wire came off the boost controller solenoid and according to the data it threw a rod out of the side at 38PSI in 3rd gear, scary.
so i rebuilt the K20 type R engine and put that back in, and only just finished it and got it running again the other day.
so now ill have to get it re tuned then try and get a practice day at the track to run it in. but with this covet nonsense lord knows when that will be. cheers kaspa.
Sorry to hear that, glad you're back though and thanks for the update, it nice to see the progress you've made on this.

Great work!
 
I am a late convert to a Honda CTR but came from many years of turbo RWD and I know it's a bit late BUT I would never contemplated pumping 38 psi into a stock bottom end and expect it to last without upgrading to forged rods and pistons .

The Honda K series is also an open deck and IMO needs a block guard or Darton sleeves to stabilize the cylinders when being subjected to hi boost pressures.

My bad :eek: as I just read your post again so what pressure were you pumping into the K24 before you had the boost go off the scale.

PS left my original response in this post for general info
 

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