Queenie's Engine story

[Tyler Townsley]

First Drivetrain

When I got the car there was no drivetrain. I contacted Geoff Jeal in England who worked for Lotus on the LT-5 project. He knew where all the stuff that Lotus discarded after GM sold the company was located. (The Graveyard) He searched through the bits and pieces and found enough to build a Phase 2 engine. In his search he found one of 3 forged Phase 2 cranks built for testing and used it to assemble the motor, s/n 42. Through another contact I found an early ZF transmission but it could not be used due to missing pieces so I used a 1990 model transmission.
Because of faulty DIS modules and the wiring differences between the 1988s and the production cars it took 2 ½ years to get the engine started. It turns out that the 2 DIS engineering samples Geoff had for this motor were bad. Once this was discovered I tried to use a 1990 DIS but it was not until someone forwarded me a copy of LT-5 wiring diagram for the 1989 pilot cars that I discovered there were/are wiring differences between the cars. The 2 major differences were the DIS modules are wired differently and the primary fuel pump on the early cars were controlled by the oil pressure sensor vice the ECM. Once these were corrected then the car would start and run.
However starting proved to be a problem, There were 2 problems in the fueling system. The first was the ‘accelerator pump’ calibration event was extremely lean, I am running the original ECM and calibration map so I can only surmise the calibration was for non-alcohol formulated fuel and was just too lean. The second was the experimental injectors, they were designed before alcohol based fuels and over time they would break down and short out. During the troubleshooting process I would have occasions where the injectors kept injecting fuel while the ignition was in the run position. Until this was discovered and corrected there was considerable ‘bore wash’ and cam wear due to fuel diluting the oil. Needless to say it was a disaster waiting to happen and I kept my eyes open for a fix which happened in August 2011.

[Tyler Townsley]

Second Drivetrain

In late 1998 GM decided to commission a LT-5 powered street rod for the Oakland Roadster Show in California. They farmed the build out to California Street Rods (CSR). The car was to be painted purple and be powered by an LT-5. A 1989 Pilot ZR-1 pilot was also painted the same color and to be shown with the roadster.(This ZR-1was sold at BJ by GM and is currently owned by Eric Jackson.) Since this was early in the production cycle there was no spare drivetrain so GM sent a ‘roller’, which comprised of a tub with drivetrain. The drivetrain from this car was used to mock up the engine and transmission mounting points on the roadster, which was to receive a production drivetrain when available. The roller was EX5010 sans bodywork but with a phase 2 engine and early transmission. When CSR received the production drivetrain they swapped out the engine but not the transmission. Fast forward to 2011, CSR has vendor spaces at Carlisle and has an engine for sale labeled prototype LT-5 engine. I was there with Queenie for a display and a friend came and tipped me off so I went to see just what they had. Their sign was ½ right, CSR had put production heads and plenum on a Phase 2 engine and had some unknowing individual bought the setup it would have never run. I asked where they had gotten the motor and they told me the above story and they still had the original heads and six speed but did not know the vin of the car and the tub had long since destroyed. We had negoated a price when I noticed a set of 88 ZR-1 wheels and tires with P8Y083 written on them and they confirmed that those had come from same car so I then knew which car the drivetrain came from, EX5010, so I Bought them too. Those will be on the reconstructed EX5023. I later discovered the ZF was built in 1989 and was in a pilot car so the purple roadster wherever it is has the early transmission, if that is you please get in touch with me.
In Sept 2012 I took the engine and Queenie to Geoff for an engine retrofit using the motor from EX5010. He confirmed my suspicions concerning engine wear and using the chains and crank from the earlier motor went through the EX5010 motor and completely rebuilt the motor. This motor and the pilot line ZF are what is installed today hopefully someday the roadster owner will contact me and I can swap out the 1989 pilot ZF for the early ZF in his car which would complete a long journey.

[Tyler Townsley]

Since there has been little activity here I figured I would provide an update to this story. In April I picked up the car to take it to the NCM for display. Geoff had not gotten the car started so I took dis, ecm and coil packs just in case. I pulled the plenum, check the dis with my checker, replaced the coil pack, made triple sure the wiring was right and put it back together. It started but sounded like a thrashing machine!! Instead of using the heads off 5010 as I had asked he used the heads that were on the car after having a local machine shop do a valve job. The machine shop cut the valves down so much that one cyl had no compression and all the lifters were collapsed so much they would not pump up.

Never buy a trailer without a winch! We winched the car on the trailer and she is on display at the NCM with a date in Sept to get the other heads put on.

Just as aside Geoff said GM paid about $250,000 each for the 25 Phase II motors during the development process. So one of these versions in running condition is a real rarity, well there are 2 that do run out there.

Tyler

[Tripler]

Wow . Just reading this info now . Cool beans . Thanks

[XfireZ51]

Awesome story Ty.

[Blue Flame Restorations]

I'm so sorry your engine work was sub par. You deserved better than that, for sure. I'm glad EX5023's Phase II is purring smoothly.