Dodge Viper vs ZR-1

[flyin ryan]

Originally Posted by secondchance

Actually after ZR-1 production had stopped and Lotus left GM, Lotus decided Turbo 4 was holding back their Esprit model. There was an article in either Road & Track or Car & Driver that Lotus approached GM over purchasing LT5s for use in their Esprit. When GM flat out turned it down, so the story goes, Lotus designed their flat crank V8 (I think it was 4.4 liter and around 1998).
Had GM gone along with Lotus we may have seen LT5 developed to the next stage.

Hhmmm....,Really,...very interesting.

[Aurora40]

Originally Posted by secondchance

Actually after ZR-1 production had stopped and Lotus left GM, Lotus decided Turbo 4 was holding back their Esprit model. There was an article in either Road & Track or Car & Driver that Lotus approached GM over purchasing LT5s for use in their Esprit. When GM flat out turned it down, so the story goes, Lotus designed their flat crank V8 (I think it was 4.4 liter and around 1998).
Had GM gone along with Lotus we may have seen LT5 developed to the next stage.

Interesting.

I wonder if they just wanted to buy the design? I'd think any tooling and such would have been gone by the time Lotus was putting a V8 in the Esprit.

It was a 3.5L TT though, that they came up with. Around 350hp. I don't think it started out with a 180-degree crank though, I remember when they had advertisements about adding it (the ad talked about the wail the engine made).

[secondchance]

Originally Posted by Aurora40

Interesting.

I wonder if they just wanted to buy the design? I'd think any tooling and such would have been gone by the time Lotus was putting a V8 in the Esprit.

It was a 3.5L TT though, that they came up with. Around 350hp. I don't think it started out with a 180-degree crank though, I remember when they had advertisements about adding it (the ad talked about the wail the engine made).

You are right. It was 3.5 TT (excuse me for saying 4.4. got confused w/ BMW V8 - it's been a while...).

Good catch!

[UKZR1]

Originally Posted by secondchance

Actually after ZR-1 production had stopped and Lotus left GM, Lotus decided Turbo 4 was holding back their Esprit model. There was an article in either Road & Track or Car & Driver that Lotus approached GM over purchasing LT5s for use in their Esprit. When GM flat out turned it down, so the story goes, Lotus designed their flat crank V8 (I think it was 4.4 liter and around 1998).
Had GM gone along with Lotus we may have seen LT5 developed to the next stage.

Lotus did used to build their own engines. The switch to Toyota was probably a good thing. Lots Of Trouble Usually Serious - Lotus. Came from their reliability issues.

As for lotus using LT5's they did. There was a Le Mans Elise built that was running a flat plane crank but rule changes meant it wasn't used. I have seen the engine. Jeal got it from a guy that bought the Elise and wanted to put it back to a more original configuration. I believe there are still pictures on my site somewhere. From memory the engine was mounted by brackets on the cam covers.

Interestingly I also heard that Jaguar purchassed a zr1 some years ago whilst working on the then new XK8 engine. The lt5 does kind of live on.

Likewise a mate Tim that works in car design (was at the gathering with us a few years back) formally at Detroit ended up coming back to the uk got a new job with Merc. In Germany. He was working on the new sport model. There was a C6 Z06 there as that's their target car for weight and performance

[UKZR1]

Here you go found the link

http://www.corvetteclips.co.uk/Modifications.html

bottom of the page is photos and it's history

[secondchance]

Originally Posted by UKZR1

Here you go found the link

http://www.corvetteclips.co.uk/Modifications.html

bottom of the page is photos and it's history

Thanks for sharing this with us. That is cool!