# MEV Lotus Eleven



## mowyang (Mar 24, 2008)

You gotta love the Lotus Eleven. Fully loaded, it weighed about 1000 pounds. It won its class at the 24 hours of LeMans in 1956, and piloted by Sirling Moss (of Aurora Tjet fame ) set world speed records at Monza. And now, MEV has one to fit the tjet! 










Too bad the stock tjet chassis makes it look like the _Lotus Eleven Off-Road_.

Some of you may see where I'm going with this . . . 

Mark :wave:


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## tjd241 (Jan 25, 2004)

Gonna do a dropper MarK?... Pics Please!!! nd


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## Hilltop Raceway (Feb 12, 2006)

I can see it :thumbsup::thumbsup: RM


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## Bill Hall (Jan 6, 2007)

*One! two! three! NOT IT!!!*



mowyang said:


> ....And now, MEV has one to fit the tjet!
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thats what they call fitting a t-jet ???:freak:

If any one can smoosh that thing down to anything resembling reality...your it!


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## roadrner (Jul 21, 1999)

Come on, let's get her finished. Looks sweet, can't wait to see her wrapped up. :thumbsup::thumbsup: rr


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## mowyang (Mar 24, 2008)

*lower lotus*


























It obviously needs some detailing, and I'm going to try to vacuform a windshield for it. But already I can say it turned out maybe better than expected. 

Mark


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## kiwidave (Jul 20, 2009)

Wow!!!! That looks great. I am impressed!!!


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## clausheupel (Jan 27, 2005)

*WOW!!! If this beast is really real...*

...and riding on a MOTORIZED chassis now, then you´re the REAL KING OF LOWERING! Any pics of the chassis (if it´s not only a T-Jet minus gearplate...)??? 

Sorry for sounding so sceptical, but I once tried to bring down a couple T-Jets the "Bill-Hall-way", but ended up converting one of my best chassis to a mediocre cruiser. :drunk: Looked much better, but I decided to let my other MEV racers left untouched then... 

Mark, if this cool Lotus is real, I´m really eager to know how you did it! 

Best regards ´n greetings from Germany,

Claus


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## slotcarman12078 (Oct 3, 2008)

Wowsers! Agreed!! We need spy shots of this chassis!!! Unreal lowering job! :thumbsup::thumbsup:


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## XracerHO (Feb 6, 2008)

Fantastic lowering job, the car really looks Great!! :thumbsup: :thumbsup: Would sure appreciate knowing the techique. ..RL


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## Guidepin (Apr 25, 2009)

AMAZING :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup: GK


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## Bill Hall (Jan 6, 2007)

Mark's always been the King of mashin' pancakes.

C'mon dude make with the Jenny Craig chassis pic!


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## NTxSlotCars (May 27, 2008)

Wow! That is a bad a#% car!!!! I love that era of LeMans! 
Great job on the lowering. :thumbsup: How the heck did you do it?


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## win43 (Aug 28, 2006)

DANG!!!!! That's low. Fess up ..... show us the chassis


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## mowyang (Mar 24, 2008)

Thanks, guys! It's especially nice to get comments from those whose work I have admired for so long. 

Heh heh, yes, it's real Claus. Going the push car route would have been too easy. I'm away from home this weekend, but I'll take some chassis pics and post them when I return. If you want to get a head start on how I did it though, check out the Dino and the Batmobile. The Lotus is most closely related to the Batmobile, though there are a few more tweeks that make it unique. And one in particular that allowed some additional, er, smooshing. 

Mark


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## Ogre (Jan 31, 2007)

Prehaps everyone knows about this and it doesn't meet your needs any longer. http://howorld.fsmra.com/archives/howto/conversions/tj_chmod/chassmod.html


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## demether (Aug 26, 2008)

Lowering tjet chassis can be done quite easy, I fitted nicely my ferrari 250gto modifiying the chassis and the body too (with dremel) :


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## slotcarman12078 (Oct 3, 2008)

What's 1/16th "??? Not that much until you look at things in scale... In HO scale 1/16th" = about 6" of 1:1 space. When coupled with a regular post trimming of another 1/16th you're looking at about 1 scale foot of drop, which is HUGE!! I've admired your work for a while now Mark, mostly thanks to Bill Hall cluing me in. The Porsche and Bat mobile were buried in the great HT library and unseen by me until he pointed them out. I've hacked at a few chassis myself, but nowhere near to the extremes you have accomplished. I do want to try your methods myself one of these days, probably going the Bat mobile chassis route. There's some serious engineering going on there.. :thumbsup::thumbsup:


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## bobhch (Apr 22, 2007)

mowyang said:


> It obviously needs some detailing, and I'm going to try to vacuform a windshield for it. But already I can say it turned out maybe better than expected.
> 
> Mark


You should change your name to WOWyang!! That drop is crazy kewl. :thumbsup::thumbsup:

Bob...loving it...zilla


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## Bill Hall (Jan 6, 2007)

Ya see...I'm a lazy hack....I move the axle centers up.

"Wowyang" moves the entire chassis down methodically and painstakingly in ways that make my head hurt just thinking about it. 

Cant wait to see the new bits of voodoo he's come up with..
That aint no pancake. He's hiding something....I'll bet it's a Crepe.


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## LeeRoy98 (Jul 8, 2005)

Wow... mow... very nice work. I admit to not caring much for the original body... I've seen enough off road bodied T-jets. But you made it look fantastic. I can't wait to see the finished product.

Gary
AKA LeeRoy98
www.marioncountyraceway.com


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## mowyang (Mar 24, 2008)

OK, a few chassis shots! I like the one at the top left. Looks like one chassis in the pic, but there are actually two chassis side by side in that shot. The Lotus chassis is in the foreground, and a stock chassis is behind it. Look carefully at the gearplate and you can see what's going on. The pic on the top right shows just the Lotus chassis. The blurry bottom shot shows I just about achieved what Claus mentioned . . . a chassis the height of a tjet minus the gearplate! Woohoo!

Mark


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## kiwidave (Jul 20, 2009)

Just Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!


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## shocker36 (Jul 5, 2008)

How does the motor turn?


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## demether (Aug 26, 2008)

INcredible. THe work on the chassis is just a piece of art of his own ! :thumbsup:


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## roadrner (Jul 21, 1999)

:thumbsup::thumbsup: rr


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## slotcarman12078 (Oct 3, 2008)

*So this is what a T Jet chassis looks like in a thong bikini.....*

I agree 100% RR.... :freak:  :thumbsup::thumbsup:

I will fail miserably, but I will try none the less..


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## shocker36 (Jul 5, 2008)

The real question is does it actually use a pancake motors and gears. 
Awesome work though. I should get some pics of my stuff up soon


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## slotcarman12078 (Oct 3, 2008)

My gut says yes!! http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/showthread.php?t=223604


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## Gear Head (Mar 22, 2005)

What the....?

That's awesome. That brings tjets to a whole new level, no pun intended. Dang it, now there will be more bodies that I "have" to have. ....If I can duplicate your craftsmenship. :tongue:


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## HadaSlot (Oct 22, 2007)

I'll raise Clause a HELL YEAH and then I call the Photoshop bluff on the chassis. We folks from Missouri need a "Show Me." I have photoshop and I also have a chassis in hand. By the way Demether, that Ferrari is BadAzz (a highly respectful online compliment). I love it when the gears are exposed.


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## mowyang (Mar 24, 2008)

*Tough crowd!*

Maybe this will convince the skeptics?


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## bobhch (Apr 22, 2007)

those cut-outs for tire clearance in the pickup shoes are insainly Cool....WOW!

Bob...always believe...zilla


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## txronharris (Jun 1, 2005)

Sick!


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## demether (Aug 26, 2008)

HadaSlot said:


> By the way Demether, that Ferrari is BadAzz (a highly respectful online compliment). I love it when the gears are exposed.




thanks, but the final car 's got opaque windows :thumbsup:


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## slotcarman12078 (Oct 3, 2008)

I was gonna ask about the pinion gear mesh, but I get it now looking at the pictures!! Superb bit of re-engineering there Mark.. :thumbsup::thumbsup:


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## Bill Hall (Jan 6, 2007)

Check moderen inline open wheelers for wrap around curved glass Mark. Give us a top shot....I'll dig thru my pile of glass.


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## mowyang (Mar 24, 2008)

*Body mounting*


















Thought I'd mention the changes I made for body mounting. To get the chassis to fit under the body, I trimmed both the front and the back of the chassis and relocated the screw holes. In the front, I drilled a new hole between the body screw hole and the hole for the guide pin nub. In the rear, I trimmed a bit, and then elongated the slot for the rear screw. In the body, I glued in two new screw posts after grinding down the originals.

I've got to take a few more pics to show how I squeezed the arm into the flatter chassis. The eagle eyed among you may spot a clue in yesterday's pic showing the bottom of the chassis. 

Bill, good idea about the curved glass. Pics around the web show 11's with several windshield types, and modern open wheelers may just do the trick for those 11's with the wrap-around cowl. I hadn't thought about that. Implementation may be a problem though, 'cause I'm lousy at body work and paint.  I'll snap a shot of the top. Thanks!

Mark


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## kiwidave (Jul 20, 2009)

Amazing work!!!!


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## tjd241 (Jan 25, 2004)

*Thanks Mark...*

Great job on the pics and better still on the chassis itself. STELLAR mods!! I hope you realize though, that all us tards are now all sittin at our workbenches with our nos chassis in one hand and a claw hammer and hacksaw in the other. Just tryin ta decide where to start cuttin!! :freak: Can't ya just send one a these droppers to everybody?  nd


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## slotcarman12078 (Oct 3, 2008)

I'm not awake yet, and certainly not in any condition to rifle through my junk chassis stash to look at this before asking, so if this sounds totally stupid that's my excuse. Has anyone attempted to graft an AFX chassis together with a T Jet? I'm thinking the AFX motor section already sits lower, by virtue of the axle's location. The only things that would need to be tinkered with would be basket handle removal and that section bridged to restore the strength to the chassis, and modifications to allow the post mounts to be utilized... Are chassis "goop-able"? I'm just throwing this on here blindly so I don't forget about this later. If it sounds stupid, refer to excuse #1. :lol:


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## Bill Hall (Jan 6, 2007)

*I saw chain saws and splittin' mauls*



tjd241 said:


> Great job on the pics and better still on the chassis itself. STELLAR mods!! I hope you realize though, that all us tards are now all sittin at our workbenches with our nos chassis in one hand and a claw hammer and hacksaw in the other. Just tryin ta decide where to start cuttin!! :freak: Can't ya just send one a these droppers to everybody?  nd


Oh gawd thats TOO FUNNY Nuther! I've got a huge bag of victims with all sorts of perverted tortures applied to them. I keep meaning to start a museum of chassis horrors thread. Master craftsman like Mark have inspired for generations now and we still keep mutilating the innocent trying to emulate their visions. 

Ujoe: IMHO Joe I've never seen anything in the way of glue, adhesive, epoxy, or space age goober schlobber hold nylatron indefinatly. It's only a matter of time before it starts to let go.










However, I have had very good success welding nylatron. The basket handles were replaced with flat stock that was snipped from a standard t-jet chassis. The extra tail section was attached the same way. 

The technique somewhat resembles torch or tig welding, were rod is fed into the the molten puddle and built up to the desired shape. The rod was made by snipping thin strips of old gear plate. Unlike welding the iron/tip is in contact with the work piece so it's beyond messy. The hotter the better. Max ventilation is required as well...the fumes are noxious if not toxic.

It takes some practice, but it can be done.


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## Guidepin (Apr 25, 2009)

This whole thread blows me away ! GREAT WORK and GREAT PICS by all. :thumbsup::thumbsup: GK


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## Illinislotfan (Mar 8, 2009)

Gotta agree with Bill about the lack of any sort of glue that will work with whatever an Aurora chassis is made of. I have used his goop method to weld a brush tension spring that had lost its tension onto the chassis. I just finished this last week, and it took several applications of goop, but it seems to be working. Not sure how long it will last. I don't have hundreds of laps on it, but it makes it around the track at a decent speed. It would only run before if I held it to a transformer, and applied toothpick pressure to the spring. See the black goop on the rear tension spring in the photo below.








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## mowyang (Mar 24, 2008)

*A flatter armature!*

Ever take a close look at a JL arm? By golly, there's some space between the arm windings and the commutator. Hmm. I unsoldered the wires, removed the washer on the end of the armature shaft, and then removed the comm. After carefully filing the tabs on the ends of the armature poles that hold the commutator in place, the comm can then be pushed further onto the shaft to press against the windings. Replace the washer, resolder the wires, and you've got a flatter armature! Check it out: 

















Using this flatter arm, the motor box could be made shallower, so I took extra material off the top of the chassis. I also sanded the magnets to make them a bit shorter. Once this was all done, the gearplate was so low that the crown gear rubbed against the bottom of the gearplate. I addressed this by grinding a bit of material from the bottom of the gearplate next to the pinion gear. I also used a crown gear from an AFX 4-gear speciality chassis, which is slightly smaller in diameter than a stock tjet crown.

And that's the rest of the story!

Mark


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## slotcarman12078 (Oct 3, 2008)

Wow!!!! Leaps and bounds beyond my abilities!!!. I'll try one eventually, but I won't go to these extremes!! SLICK!!


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## kiwidave (Jul 20, 2009)

Amazed again!!!


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## clausheupel (Jan 27, 2005)

*Speechless again!*

Mark,

that´s chassis engineering at its very best!!!

Thanks for giving such deep insight to your techniques - although I´ll probably never ever get that far, it´s great to know what can be done (if one can do it...)! :freak:

:thumbsup::thumbsup: from the other side of the great puddle,

Claus


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## XracerHO (Feb 6, 2008)

WOW, Mark, excellent chassis engineering & even rebuilding the armature too lower it!! :thumbsup: :thumbsup: Just incredible work! ..RL


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## Bill Hall (Jan 6, 2007)

He's a witch! High tech sorcery I say!


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## win43 (Aug 28, 2006)

mowyang said:


> Ever take a close look at a JL arm? By golly, there's some space between the arm windings and the commutator. Hmm. I unsoldered the wires, removed the washer on the end of the armature shaft, and then removed the comm. After carefully filing the tabs on the ends of the armature poles that hold the commutator in place, the comm can then be pushed further onto the shaft to press against the windings. Replace the washer, resolder the wires, and you've got a flatter armature! Check it out:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 AMAZING!!!!!!


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## demether (Aug 26, 2008)

WOW

Incredible work. Amazingly more complex and advanced that my simple chassis mods. 

HAT OFF !


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## bobhch (Apr 22, 2007)

*This is now beeing put into the Websters Dictionary as a definition of low...*

Flatter Armature...Woaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

Bob...Limbo, Limbo, Limbo High, Limbo, Limbo, Limbo Low...zilla


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## vaBcHRog (Feb 19, 2003)

Bump to the top This is the finest lowering of a TJET I ever seen.


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## SCJ (Jul 15, 1999)

MOWYANG-

PM sent.

------------------------------
www.SlotCarJohnnies.com


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## Gear Head (Mar 22, 2005)

Ditto Roger. I missed this post. Soo cool!


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## SCJ (Jul 15, 1999)

PM sent


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