Afternoon all. I'm a retired biker (nasty accident on a Ducati 1098s), and now fiddle solely with cars. I'm rebuilding a Lotus and after much deliberation over which power-train to use, I've decided I'm putting an 09 Blade engine in it. I'm building the car in the style of the 340r, so minimal bodywork, and hopefully a finished weight around 550kg. That's still a lot of weight for the Blade engine to cope with, so whilst it'll be rapid up to the NSL, it'll be hard work at higher speeds. This suits me fine to be honest - the car is a toy, so I want it to be involving, wail like a banshee, and still stand a chance of hanging onto my licence! Sure, some might consider a Busa or ZZR14 engine (or a car engine!!!) as 'more suitable' to my application, but the Blade is so light, and its proven itself time and again in the RGB racing series (road going bke-engined cars). I've got myself an engine from a 40k 2009 bike. It came at the right price and with all the running gear required to get me going. It was sold as a good runner, and it has lots of service receipts. It doesn't appear to have had anything major done to it over and above normal servicing, but I bought it with an expectation that it may need work anyway. In the meantime, I can use it for getting my subframe measurements, etc. I know Blades are famously robust and 40k is probably not a huge deal, but would really appreciate a steer on any 'essentials' that should be addressed at this sort of age / mileage. I intend doing the 'usual' car-going mods - baffled sump, delete the water pump in favour of an electric one, delete the PAIR valves, heavy duty clutch diaphragm, etc. Thanks in advance.
Wouldn't have a clue , tbh, there's also the issue of the 08 model blade burning a drop of oil , but I had one and it didn't burn alot oil , I only used it as a weekend toy tho , same as u will be using the lotus
I wouldn't do a thing other than valve clearances - my engine was fully stripped at over 80k , inspected by 2 engineers and had almost no wear at all - just damaged which was caused and had to be proved. I can send links to the images - it was remarkable condition but most were road miles and I'll admit I'm not the most aggressive rider
Cheers. Spoke to a few other folk and they have the same opinion. Will just give it a tart-up, do the valves, and then the bike-to-car mods.
maybe stick a new cct just to be safe? i hear those fail sometimes.... other then that the 08/09 (and 2010?) models had an issue with oil consumption due to low friction pistonrings. here in holland they where all replaced on (extended) warranty. they later (2010 onwards) fitted proper rings upon assembly. last thing i know on similar model years was a problem with the clutch basket (again here all where recalled for warranty) how the above issues where adressed in the uk i wouldnt know.... a friend of mine ownes a 2008 blade wich now has around 80k kms (50000 miles) under the belt without many issues apart from the above mentioned right at the start... he bought it new back then...
