I'm selling my 13B powered Lotus 7 replica. I purchased this car a couple of years ago from the original owner. It was built by Eric Wharton in FL, who built a dozen or so of these. This one uses an Arkley SS fiberglass body on custom steel tube chassis, mostly 1" square. The car was built a little oversize in length and width to accommodate the size of the previous owner. This included moving the steering link to go up and over the driver's foot box, and then down to the rack. If you have big feet, this is the car for you. Total weight is around 1850lbs. Heavy for a 7, but with around 200hp it’s peppy enough. Being oversize, steel floors, etc., explains the weight. Front spindles are 90’s Jag, and the IRS rear is Miata. The trans is RX7.
As stated, the engine is a Mazda 13B that was rebuilt by the previous owner. It is supposed to be street ported. The oil pump was removed, so this is a pre-mix setup. There is a spot near the gas tank to hold two 3 oz bottles of oil for when you fill-up. A Holley 650 Double Pumper sits on top of a Racing Beat manifold (see below for details).
Most of the work I’ve done on it has been maintenance and small fixes. This includes: replacing an oil line to one of the coolers, new battery, starter, cleanup of some of the wiring, shifter rebuild, all of the fluids.
The main update I did was to modify the Racing Beat intake manifold back it’s more original configuration, where each port in the manifold pulls from only one barrel of the carb. The manifold had been shortened when the car was built to get the air cleaner on the Holley carb to fit under the hood. The carb mount was cut off, the manifold shortened, then the carb mount was reattached. In that process, the carb mount was also modified so it was more of an open plenum. Each port was pulling from all four barrels of the carb. This was causing me some starting and drivability issues. It’s now back to the one port/one barrel setup. The carb was re-jetted to compensate for the change. This is still a little idle surge, so it could use some additional tuning. An O2 bung was welded to the exhaust, the wideband is not included though.
This car spent most of its life on the Florida coast, so there is some surface rust on the frame, and corrosion on the aluminum pieces (trans, brake reservoirs, etc.)
I’ll post some pictures. More are available upon request, of course. And I will be happy to answer any questions.
Asking $11k.
