A trip to Dave Bean Engineering, Premier Restorer of Classic Lotus sports cars for racing

This is my brother Paul. He is a master machinist and restoration mechanic. For about 10 years, he was the Machinist at Dave Bean Engineering. Dave Bean has specialized in the sourcing and manufacture of Classic Lotus Sports car parts, many of which are used in the Classic racing circuit. They are based in the Central Sierra Nevadas, California, on a large ranch. I came by one day to see what Paul was doing, and these are a few crappy Iphone 3 shots of some cars and parts he has been building.

This is a frame for a single seat racer, It will run a rear engine Cosworth Ford powerplant. Paul was showing me the Rack and Pinion setup and suspension he built from Scratch

Hand formed Aluminum body panels. Some parts are allow, and others are FRP and carbon fiber.

Building rear swing arms for independent suspension.

These are strictly for little people and sized for the driver. Our 6 foot frames won't make it into these...

Some Cosworth Ford Power plants. These are the 2.5 liter English coswoth with a Hemi head double overhead cam driven by a chain. Paul has designed a billet aluminum Oil pan and Dry-sump system that is the only one that does not leak...

Pardon the fuzz, low light and an Iphone 3...

Drysump oil system tank, welded up from Aluminum to fit the race cars

An X frame for later construction. This is high carbon steel and is all new.

A complete "2ply" FRP body for the X frame above This is an Elan. extremely light, say 100 pounds for the entire body. Yup, It's in the living room of the "Guesthouse". They ran out of covered space.

Dave's personal 1966 Elan 2

Last but not least... I was offered this shell of a A Lotus Elite 2.2 for free, would have made a great dune buggy... Sadly, I had no room and it was cut up and thrown in the dump...

It was great fun to bang around in my brother Paul's workspace. He really enjoyed the creative nature of this job but with the economy crash in 2009, a lot of folks stopped spending money on these sweet rides, and eventually Paul left for greener pastures running a fleet of school busses. He still saves autos on the side, finding fixing and selling Barn finds from all over  central California's  Sierra Nevada and the central San Joaquin valley.

All photos by @dawgboy with an iPhone 3, which explains the low-light = low quality imagery...

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