History of a Lola T492 Sports 2000 chassis?

[Mike Harte]

You appear to be doing a lovely job, Graham, and I wish you well with it.

I really envy the amount of space that you have around the engine bay. In my old Anglebox with a pre-crossflow engine, to get the engine out, or even replace a head-gasket, I would have to remove the twin Webers on their manifolds and the exhaust manifold. And the only way to hold them in place required Allen bolts using a long handle key turning about a quarter of a turn at a time. Not a job that could be done when the engine was hot without seriously burning my hand as I was the only one with hands small enough to get in the gap between the manifolds and the side of the engine bay.

In hindsight, when I had the wheel arches modified to take the wide wheels I ran, I should have got them to make some modification to the side wall to make it easy. As it was, as it took so long to get the head off, I had to scratch from the final of a cup race that I qualified for it in the heat earlier that afternoon, blowing the head-gasket as I crossed the finishing line.