SB2078, was rebuilt (several owners ago) by DSK in Jan 1980. I have the scuttle with the DSK plate riveted on in my lap now as I speak. I'll take a picture of it in a minute. (The scuttle, bonnet, nose etc are in the house for safekeeping while the car gets a new wiring harness and transmission tunnel out in the garage.

As far as DSK mods go it has a chromed set of lower front end suspension arms. There might be other things, but without comparing parts I wouldn't know. When one of the two fuses started to blow in October, I decided it was time to rewire. This car has a rear stabilizer bar. Probably a DSK mod.

When the car gets put back together I'll send some pics for your site. FYI, Its a 1965 S2 precrossflow. It currently has a 120E block with the original 166e head, cam and crank. (balanced of course)

Since I sent you the above information David Kaplan has looked at pictures of my car and offered some comments - most notably that the lower A arms are not his...

DSK: The chrome a arms are not DSK Cars doing. Chrome plating risks damage from hydrogen embrittlement and so we never chrome plated any structural components. The original Lotus parts has a V configuration. We added a thin tubular cross brace that turned the V into a true A arm.

DSK: Most people used our billet steering rack blocks as the stock Triumph Herald castings were prone to catastrophic failure. This especially on cars with wide wheels and tires, sticky rubber compounds and other handling modifications. The rack blocks are the first and most popular modification kit we supplied. And that is a good thing.

DSK: The rear sway bar is probably ours. Stock Sevens had no rear anti-roll bars installed. We designed and built kits to install larger front bars and to add rear bars. So if 2078 has a rear bar, and the car once passed through our shop, it is probably a DSK bar.

The girdered Triumph axle is typical. Not pretty but effective. Drilling out some of the mass will pay nice dividends in ride quality, noise reduction, shock and suspension bushing life and rough surface stability. Stiffening the axle housing is a good idea, but making so heavy is not.

RV: The battery is on the left in front of the passenger footwell (the Caterham position). This might have been done relatively recently because there is still duct tape under the bonnet to protect it from the terminals.

DSK: We routinely relocated the batteries aft of the cockpit on the right side to improve weight distribution. We mounted them on the left side of RHD cars and on the right side of LHD Sevens. That helped further tweak the balance when driving hard with only the driver aboard. A heavier battery cable was required to maintain satisfactory cranking power.

DSK: The Spax may well be of our doing as well. Odds are good that if we changed them, we also fitted our own springs. Stick Lotus springs were made of cheap material and had many windings. They sagged and often made noise as the coils rubbed together in bounce. We used "Stressproof" steel and fewer coils. Our springs last forever, do not bind and ride quietly and perform better. They are easy to stop because of the reduced number of coils. The springs look like DSK springs. The fronts and rears would be different. Using the same spring rates front and rear is never a good idea.

DSK: The rust coming through the chassis paint merits attention. If it's only happening in a few spots, then you'll only need to touch them up. Try hard to stay after them. If they appear to be the result of the paint not sticking well to the chassis tubes after a the frame was blasted and repainted, then you've got potential trouble. If the paint between the steel chassis tubes and the aluminum skin goes away, galvanic corrosion will eat the body away around the rivets rather quickly. Inspect the chassis paint thoroughly, please, and be certain that it is up to fine standard set by the rest of your handsome Seven.