RE: PH Fleet: Lotus Elise Sport 135

RE: PH Fleet: Lotus Elise Sport 135

Author
Discussion

FWDRacer

3,564 posts

223 months

Thursday 28th June 2012
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Cotic said:
FWDRacer said:
Brands Indy track is quicker than ever. 59 secs is do-able in a 1000cc Mini wink just...
Two Honda C90 engines?
Edited for the pedant police!

Back to the Elise - Is the engine on its way to being goosed? Rollers are your friend.

Porkie

2,378 posts

240 months

Thursday 28th June 2012
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Love the Massa comment smile

Simply down to the tyres if you ask me. Would only run A048 or R888's on my Lotus. Mainly 888's as they work better in the wet in my opinion and experience.


uggies

55 posts

184 months

Thursday 28th June 2012
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too right folks

1.Lotus happen to be the best in the business

2. as the man said when you are quicker than than the car you think about changes

HVAC MATT

1,116 posts

206 months

Thursday 28th June 2012
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Maybe you would better suited to the S2 ? (runs off and hides)

st24kane

4 posts

150 months

Thursday 28th June 2012
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anyone remember the renault avantime on top gear? i think road cars are quicker on track with soft suspension, as has been said before, lotus got it so good to begin with. i'd try getting the nitrons tuned to lotus spec, then you have high quality, yet near standard mechanicals that will be up to the job you're asking of them. if the springs/damping has increased, it won't let the tyres dig in as much, and grip in the corners. also, the harder damping may have a negative affect on braking performance too? not sure about feel, maybe the bushes have perished a bit too much to give as much feedback as before? on the subject of bushes, any chance the rear anti roll bar has duff bushes allowing too much flex in the arb? as you said it has been a year since your last track outing on the same track.

pthelazyjourno

1,848 posts

168 months

Thursday 28th June 2012
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uggies said:
too right folks

1.Lotus happen to be the best in the business

2. as the man said when you are quicker than than the car you think about changes
Lotus are the best in the business when it comes to making road cars that handle and offer exceptional damping.

Good as it is, the Elise isn't an all-out track car - you only have to look at the changes in settings between an Elise and a 340r and 2-11 to see that.

Should Lotus have refrained from tweaking the dampers and tyres for those cars too if the Elise is such a perfect base?

And as it's already been mentioned, the LTS tyres are the Lotus approved choice, so that's not even a modification. The Nitrons have proved time and time again to be a better choice *on track*.

But then again, on a completely smooth circuit, having stiffer suspension alone will often prove better - there's less bodyroll and unlike Lotus, with road use in mind, you don't have to worry about potholes, random undulations or other things that will upset the suspension.

Lotus are still the kings when it comes to on-road settings though, and I'd personally rather have an Elise with Bilsteins than Nitrons. It will be better on road, but it **will** roll more.

Why so many self righteous people refusing to believe that it's possible to make an Elise quicker or better with a few modifications?

Lots of components out there that have had far more development time than the original Elise. The entire development budget came in at £7m, and you only have to look at later cars to see the scope for improvement and development. The later dampers alone were a world away.

PascalBuyens

2,868 posts

281 months

Thursday 28th June 2012
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Mr2Mike said:
PascalBuyens said:
As for the Hankooks: I've got Ventus ST2 on the Range Sport, and VERY impressed with them. On my 2nd set in just over 150k miles,
You are averaging 75k to a set of tyres? yikes
Yup. With the first set I thought it was because I do a lot of motorway, but as I said, I've been doing quite some other traffic (including 5 up and a full boot, hammering down the Ring in Germany in just over 11 minutes). The main reason the first set had to be replaced was the geo being far out (which ended up in wearing down the tyres on the inside and having like 3/4 of profile on the outside).

Was funny when I had to replace the tyres, the guy from the tyre center knows me quite well (go there with 4 cars), and he complained that he didn't have a good customer in me anymore... He sold them to me in the first place LOL smile

Cole Trickle

110 posts

204 months

Thursday 28th June 2012
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its the tyres, Advan Neovas are just regular road tyres
those Hankooks RS2 are great tyres

GordonF430

197 posts

214 months

Friday 29th June 2012
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Hi Dan

Have you changed the brake fluid recently?

Sounds like you've made some good changes to the car, and as previously mentioned using the 340R road settings for your Geo should make the car even better.

However, if you have zero confidence under braking look at that first, as that will make a massive difference to your lap times.

Does the car feel any different straight-line speed wise?

Andy

LY99

152 posts

187 months

Friday 29th June 2012
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I've fitted CL5+ to my VX220 and can confirm they are brilliant, so something must be amiss with the brakes. Elise brakes are quite hard to bleed properly, its usually best to invert the calipers when you do them.

Like others have said, start with looking at tyre pressures and work on from there.

Were the NTR's set to the standard ride height or have you gone lower, what setting did you have them on (soft/hard front & rear) and was the car corner weighted when they were put on?

juansolo

3,012 posts

277 months

Friday 29th June 2012
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There are very few people out there (and I'm certainly not one of them) that truly understand chassis dynamics and suspension set up. You can slap the poshest stuff in the world on a car, but if you don't know how to set it up, how to get the damping just right, the spring rates, the ride height, the geometry, etc, so everything works perfectly with everything else, then you'll likely make things worse. I'll be the first to admit that I spent an awful lot of money and categorically ruined a car by trying to turn it into a track car.

I've since been of the opinion that modifying cars is best left to the professionals and even then I still find it dubious. As the money you spend (that you'll never get back) would likely have been better spent on a faster car in the first place.

To close, the S135 is one of the very best Elises ever made as standard. It's got the balance of road/track pretty much nailed on. Tweaking it is almost certainly going to be difficult/compromising.

Edited by juansolo on Friday 29th June 10:54

braddo

10,377 posts

187 months

Friday 29th June 2012
quotequote all
juansolo said:
To close, the S135 is one of the very best Elises ever made as standard. It's got the balance of road/track pretty much nailed on. Tweaking it is almost certainly going to be difficult/compromising.
yes

On the original Konis they roll a bit but the one I had was beautifully progressive on track. I never had the geo checked but frankly that was because, once I got to know the car, it already felt 'right' to me.

When I first got the car I was surprised by its low speed understeer and thought something might be wrong. However, a change of driving style fixed that and I realised that its balance at higher speeds was spot on, so if I had changed the geo to help low speed understeer I think it would have made the car too prone to oversteer at higher speeds.


wooooody

918 posts

236 months

Friday 29th June 2012
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Where's scuffers when you need him?


Quite how an elise on 13 year old Konis is going to be better than on new Nitrons is beyond me. Yep, the Nitron set-up/install on this car at this time may not be at it's optimum, but that can be improved.

Podger

8 posts

149 months

Friday 29th June 2012
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Porkie said:
Love the Massa comment smile

Simply down to the tyres if you ask me. Would only run A048 or R888's on my Lotus. Mainly 888's as they work better in the wet in my opinion and experience.
Toya 888's every time , every day , the most superior tyre for a Lotus Elise/ Exige.

Just take a look at any of the Lotus Forim , and in particular Exiges.com

braddo

10,377 posts

187 months

Friday 29th June 2012
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wooooody said:
Quite how an elise on 13 year old Konis is going to be better than on new Nitrons is beyond me.
I'm certainly not saying that (my point was that the 135 is a nice compromise out of the box, not that it can't be improved).

stinkysteve

732 posts

196 months

Friday 29th June 2012
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All this talk of Nitrons V's bilsteins and I don't think one person has asked if the springs were changed too?

It's all irrelevant if the spring rates have been increased 50%.

More details on the spring rates, damper settings (the Nitrons fitted are single adjustable only i believe) and geometry please.


LivinLaVidaLotus

1,626 posts

200 months

Friday 29th June 2012
quotequote all
uggies said:
too right folks

1.Lotus happen to be the best in the business

2. as the man said when you are quicker than than the car you think about changes
Whilst Lotus are very good at what they do, they have to do it within a set budget to sell the cars at a price point people will buy them at - that doesn't equate to them being the best Lotus can possibly make it in terms of handling, just as good as Lotus can make them within the budget given. Two very different things smile

hughcam

411 posts

164 months

Friday 29th June 2012
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Captain Muppet said:
The fact you think it's a derogatory post is pretty derogatory to the ride and handling engineers at Lotus.

[/promotingharmonyandeveryonejustgettingalong]
Dont you think Lotus compromise when they build all there cars (like most manufacturers)? Im sure they would have loved to stick decent shocks, wheels, tyres ect and set it up appropiately but the price would probably have made their product double. So yes IMO I do think you can easily improve a standard Elise.

hughcam

411 posts

164 months

Friday 29th June 2012
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suffolk009 said:
My sincere appologies if you considered my comment to be derogatory - no offence to anyone was intended.

I've certainly upgraded components on my car in the past...and then wish I hadn't. I thought that was the tone of the original article.
No need for an appology - I was having a bad day lol!

RTH

1,057 posts

211 months

Friday 29th June 2012
quotequote all
The story puts you in mind of the Top Gear mob modifying the Advantime- The more money they spent the slower the lap times got.