Nitron/Eibach suspension

[Don.Hasi]

Bob: for me the ride height is not fixed... It could and should be the best height for country roads. I have no issues with the groundclearings at all... an if I have understand it right, the differences are not extreme. Following the statement of the Korean Admin to my question

I know, Lotus ELAN's suspention lenght are same to KIA ELAN. and KIA ELAN has added some parts for height from the ground to body. (according to Korean law, it must over 120mm)

The values of the dampers and springs are not hosted so long. Is there any easy way to get them out? Which lenght do we need? Eye to eye? And how can someone measure spring rates?

Elaning regards

[Nohair]

slow boy in the class speaking...

- nitron are doing the development work?
- there'll be 2 options, a sport version and a track verion
- both options are adjustable damper solutions

NH

[Nohair]

... has all gone a bit quiet
NH

[bobbrown]

All things being equal the first car will be done Thursday, weather dependant, so watch this space.

Bob

[Monty]

All things being equal the first car will be done Thursday, weather dependant, so watch this space.

Bob

Thats great news and be good to hear the results


Bob just a couple of questions about the kit which will use the pillow ball top mount:-
Whats the main advantage to the stock?
Whats the wear rate on this part and availabilty? i ask that as i don`t want to be replacing these parts every couple of years

Just trying to work out if it`s worth the extra £250 (approx)

Cheers
Jay

[bobbrown]

The pillow ball mount holds the top of the damper ridged just allowing it to move as it should as the suspension geometry changes as the suspension goes up and down.
As for wear it would depend on a large number of factors but the part should not be difficult to source or change as I do not expect Nitron to use a non standard part as the pillow ball is just spherical bearing

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which should have seals to stop the ingress of dirt etc and it's life should be about the same if not better than the upper and lower ball joints as it has less movment to cope with.
There should be nothing to stop you changing the top mounts at a later date on either option.

Bob

BTW: I'll take some pictures on Thursday so you can all see what has been done.

[bobbrown]

weather has caused this to be delayed till the 21st Jan, not a good idea to test suspension in 8" of snow!

Bob

[Monty]

weather has caused this to be delayed till the 21st Jan, not a good idea to test suspension in 8" of snow!

Bob

LOL, i`m not suprised.

I`m skint anyway


Still deciding on which setup to go for

[BFG in the BRG]

Hi guys and Gals,

I've been watching this one for a while and originally thought nah - too expensive and why bother - I have seen various shockers come up for sale over the last 12 months....

I am sort of tempted with this...but then again I dunno, I don't intend or ever intend to track the BRG and I don't have any reason to want to upgrade/update the shocks or springs, but there again it is a 18 year old car - no doubt with the original suspension, and we are talking the thick end of £1000.

Can anyone give me a good reason to do this - I ain't a numpty but then again £1000 is a lot for something which isn't broke, I'm looking for a good reason why to do this - rather than than why not to do, I know you want to meet the magic 20 and I don't want you to get too excited at being 1 closer - it is likley I shall decide not to do this - just the bigger part of me says it ain't worth it - it appears SJ's can do all the parts - dampers and springs for the thick end of £500

[bobbrown]

There are lots of reasons to do this and reasons not to, cost being one reason not to, but it is down to an individual’s choice at the end of the day.
If you were to take the Lotus route and try to replace worn dampers, and dampers do wear, with Lotus parts the cost would be higher IF you could get the dampers.
OK SJ and others do dampers but they are twintube low cost dampers and not a quality monotube damper that can be rebuilt when worn so not forcing you to spend the same money again at a later date.

At the end of the day pays your money and makes your choice as they say.

Bob

[mnemonix]

1. bobbrown
2. chris.t
3. A B Munro (80% towards trackset up)
4. Dico
5. Monty (80% towards trackset up)
6. Nige (80% towards track set up)
7. Elanlover (Federal)
8. Superbad (Federal)
9. ab2cv (Alan)
10. rip
11. Avonvilla ( sooner rather than later )
12. Phil (race setup)
13. gomper71 (Federal)
14. alexg

Regretably have to remove myself from the list for now.

Chris.

[Nohair]

I see Nitron are at the NEC this weekend.
NH

[Gazza]

Chris seemed to remove the bottom 3 off the list as well, so updated it.

1. bobbrown
2. chris.t
3. A B Munro (80% towards trackset up)
4. Dico
5. Monty (80% towards trackset up)
6. Nige (80% towards track set up) ???
7. Elanlover (Federal)
8. Superbad (Federal)
9. ab2cv (Alan)
10. rip
11. Avonvilla ( sooner rather than later )
12. Phil (race setup)
13. gomper71 (Federal)
14. alexg
15. David
16. G UK (The later the better for me at the moment)
17. Richard K
18.
19.
20.

[Gazza]

Bob

When they do the testing, are they only going to test at normal ride height or are they going to test the car lowered as well. Possibly supplying settings for people who want to lower their car. Or is it going to be trial and error for the owner like the cheaper kits are?

Cheers, Gary

[bobbrown]

Bob

When they do the testing, are they only going to test at normal ride height or are they going to test the car lowered as well. Possibly supplying settings for people who want to lower their car. Or is it going to be trial and error for the owner like the cheaper kits are?

Cheers, Gary

I am unsure at this point in time but the test car is going to be a road setup and I would not expect the car to be lowered due to things like speed bumps etc
Plus we are trying to get this all done in a day but once the first car is done then it is easy to look at other options
I will be asking questions and will see what information I can gleen whilst they are fitting and testing the car, I do expect them to have to play around with spring rates and dampers rates when fitting the kit to the test car to get the best with regards to comfort and handling as this is always a compromise.
With regards to lowering the car you have to take other things into consideration and just moving the spring platforms down is not the best way to lower a car as it affects the springs preload amongst other things.
I know a lot of people do this but it is not the correct approach and if taken too far can cause the springs to come out of their seats, the correct way is to shorten the complete damper/spring assembly or move the lower mounting down or up if you wanted to raise the ride height. Supplying a shorter/taller damper assembly should not be a problem but one would need to know by how much one wanted the car lowered.
I will know more next week so will post the results once this car is done

Bob

[rip]

EE was fitted with new springs & dampers earlier today.

As usual for a 20 year-old car, there were issues (eg. roll bar mount breakage - re-engineered by Bob ) but the installtion was completed by the end of the day & I drove home with the new setup.

I've not given it a proper shake-down yet, but first impressions are that feel more precise & copes with imperfections in a road surface much better than my old setup. I did exit virtually every roundabout faster than I thought & I felt like I had more control when accelerating away than I did with the old suspension.

The proper shake-down will be on bumpy & twisty roads I am familiar with, which will be on Tuesday.

Ride height is adjustable, although changing this will affect the length of the spring & therefore its performance. Mine has been set to the same height as it was before & I have not intention of changing this althoguh I do have an adjustment tool should I change my mind.

The dampers themselves are adjustable too. The adjustment is at the top of the damper, which means it will not suffer weather abuse as badly as if it were lower down. It is a 24 position adjustment which gives a nice, positive click when adjusting from position to position. Rear dampers can be adjusted from inside the boot & the fronts from under the bonnet. Due to the way the fronts are mounted in an Elan, I can't get to my front damper adjustments without removing the dampers. Now they have seen an Elan properly, Nitron are going to use a different design for their front damper adjuster.

[Nige]

Thanks for the update rip, sounds very positive and I look forward to the full report.

Thanks also to Bob for seeing this through to the first fitment and beyond. Whether as an owner you need a straightforward replacement for stock (the originals are 20 years old or more and I don't think OEM dampers are available) or you want a setup that is more focused to how you use the car I think this is one of the most significant steps that has been taken to date and is up there with Alan's chips and Simon's hardtop (I'm not forgetting Bobs brakes as well).

[bobbrown]

rip: just a point, the fronts can be adjusted with out taking the thing to bits, it is just a case of removing the rubber grommet in the middle and you should be able to get a small allen key into the holes that are around the top adjuster. I think the final solution is to fit an extension to the adjuster so it sits just outside the glass fibre part above the damper, or it would be quite simple to bend a piece of wire to fit the holes with a "T" on the top.

For those that may be interested one of the things that caused a moment of grief was the failure of the two anti roll bar mounts, the threaded section snapped off, a bit of a rethink was required other wise the job was not going to get done that day and would probably have meant a delay.
Solution: A quick trip to pick up some bits and they were soon sorted. What I did was get a couple of 12mm rose joints and some long cap screws, the cap screws with some spacers soon had the rose joint connected to the yoke mount, the hole needed redrilled in the anti roll bar from 10mm to 12mm which was no big deal and the rose joints were then connected coupled with a boot over the whole assembly to keep the muck out.
May need a little refinement but should come out a lot less than the £56.67 each (SL's prices), if they are still available these parts are.
It is possible to remove the damper/spring assembly with out taking the anti roll bar joint out but there is an issue of rust build up on the inside or at least there was with rip's that needs to be cleaned out to get the two halves of the yoke to fit properly.

The track day setup may need a little further thought as to what kind of spring rates are appropriate as these can now be increase to just about any setting you like with in reason but it may need a little thought in the damper lengths to maintain the current ride height or lower as the case may be.


Bob
Rips pics

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Not the best quaility as done on phone as I forgot to pick up the camera, early start to blame or at least thats my excuse and I'm sticking to it. Pete has some he took and will see it I can get those off him in the morning

[Gazza]

I thought Nitron were going to do some testing on the car for a day.

Sounds like they just fitted them and rip will be doing the testing?

They do look good but seems it's down to us to get the right setting like the other makes

Gazza

[bobbrown]

There was not enough time left at the end of the day to do any real testing due to the issue we had with the anti roll bar and other problems, some refinement may be required and the rear setup may require a spring change as they did not have exactly the correct spring in stock but one that was close and we had another issue with the car outside of the suspension which I will let rip explain if he so wishes.
I think a few of us may get a chance to test the car on Tuesday if rip is willing and all comments gratefully received.