Nitron/Eibach suspension

[chris.t]

About five years ago my dampers started to fail and they had to be replaced. I then found that getting stock was quite difficult. In my ignorance I was led to believe that fed springs and dampers were ok to use on a UK SE by a leading Lotus parts supplier - you know who you are Although they said that they were fine for a UK Elan I'm afraid that leaving them to settle never got rid of the 4X4 appearance of my car. I did do a track day with them on and they didn't fair too badly to be honest. I decided to swap the springs back and keep the fed dampers fitted which reduced the ride height back to close to what it was. However the car now has awful body roll with shed loads of understeer. Bob I'll get round to taking those measurements tomorrow

[rip]

Some more observations on the Nitron setup after a drive tonight:

I still seem to be driving around bends faster than I realise. The new springs are about 30% stiffer then the originals & I can feel the road better as a result. I now have more confidence when hitting the apexes of roundabouts (& for those that don't know Milton Keynes, the town is full of them). Although I can feel the road surface better, severe bumps such as potholes are dealt with better by the new setup. I expect that is because the old dampers were worn.

My Elan was parked next to Dico's tonight so we were able to compare ride heights. The rear is about the same, but mine was slightly lower at the front. When Nitron set mine up, the ride height was simply copied from the original setup. I expect that my originals had weakened and the ride height had dropped as a result.

Dico also took my Elan out for a short drive with Gazza as a passenger. They remarked that there was less body roll when driving around a roundabout but maybe they can add some other observations too.

[Dico]

A longer test run, idealy on track with both a standard and a Nitron equiped Elan would give a far better idea of any improvement. However on the short test run I had Gazza commented on how "flat" rips Elan felt when taking roundabouts/cornering, and that was exactly the word that came into my head too.

[bobbrown]

I need to get to at least 20 for the discounts to kick in so at least 3 more required befor I take this further

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.

I have no problem waiting as it is down to you guys

Bob

[ab2cv]

Apologies but I've decided to remove my name from the list (for now anyway). Shifting priorities....

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. rip
10. Avonvilla ( sooner rather than later )
11. Phil (race setup)
12. gomper71 (Federal)
13. alexg
14. David
15. G UK (The later the better for me at the moment)
16. Richard K
17.
18.
19.
20.

[rip]

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. rip - Prototype fitted.
10. Avonvilla ( sooner rather than later )
11. Phil (race setup)
12. gomper71 (Federal)
13. alexg
14. David
15. G UK (The later the better for me at the moment)
16. Richard K
17.
18.
19.
20.

[Gazza]

Right, i have been out doing a bit of measuring on my Elan and think it would be good to compare to rip's, monty's and possibly a standard car like Avonvilla's.

I tried to find a flat bit of ground and almost did. Measured the correct positions and also from the ground to the wheel arch. The car was 20mm higher on the passenger side because of the slope, so am i right in saying i can take an average?

X = 130mm
Y = 135mm

Front wheel arch was 610mm off the ground and rear 630mm

Rip, how do you know Nick Naughtyboys?

[Gazza]

Will try to get more accurate results but would like to know if it is possible to get the Elan to the same height using the Nitrons and would the spring rates stay the same as rip's?

Like Dico said i thought rip's Elan handled very well, seemed to stay flat when we went round the roundabout 2 or 3 times. Seeing as i was in the passenger seat i seemed to stay level and not rise up in the air.

Seems a good starting point but would like some more testing, including some different ride heights if possible.

Waiting on rip's ride heights

Gazza

[rip]

Right, i have been out doing a bit of measuring on my Elan and think it would be good to compare to rip's, monty's and possibly a standard car like Avonvilla's.

Rip, how do you know Nick Naughtyboys?

We are both originally from Colchester & know each other via a mutual common friend. I've not seen Nick for a few years though.

I'll measure my ride height in the garage tomorrow. The ground is flat & fairly smooth so I should be able to measure the ride height quite accurately.

[bobbrown]

One of the things that seems to have come to light is that the cars seemed to have sagged a bit with age and this seems more pronounced on the drivers side which is to be expected due to the weight on that side of the car (engine + driver)
Gazza
Some of the extra height on the near side could be due to the saggy springs but it could also be down to the ground not being flat. If it was the ground then turning the car around should give the game away. Also yours seems to be lower than it should be by some 40mm at the front and 25mm at the rear not sure what you had it set to. I assume the picture shows the measurement from the center of the lower wishbone bolt so I assume this is where you measured it from.
Christ had a left to right differance of 10mm or so when he measured from the top of the wheel to the arch add in the wheel and yours is sitting quite low in comparison.

It should not be a problem getting to those sorts of ride heights and Iain is going to measure his at the weekend so we will see what the setting are on the first set all be it Nitron set the ride height to what is was.
This was for the simple reason of resetting the suspension geo was going to be a nightmare due to rusty bolts etc and having already broken the anti roll bar mount I could see their point of view.
As I have said before I do have a concern with regard to the wheel hitting the wheel arch liner and if you lower the car to much with this as a constraint then there is a chance you could compromise the suspension travel from static to full bump.

To keep some consistancy if people can measure their ride height as per the manual as a quick check and the distance from the ground to the top of the arch we should be able to get a picture of just where the suspension has moved to some for people adjusting it by use of the spring platforms and others with no change to the car just saggy springs.

Bob

[bobbrown]

I'm going to look into reducing the costs by buying things like springs direct and getting any parts outside of the dampers made.
Things like the pillow ball top mounts or the upper spring carrier should not be difficult to get made and should help to get the cost down particularly the track day option.

Bob

[Monty]

I'm going to look into reducing the costs by buying things like springs direct and getting any parts outside of the dampers made.

Sounds good to me as my wallet is empty

Think i will be sticking with the standard tops for the dampers

[abmunro]

Anything that brings costs down will obviously be appreciated by everyone.

I definitely don't want this project to fizzle out especially after all the hard work you have put in.

Cheers

Tony

[chris.t]

Bob, the measurements i did were when the car was on the level. I will post the X&Y levels when I've got a full tank

[rip]

On flat ground with a full tank of fuel, correctly inflated tyres & a shower cape and small 12v air compressor for boot luggage:

X=151
Y=130

Looks like mine is sitting about 1" low all round then.

[G UK]

I had a chance to test rips car over the weekend along with following it for quite a distance and thought I would add my comments.

- The ride feels a bit stiffer than Blackie and from Nicks comments was significantly stiffer than his car (probably due to Blackie having much newer suspension)
- It seems to have much reduced roll
- However there does seem to be much more chance of grounding
- Despite being stiffer the car still seems to handle most bumps well

[bobbrown]

Thanks for the comments as they are always welcome,

Rips car is a little lower than standard and the car was set to the ride height he had on standard worn suspension so it is 20mm lower at the front and 30mm at the rear so there is a slightly higher chance of it grounding although not had any feed back on this.
Graham when you say your suspension is newer how old is it? as your comments are interesting when comparing it to yours.

Bob

[G UK]

Bob,
I'm not sure exactly how old the suspension is but Paul started to rebuild the car in 04/05 and shes only done 12k miles since then.

[chris.t]

What do you think the chances are of getting the GB organised and completed by say mid April?

[bobbrown]

Not sure but could do with a few more on the list other wise the price goes up by 5%

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. rip - Prototype fitted.
10. Avonvilla ( sooner rather than later )
11. Phil (race setup)
12. gomper71 (Federal)
13. alexg
14. David
15. G UK (The later the better for me at the moment)
16. Richard K
17.
18.
19.
20.