How to lower your Elan for free...

[Jamie N]

No its not cutting the springs with a grinder! . I have been meaning to do this job for a wee while now as the car has looked a tad too high, i didnt want to drop it too much though, so i came up with this idea, The rubber spring seats in the top mount are approx 30mm thick on the Elan , in comparison to a Honda one which is only 5mm and sits in a very similar top mount, so i dismantled 4 Honda struts which i had spare, and swapped over the rubber inserts, this effectively gives around 25mm of lowering which is just about where i wanted it. I was aware this may cause a bit more vibration but i have driven it a few times now including the Motorway and there is no detectable increase in noise or the way it drives/handles at all, even over rough surfaces and potholes there is no discernible difference from the standard ones . I think if they are good enough for a Type R then they are fine on the Elan. So far so good.

This also gave me the chance to do a couple of other jobs whilst the suspension was off, waxoyling the parts that were now accessible, and replacing those rubbish nuts and bolts that go through the bottom fork / strut with shiny new Honda ones.

I think the arch clearance is now nicely in proportion. The beady eyed might notice the nice new chrome Elan badge on the side, now where on Earth did i get those ? .



You know your Elan is low enough when your Persian cat can no longer get under it .

[par]

Jamie - stop mucking about slowly swapping Honda parts on to your Elan and just fit a B18 and be done with it

It does look a lot better now that the arches are in proportion and suits the wheels.

The cat looks like it has been watching O2 adverts and decided to "be more dog" by cocking its leg to relieve itself against your car!

[Scott J]

Bagpuss agrees.

another good mod from the Fife genius. Jamie you should get a job at Hethel

[Rambo]

Looks much better Jamie. You could've driven a tractor through your original rear wheel arches

Bagpuss is taking the piss out of your new chrome badge though

[muley]

Excellent modification. Good posting..


Jim

[HJ2]

You really LOVE Honda's... don't you?
Nice mod!

[Jamie N]

You really LOVE Honda's... don't you?
Nice mod!

You cant not LOVE a Honda HJ!, So many iconic cars... Integra Type R (the car which stole the Elan's crown as the best handling FWD car incidentally) , S2000, CRX SiR, DC5, and the Phenomenal NSX, any one of those engines in an Elan would be awesome, and the reliability to boot!, if only Lotus had joined up with Honda back in the day instead of Isuzu, oh what an easy life it would have been fixing your Elan, well thats if it ever went wrong right enough .

Anyone guessed the origins of the shiny new chromed Elan badge yet? .....

[muley]

I suspect a fridge..

[Rambo]

Maybe it was an Lec fridge ? Looks cool anyway

[Jamie N]

Haha!, gid yin , strange thing is that LEC do make a fridge called the "Elan". Badge aint off a fridge though, keep guessing its not that difficult!.

[abmunro]

Chopped up Land Rover Fre ELAN der badge

[Ian T]

ELANTRA?

[Saltire]

Perhaps removed from a LakELANd product, with a little doctoring

[Jamie N]

ELANTRA?

Well done Ian . I have kept a couple spare for when i eventually rid the car of all excess and unnecessary weight and will rearrange them to LEAN RAT

[Kathryn]

Reminds me of a Maestro van I saw last week, the letters he'd decided to save and rearrange were A R S E.

[Tannerman]

Top job Jamie looks great, I've not been on here a while as been doing lots of other stuff but getting the elan sorted now as more time.

I would like to do this to mine what parts would I need to change all 4 corners .

Are the rubbers specific to the type r and what year do I need them from.

Sorry if this is obvious stuff I just don't want to order the wrong stuff .

Cheers in advance

John

[Jamie N]

John, I used the Honda rubber spring seats because i had them here, and because they were a similar size, however the fact is there are a multitude of different types you could use, you dont really need to go searching specifically for the Type R ones, as long as the size of the rubber is approx 34cm outside diameter, (11.5cm across the centre, all 4 are the same size) and around 5mm thick then they will work just fine, I have seen ones on some Mazda's that look ideal as well, including the ones on an MX5 and Mazda 6.

Another couple of options are also possible, you could slice the ones you have down to 5mm, probably the easiest method and free! and to be honest its extremely unlikely if you did cut them that you would think you need to go back to the thicker ones, if you do i will send you mine!, i wont be putting them back on, if i had not had the Honda ones sitting spare this is the method i would have used instead, clamp them gently in a vice and go round it with a good new hacksaw then maybe a smooth over the cut side with a sanding wheel on the angle grinder.

Or you could find some 5mm rubber sheet or matt and cut them out of that, it wont really make much difference, providing you use decent rubber and the spring is making contact with it all the way round and it cant move, then it will do the job required of it... i.e vibration damping between the spring and the top mount, albeit possibly less damping than the ( excessively?) thick originals, but i have driven mine enough miles now since doing it and i have noticed nothing different vibration wise. Aside from that there is the train of thought that says a thick rubber spring seat will help with vibration but may negate sharper, more precise handling, and i have looked at a mutitude of different modern day suspension setups and have seen none that uses a very thick rubber spring seat like the Elan, none at all, they almost always are around 5mm thick. If you look at Coilovers, often they run without any rubber between the spring and the top mount.

Its a dead easy job as well, providing your suspension nuts and bolts are not seized solid, i didn't even need to use spring compressors to remove or refit them, they can be pushed down enough by hand to locate the top mount and thread the nut back on.

Its not a massive modification in the grand scheme of things but if you feel a 25mm drop would be beneficial then its worth doing, who knows it may even sharpen up the handling!.

[Tannerman]

Top advise thanks Jamie I think I will get them off and have a look at them the elan hasn't turned a wheel this year due to business and home improvements but I want to give it a good going over through the winter.

Many thanks again for the advise don't want to go to the expense of new suspension so this is a great compromise.

Cheers john

[johanvanboven]

Hi,
I still can't understand what you have been doing.
I can't find a rubber top mount of 3 cm thickness, neither can I find a rubber part almost the size of a steering wheel, 34 cm diameter and Inside 11.5 cm?
If you would change a spring top mount from 30mm to 5mm, this would lower your wheel for about 2 inches?
Or there is Something wrong with the convertor?
1 inch = 2,54 cm = 25,4 mm.
Can you take a picture of what you exactly mean?
A bit lower would seem fine for me aswell.
BR.
Johan

[HJ2]

Conversions... That's where even some serious space qualified hardware went wrong ....