Touring vs Sport suspension

[mjw930]

Coming from a 2015 981 GTS with X71 suspension and a 2021 718 Spyder and loving them both I’m thinking the Sport suspension with Goodyear tires is the sweet spot for the street, for me. I will have a 2nd set of wheels and Cup2, Cup2R or Sport Maxx Race 2’s for track days. Best of all worlds.

 

[kitkat]

Coming from a 2015 981 GTS with X71 suspension and a 2021 718 Spyder and loving them both I’m thinking the Sport suspension with Goodyear tires is the sweet spot for the street, for me. I will have a 2nd set of wheels and Cup2, Cup2R or Sport Maxx Race 2’s for track days. Best of all worlds.

Same thoughts here, and I'm sure as hell not tracking on 20s.

A good strong set of cast wheels in 18" for maximum track tire availability.

 

[Porter]

Same thoughts here, and I'm sure as hell not tracking on 20s.

A good strong set of cast wheels in 18" for maximum track tire availability.

The challenge will be clearing the brakes. Is there a good Evora fitment 18" option?

 

[kitkat]

The challenge will be clearing the brakes. Is there a good Evora fitment 18" option?

Brakes aren't even that big tbh, I have bigger brakes on my M4 under 18" -- the real problem as you mentioned is availability of wheels.

18" in a 10.5 for the rear with the very high offsets Lotus is known for in 5x143 and that centerbore is nearly non-existent. I'd likely have to go the custom route which gets expensive, but it likely means savings long term with tire costs alone. This is assuming the Emira has similarly high offsets to the Evora.

 

[Porter]

Brakes aren't even that big tbh, I have bigger brakes on my M4 under 18" -- the real problem as you mentioned is availability of wheels.

18" in a 10.5 for the rear with the very high offsets Lotus is known for in 5x143 and that centerbore is nearly non-existent. I'd likely have to go the custom route which gets expensive, but it likely means savings long term with tire costs alone. This is assuming the Emira has similarly high offsets to the Evora.

Totally right on the weird high offsets... small correction on the bolt pattern. They are 5x114.3 (5x4.5in).

 

[kitkat]

Totally right on the weird high offsets... small correction on the bolt pattern. They are 5x114.3 (5x4.5in).

Whoops, no clue where that 143 came from!

 

[Porter]

I've posted about this elsewhere but happy to share again. I discussed this with Gav Kershaw, head of ride and handling, at Goodwood. Touring is aimed at fast road use including on poor surfaces and will be great for the occasional track day too. Sports is very track focused and while it may suit some people for road use it will be a compromise compared to Touring. Gav's view was Touring will suit most people and if you really wanted to do a step up for more track work you could fit the Cup tyres in place of the Eagles. He felt that fitting the Eagles with the Sports setup would still be a compromise for road use compared to Touring.

Interestingly, the FE options include either tyre with Sports but only Eagle with Touring, which is out of line with Gav's advice.

The Sports suspension has different springs and adjustable dampers, different bushes and ARB and setup.

I just keep coming back to this and scratching my head. Gavan's comments on the TST podcast also just added questions to the pile, rather than answering them. He seemed to indicate in that conversation that the Touring suspension was for folks that wanted to do "mostly highway" or were coming from another luxury brand with softer road feel, which doesn't jive at all with what he said to TomE above, nor does it align with what some others have said they've heard from Lotus.

For me, I want to know whether the Sports suspension has enough compliance in it to be appropriate on tight mountain roads and canyon driving, where a sudden bump mid-corner could upset a car that is really track-focused by causing the tires to unload. Or conversely, whether the Touring suspension is dynamically competent enough to feel athletic and poised while being vigorously flung around in hairpin bends and rapid changes of direction in flowing, complex terrain.

Why can't they simply be more specific about the dynamic limit differences between these two configurations, and what exact chassis behavior (or use cases) that they tuned for? "Street" doesn't mean anything specific, because flogging a sports car at 8/10ths on remote mountain roads is still "street" use. "Track", to me, implies perfectly manicured unbroken pavement... and if the Sports is tuned with that in mind, it would likely be a set of compromises when used on public roads. Yet people say the Evora GT is comfortable on the road, and that's supposedly similar to the Sports suspension... and if that's the case, why make a Touring variant at all?

Still frustrated here. I'm currently on order for the Touring setup but am second-guessing it every hour.

 

[eclat2emira]

I just keep coming back to this and scratching my head. Gavan's comments on the TST podcast also just added questions to the pile, rather than answering them. He seemed to indicate in that conversation that the Touring suspension was for folks that wanted to do "mostly highway" or were coming from another luxury brand with softer road feel, which doesn't jive at all with what he said to TomE above, nor does it align with what some others have said they've heard from Lotus.

For me, I want to know whether the Sports suspension has enough compliance in it to be appropriate on tight mountain roads and canyon driving, where a sudden bump mid-corner could upset a car that is really track-focused by causing the tires to unload. Or conversely, whether the Touring suspension is dynamically competent enough to feel athletic and poised while being vigorously flung around in hairpin bends and rapid changes of direction in flowing, complex terrain.

Why can't they simply be more specific about the dynamic limit differences between these two configurations, and what exact chassis behavior (or use cases) that they tuned for? "Street" doesn't mean anything specific, because flogging a sports car at 8/10ths on remote mountain roads is still "street" use. "Track", to me, implies perfectly manicured unbroken pavement... and if the Sports is tuned with that in mind, it would likely be a set of compromises when used on public roads. Yet people say the Evora GT is comfortable on the road, and that's supposedly similar to the Sports suspension... and if that's the case, why make a Touring variant at all?

Still frustrated here. I'm currently on order for the Touring setup but am second-guessing it every hour.

I feel your pain! I was conflicted too, but went for Touring on the earlier info available, the aggregate of which suggested that if road, fast road and occasional track use was your usage profile then Touring would be best. This was a fairly easy decision to make when I reality check what my own use would be!

The recent tests, in the main Carfection and Top Gear, have simply confirmed my choice based on the earlier info. There's maybe a little part of each of us that thinks track sounds cool and are we missing something by not having it, somehow not having the "Full Emira" but for me the "Full Emira" is the one that can do both extremely well - in each case better than 95% of other cars.

 

[kitkat]

...
The Sports suspension has different springs and adjustable dampers, different bushes and ARB and setup.
...

I hadn't realized they'd come with adjustable dampers.

 

[TomAce]

I just keep coming back to this and scratching my head. Gavan's comments on the TST podcast also just added questions to the pile, rather than answering them. He seemed to indicate in that conversation that the Touring suspension was for folks that wanted to do "mostly highway" or were coming from another luxury brand with softer road feel, which doesn't jive at all with what he said to TomE above, nor does it align with what some others have said they've heard from Lotus.

For me, I want to know whether the Sports suspension has enough compliance in it to be appropriate on tight mountain roads and canyon driving, where a sudden bump mid-corner could upset a car that is really track-focused by causing the tires to unload. Or conversely, whether the Touring suspension is dynamically competent enough to feel athletic and poised while being vigorously flung around in hairpin bends and rapid changes of direction in flowing, complex terrain.

Why can't they simply be more specific about the dynamic limit differences between these two configurations, and what exact chassis behavior (or use cases) that they tuned for? "Street" doesn't mean anything specific, because flogging a sports car at 8/10ths on remote mountain roads is still "street" use. "Track", to me, implies perfectly manicured unbroken pavement... and if the Sports is tuned with that in mind, it would likely be a set of compromises when used on public roads. Yet people say the Evora GT is comfortable on the road, and that's supposedly similar to the Sports suspension... and if that's the case, why make a Touring variant at all?

Still frustrated here. I'm currently on order for the Touring setup but am second-guessing it every hour.

I think it really depends on the road's quality you have where you usually want to use the Emira for.
I can understand that Touring suspension is the right for everyone, especially in UK, with bad paved b-roads to have and not tracking the car too often.

Here in Germany, roads are mostly in rather good condition and we also have the Autobahn, so my decision is clear, I go for the Sport suspension, which tends to go into the direction of a Cayman GT4 setup, because you can only choose Michelin Cup 2's here but still with more road compliance. Well, that's at least what I think of it.

Backed up by several videos from Matt Farah where he states these differences between the GT400/410 and the Cayman GT4, watch the following video, especially from 10:50...12:25 min.

 

[Porter]

I'm totally with you on all that. I just don't know why Lotus would go to the trouble to make a Touring variant if their normal suspension was already significantly more compliant/comfortable than competitor vehicles. I want to know what they think the road compromises truly are in the Sports suspension, and what they think drivers are specifically giving up with the Touring configuration, in order to try to match that to my own pattern of use. It has to be more than simply tuning the dampers for the two different tires... because if that were the case they would never suggest "Sports with Goodyears" because it would be suboptimal.

IF the real answer is that the Touring suspension gives the driver more communicative weight transfer feedback through the body, so is actually a more fun and engaging drive, but doesn't compromise handling at all within the traction limits of the Goodyear F1s, then I'd love to hear that from them. Then it would make sense that the Sports setup is track-optimized on Cup 2s to extract the fastest lap times, and maybe that comes at the expense of driving engagement in non-track scenarios. Is that true? Who knows! I'm guessing wildly and Lotus haven't said. But either way it's not a cost option, so they aren't going to lose money by people choosing one or the other, so why not say the calculus outright? It would help everyone.

 

[Porter]

I hadn't realized they'd come with adjustable dampers.

I don't think they do, I think it was a typo.

 

[switchlanez]

I just keep coming back to this and scratching my head. Gavan's comments on the TST podcast also just added questions to the pile, rather than answering them. He seemed to indicate in that conversation that the Touring suspension was for folks that wanted to do "mostly highway" or were coming from another luxury brand with softer road feel, which doesn't jive at all with what he said to TomE above, nor does it align with what some others have said they've heard from Lotus.

For me, I want to know whether the Sports suspension has enough compliance in it to be appropriate on tight mountain roads and canyon driving, where a sudden bump mid-corner could upset a car that is really track-focused by causing the tires to unload. Or conversely, whether the Touring suspension is dynamically competent enough to feel athletic and poised while being vigorously flung around in hairpin bends and rapid changes of direction in flowing, complex terrain.

Why can't they simply be more specific about the dynamic limit differences between these two configurations, and what exact chassis behavior (or use cases) that they tuned for? "Street" doesn't mean anything specific, because flogging a sports car at 8/10ths on remote mountain roads is still "street" use. "Track", to me, implies perfectly manicured unbroken pavement... and if the Sports is tuned with that in mind, it would likely be a set of compromises when used on public roads. Yet people say the Evora GT is comfortable on the road, and that's supposedly similar to the Sports suspension... and if that's the case, why make a Touring variant at all?

Still frustrated here. I'm currently on order for the Touring setup but am second-guessing it every hour.

You'd have to wait for driving impressions to get unbiased, unfiltered specifics not sprinkled with marketing-speak by Lotus staff. But each pack's characteristics should qualitatively match their marketing terms. Sport tends more towards track but insufficient for serious track duty. Would be like the Corvette Z51 package rather than base Z06 or upgraded Z07 package. Or like a Cayman with upgraded sports suspension rather than the GT4 or GT4 RS. Overall the Emira is a grand tourer first, not a track car like the Exige. If you start from that as a baseline, "Sport Suspension" intuitively shouldn't imply an all out hardcore track-focused suspension.

If you've ever modded a car, I would liken it [not identically but metaphorically] to your basic Bilstein shocks/Eibach Pro-Kit spring upgrade combo offered on nearly every sports car. Slightly stiffer, slightly less suspension travel than stock. But not as jarring as a set of coilovers that are much stiffer than stock even when dialed all the way to the full soft setting.

An email posted in another group in case you haven't already seen it:

 

[Porter]

I took the liberty of typing up a transcript of the suspension-specific conversation from TheSmokingTire Podcast interview with Matt Windle, Russell Carr, and Gavan Kershaw.

Matt Farah: [A question from] Ben Stahl - Can you go into detail on what the difference are between Touring and Sport suspension for the upcoming Emira?​

​

Russell Carr: You've not been asked this at all before, Gav! (laughs)​

​

Gavan Kershaw: Yes, I'm sympathetic [to] the guys who are on their configurators, because they're putting their deposit down and they're trying to order specs. So yeah, the Tour is, as we said, designed for people who do, probably, 90% of their ownership on highways and things like this, um, or are coming from a sports car that's a little bit more refined, so they're newer to the brand. And it'll come with the Goodyear tire on it as standard, so, wet weather, all the rest of it. But it is not soft. You can drive it in the canyon, and I can guarantee you're not going to feel body roll, things like this, it's just when you're... so it's got slightly less road noise, things like this, hub control, and the good thing is that the ride height's [the same], so the car physically doesn't sit any different, Tour and Sport.​

​

Gavan Kershaw: So the Sport, gets the slightly different valve code inside, so the washers inside the damper, being simple, are different. The forces, how it builds up in the damper, and the spring rate, that's the only difference, we're trying to keep it sensible, like that. Um, and that comes with the Goodyear, but it's also tuned for the Cup 2 tire. So if people are, you know, weekend drivers, or they drive enthusiastically, or perhaps they're coming from a supercar back into sports cars, or they're used to quite a firm Exige, or something like this, then it's the car that suits them as well.​

​

Gavan Kershaw: So, you're not getting short-changed on any other part of the car by not having the Sport, that was a conscious decision, that you don't have to tick the stiffer suspension to get a different style or a splitter or a spoiler, something like that, so the car's the same.​

​

Matt Farah: Good tip. I would probably go Tour. I like some "give".​

​

Gavan Kershaw: Yeah, a little bit of "give", and as you said, you know, the, the...​

​

Matt Farah: I don't like to buy tires every 2,000 miles. (laughs)​

​

Gavan Kershaw: And the tire's very good, and you know, here [in the US] freeway hop's a real issue as well isn't it, some of the broken surfaces.​

​

Matt Farah: Do you have a replica of the 405? I suggest you build a replica of the 405. [referring to Interstate 405 in Los Angeles, famous for poor road surface due to extreme daily traffic loads]​

​

Gavan Kershaw: Luckily the main road out of Norwich to London, they've never repaired, apart from really bad concrete patches. So, yeah we've got something similar to Detroit and the 405 now.​

​

Matt Farah: Perfect! Yeah, yeah.​

 

[Porter]

You'd have to wait for driving impressions to get unbiased, unfiltered specifics not sprinkled with marketing-speak by Lotus staff. But each pack's characteristics should qualitatively match their marketing terms. Sport tends more towards track but insufficient for serious track duty. Would be like the Corvette Z51 package rather than base Z06 or upgraded Z07 package. Or like a Cayman with upgraded sports suspension rather than the GT4 or GT4 RS. Overall the Emira is a grand tourer first, not a track car like the Exige. If you start from that as a baseline, "Sport Suspension" intuitively shouldn't imply an all out hardcore track-focused suspension.

If you've ever modded a car, I would liken it [not identically but metaphorically] to your basic Bilstein shocks/Eibach Pro-Kit spring upgrade combo offered on nearly every sports car. Slightly stiffer, slightly less suspension travel than stock. But not as jarring as a set of coilovers that are much stiffer than stock even when dialed all the way to the full soft setting.

An email posted in another group in case you haven't already seen it:

Respectfully, I don't know if a comparison to Porsche suspensions are fully relevant, since Porsche fits remarkably stiff suspension to their S models and then actually gets significantly (experientially) softer as the tiers increase to GTS, Turbo, etc. With the better dampers in their top models the ride is actually more compliant, adds effective traction, etc. They are odd in how they handle it.

Also, this Tom Sutton gentleman from whichever dealer this is says the Tour and Sport will be at different ride heights, which has been very specifically contradicted by Lotus themselves (including Gavan Kershaw), so I'm not sure whether to trust the rest of his narrative either.

Hoping for better feedback from final version driving impressions by journalists once the embargo is lifted. I really hope they land before my order spec cutoff date.

 

[switchlanez]

Respectfully, I don't know if a comparison to Porsche suspensions are fully relevant, since Porsche fits remarkably stiff suspension to their S models and then actually gets significantly (experientially) softer as the tiers increase to GTS, Turbo, etc. With the better dampers in their top models the ride is actually more compliant, adds effective traction, etc. They are odd in how they handle it.

Also, this Tom Sutton gentleman from whichever dealer this is says the Tour and Sport will be at different ride heights, which has been very specifically contradicted by Lotus themselves (including Gavan Kershaw), so I'm not sure whether to trust the rest of his narrative either.

Hoping for better feedback from final version driving impressions by journalists once the embargo is lifted. I really hope they land before my order spec cutoff date.

I can believe Porsche offering up higher quality suspension. But in Lotus's case, I would expect similar baseline quality between Touring vs Sport. Touring with slightly more compliance and "just enough" body roll to be playful, Sport with slightly less of each to controllably break traction with confidence.

And I edited my prior post with a rudimentary [but probably not any more informative] analogy using aftermarket suspension examples. Very basic but then again we only have basic info to work from, no numerical specs.

 

[roundincircles]

I have a GT4 and the rear suspension compression and rebound often becomes a pain when long distance is the goal. Thus I have chosen touring set up for the Emira. The GT4 is a brilliant engaging car but it's what it is as the Emira will be what it is. The Emira touring set up works on the track....just watch all the reviews......the sport set up will work on the track and be harsher on the road is my guess......reducing body roll and weight transfer surely means stiffer springs, pre load etc. I'm guessing!

 

[Porter]

I have a GT4 and the rear suspension compression and rebound often becomes a pain when long distance is the goal. Thus I have chosen touring set up for the Emira. The GT4 is a brilliant engaging car but it's what it is as the Emira will be what it is. The Emira touring set up works on the track....just watch all the reviews......the sport set up will work on the track and be harsher on the road is my guess......reducing body roll and weight transfer surely means stiffer springs, pre load etc. I'm guessing!

I agree totally! And then I read things like this, referring to the full Sport suspension on the Evora GT410 Sport, and it makes me second-guess myself over and over again.

From https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/lotus/evora/351841/lotus-evora-gt410-sport-2020-review

Peel straight off a track, and onto the road and you’d half expect that with such stunning body control it’d be unbearably stiff. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. There’s brilliant compliance to the way even this most extreme of Evoras rides - think of a Volkswagen Golf R in comfort mode, and you wouldn’t be that far off. There’s an appreciable amount of road noise, but not enough to be particularly tiring.

That compliance in the suspension means that it’s just as satisfying to hustle along a country road. Where some cars would bounce from one bump to the next, the Evora flows with the road; not only does this constantly instill confidence in the driver, but it means that it’s one of those rare cars that’s genuinely a pleasure to drive even when it’s just pottering about.

 

[roundincircles]

I agree totally! And then I read things like this, referring to the full Sport suspension on the Evora GT410 Sport, and it makes me second-guess myself over and over again.

Yes, so it comes down to a test drive! Ahhhhhhhhh..............

 

[Porter]

From another thread, about tires...

As I posted before, talking to one of the technicians that came to the road show, and he tested both sport and touring on the Emira, he told me it would be ok for me since I am comfortable enough for long rides with my Evora Sport 410 which is tuned with sports suspension and Cup 2´s.

he told me the Sports suspension tuning for the Emira is a little bit softer than the one I have in the Evora.

**internal screaming**