Emira Test Drive by Forum Member

[TomE]

So far more people have ordered Touring than Sports, about 60/40. That’s based on “order” including only committed UK configs and firm non-UK orders, so probably only first 4-6 months of production.

Per my long thread on suspension choices, it’s very much about your intended usage and personal preference. They’re subtly different, rather than miles apart. Touring isn’t wallowy and Sports won’t rattle your teeth out! Any Exige for example is stiffer than Emira Sports.

Suspension: Touring and Sports options

Lotus promised us a further note on suspension choices. But as that still hasn't arrived, here's my attempt. This draws on discussions with the Lotus team, published info and some of my previous posts. The tl;dr version You've got two suspension options and one of them also has two tyre...

www.emiraforum.com

 

[Chris2409]

To the guys that did the LDA day, cars aside, how was the day itself? I know that the days have moved away from the set agenda that they had previously under the Gold/Silver/Bronze levels. What did you ask to cover and did you feel your driving improved? Or was the day more of a high end test drive on a circuit?

 

[_w_]

To the guys that did the LDA day, cars aside, how was the day itself? I know that the days have moved away from the set agenda that they had previously under the Gold/Silver/Bronze levels. What did you ask to cover and did you feel your driving improved? Or was the day more of a high end test drive on a circuit?

Short briefing, really simple situation and layout info. There were less attendees than max so we got to drive each setup, usually it would just be one if they were at capacity (zero promises that would happen for other groups but the situation allowed and they thought it would be better for us). I just asked about what I was doing wrong, received a number of tips and discussion of physics, much more about driving and improving (while experiencing the car) and for me (I feel) it was very effective. There was at least one person who was specific about it being more of a test drive for them and another who didn’t actually know anything about the Emira they just wanted to learn the track for an upcoming event, both left happy with the provided service

 

[emiraspain]

I’m not sure driving round Hethel is going to be a good indicator of the different suspension characteristics.

As demonstrated by Harry choosing Sport and changing to Touring after a B road blast.

no probably not, but I would like to drive what I have ordered as if I am to be disappointed, Id rather get it out of the way there and then. haha
I mean, I dont want to drive cup tyres and then see my tyres are much worse later on when I get the car...

 

[Italiabrain]

Did anyone at the event ask about the giant weather stripping they’ve now taped on the front that wasn’t there in the official production delay video and if that was a final solution?

It’s making me regret locking in a bright color more than I was originally worried about DV being too black if that’s final.

 

[TomE]

I asked at Goodwood. It is the solution that will be fitted to production cars. But it's easily removable. It's there because of an issue with aero and wind noise at high speed, so if you're not doing track days or autobahns you probably won't notice.

 

[Italiabrain]

I asked at Goodwood. It is the solution that will be fitted to production cars. But it's easily removable. It's there because of an issue with aero and wind noise at high speed, so if you're not doing track days or autobahns you probably won't notice.

Being removable isn’t a solution if the gap was tripled to incorporate it. That’s really disappointing.

 

[Scruff111S]

One with LEDs in it so we can all pretend we are David Hasselhoff

View attachment 7644

With the black (sorry, Dark Verdant) and the red lights, yes could work.

 

[kitkat]

I asked at Goodwood. It is the solution that will be fitted to production cars. But it's easily removable. It's there because of an issue with aero and wind noise at high speed, so if you're not doing track days or autobahns you probably won't notice.

Won’t removing it just leave a large gap?

 

[Tonyshepp]

Won’t removing it just leave a large gap?

Who knows, perhaps in time as someone else mentioned someone will create replacement rubber strips in the build colour of your car, if the demand is high enough.

 

[Leonard]

Who knows, perhaps in time as someone else mentioned someone will create replacement rubber strips in the build colour of your car, if the demand is high enough.

That could possibly look as bad/worse

 

[dgrace]

Question: were Sports and Tour noticably different in camber?

 

[Tailslides]

Thanks for all the pics and information. DV does seem very dark.

Were you prevented from using race mode?

Are these production spec or still pre prod cars?

The duration of each session restricted time to experiment, initially we started in touring and switched to sport.

The cars in use by the Lotus Academy are preproduction standard, very close to customer cars but still have a discrepancies that would not be allowed to make it out of the factory gate.

 

[Tailslides]

Great post. Between Harry switching from sport to tour, Schmee switching from sport to tour and then back to sport lol... and now this is a bit more praise on sport again.... Jethro says no need for the tour, sport is compliant enough, and Chris Harris saying the sport was fantastic for UK roads.... Decisions , decisions.

I think the tour is much more comfortable without being overly soft, suited to being a GT car

 

[For the drivers]

So far more people have ordered Touring than Sports, about 60/40. That’s based on “order” including only committed UK configs and firm non-UK orders, so probably only first 4-6 months of production.

Per my long thread on suspension choices, it’s very much about your intended usage and personal preference. They’re subtly different, rather than miles apart. Touring isn’t wallowy and Sports won’t rattle your teeth out! Any Exige for example is stiffer than Emira Sports.

Suspension: Touring and Sports options

Lotus promised us a further note on suspension choices. But as that still hasn't arrived, here's my attempt. This draws on discussions with the Lotus team, published info and some of my previous posts. The tl;dr version You've got two suspension options and one of them also has two tyre...

www.emiraforum.com

 

[Tailslides]

Tom the seats were good and held me place, I didn’t get a chance to test leather seats, my rides all alcantara. I forgot to mention driving position for me was great I am 5’9”, a lot of adjustability I am sure most sizes can get comfortable. The car wrapped around you it felt very good.

I can attest to the comfort and grip of both leather and alcantara seats as being very good, we were braking heavily with fast changes of direction, I didn't feel that I was moving around, being somewhat shorter than a lot of folk at 5'7" I could still get comfortable in relation to wheel, shift and pedals

 

[TomE]

Won’t removing it just leave a large gap?

Being removable isn’t a solution if the gap was tripled to incorporate it. That’s really disappointing.

They haven't tripled the gap to accommodate the seal. The gap existed first. It created a problem. So they filled it with the seal. Remove it and the gap is the same as it was before, as seen on earlier cars without the seal.

 

[Eagle7]

I dont understand this as I've always thought an LSD helps remove understeer if anything?
Anyone shed light on it for info sharing before I hit up Google

Back in the day when street cars were pretty much all rear wheel drive (at least in America), if you did a hard launch from a green light, as soon as one rear wheel started to slip and lose traction, it would just spin because all the power was going to the rear wheel with the least resistance.

The limited slip differential was created that would compensate by transferring power to the non-slipping wheel so you'd still have traction under power. This improved launch and acceleration, and was mostly done for straight line acceleration. The limited slip diffs had various names, I remember GM called it Posi-traction, but they all did the same thing; transferring power to the rear wheel that wasn't slipping.

This also affected hard cornering. When going around a corner at speed, the body roll would cause the weight to shift to the outside rear wheel, and the inside rear wheel would start to lift and begin to slip and lose traction. The old differentials would feed the wheel with the least resistance (the one that was slipping), and in extreme cases, you'd lose driving power completely as the inside wheel would literally just spin while you coasted around the corner.

I don't see how having both rear wheels being driven when going around a corner would 'cause' understeer. That's more of a chassis set-up issue. Either soften the front sway bar, or stiffen the rear bar (or do both) is normally how you'd tune out understeer. You can also affect it with toe-in settings on the front. Understeer is usually set by the factory so non-performance trained drivers who go around a corner too fast, will slide out and off the road instead of spinning out in the middle of it and creating a collision hazard.

For a performance trained driver, understeer sucks because you just can't get the front end to grip, so your cornering speeds are limited as a result. I absolutely hate understeer. I prefer neutral to even a slight bit of oversteer so I can moderate my cornering speed with the throttle. Extreme examples of this are drifters; what you see Chris Harris doing in every video of him in a car on the track. An LSD actually helps with this because without it, you'd have no driving power in a corner.

 

[Tailslides]

Some more images from 23rd July on the Lotus Taster, dark verdant is very dark, a close up of the nose shows a little of the green, I found magma red is a colour that I still find difficult to decide on, it was not involved in the event although Lotus top man Stewart, took me to see the colour indoors, it had ice grey leather which looked amazing but I don't know about longevity for me.

The surprise was how good nimbus looks, it was probably my favourite although yellow and blue both look outstanding in the sunshine.

Lotus have applied some ppf in the normal stone chip areas, images below, behind the front wheel arches and ahead of the rears which is welcome protection.

 

[Leonard]

Back in the day when street cars were pretty much all rear wheel drive (at least in America), if you did a hard launch from a green light, as soon as one rear wheel started to slip and lose traction, it would just spin because all the power was going to the rear wheel with the least resistance.

The limited slip differential was created that would compensate by transferring power to the non-slipping wheel so you'd still have traction under power. This improved launch and acceleration, and was mostly done for straight line acceleration. The limited slip diffs had various names, I remember GM called it Posi-traction, but they all did the same thing; transferring power to the rear wheel that wasn't slipping.

This also affected hard cornering. When going around a corner at speed, the body roll would cause the weight to shift to the outside rear wheel, and the inside rear wheel would start to lift and begin to slip and lose traction. The old differentials would feed the wheel with the least resistance (the one that was slipping), and in extreme cases, you'd lose driving power completely as the inside wheel would literally just spin while you coasted around the corner.

I don't see how having both rear wheels being driven when going around a corner would 'cause' understeer. That's more of a chassis set-up issue. Either soften the front sway bar, or stiffen the rear bar (or do both) is normally how you'd tune out understeer. You can also affect it with toe-in settings on the front. Understeer is usually set by the factory so non-performance trained drivers who go around a corner too fast, will slide out and off the road instead of spinning out in the middle of it and creating a collision hazard.

For a performance trained driver, understeer sucks because you just can't get the front end to grip, so your cornering speeds are limited as a result. I absolutely hate understeer. I prefer neutral to even a slight bit of oversteer so I can moderate my cornering speed with the throttle. Extreme examples of this are drifters; what you see Chris Harris doing in every video of him in a car on the track. An LSD actually helps with this because without it, you'd have no driving power in a corner.

Yup what I thought.
Normally just get more speed and more controlled oversteer!
Here's hoping a geo set up will sort it out for heroes amongst us