My predicament on suspension/tires/comfort

[wallstbear]

It seems like you are describing how the car is "grabby" and responds to road imperfections. I have no idea if this is true, but I imagine you'll still have some of that with a softer suspension. I think it's a part of being mid-engined, lighter front end, sensitive steering that is less filtered, etc.

I suppose I was referring to the feeling of being "beaten up" due to the harshness and rigidity of the whole setup. When going around a bend in wet conditions, for example, it appears more difficult to retain traction.

 

[seriously]

I suppose I was referring to the feeling of being "beaten up" due to the harshness and rigidity of the whole setup. When going around a bend in wet conditions, for example, it appears more difficult to retain traction.

Ok yeah. Seems you are describing a setup that's too stiff for your preferences.

Forgot to mention that in addition to ever so slightly different suspension components, the alignment is supposed to make a lot of difference between sports and touring. You might want to look into touring alignment setup also.

 

[Superman]

Sounds like the damping may be too harsh/stiff for your preferences - If anyone has ever had a car with adjustable dampers, you will know how jarring the car can become if you set the dampers too hard. Lots of modern cars with electro-magnetic adjustable dampers tend to have a track-focused setting that can be a bit too jarring for general road use.

Whilst you may get 'some' benefit from swapping out to different tyres, that would only make a little difference I would suspect (and probably only on small road imperfections).

For me, the biggest difference between the Sport and Tour setups is the damping, not the spring rates. It is fairly well documented that the spring rates themselves are only slightly different, but I am not sure we have seen any data on the damping differences?

 

[kitkat]

Yeah everything you're talking about here is damper tuning, not alignment, not tire selection.

The spring rates between touring and sport are pretty similar anyways, but I've driven both and damper tuning is drastically different.

 

[Porter]

Agreed. I’m coming from a lotus Evora GT and felt the suspension was good in that it soaked up bumps and I considered it a bit ‘floaty’. My car before that was an amg GTS and the suspension on that was ‘jarring’ any time I went over bumps. There was virtually no flex and could make your body hurt. Hoping the sport suspension in the Emira is somewhere in between.

Sport chassis setup on the Emira is supposed to be very close to equivalent to the suspension on the Evora GT. I personally found it fairly comfortable.

Tour on the Emira is supposed to be similar to the setup on the Evora 400.

 

[Honcho]

The sport suspension on my 'Mira has turned out a bit too bouncy for my taste on real world roads, and am trying to to decide among 3 options:

A. Get 255/35/20-305/30/20 tires and get 3-4mm extra tire height. Probably won't do very much, and will raise the (already rather high) ride height by a few mm's.

B. Get 235/40/19-285/35/19 tires and a new set of 19 rims. Pros: new rims, better comfort, 7mm more "meat" to tackle the potholes. Cons: less pretty. Ride height will go down by 4.5mm which could be a plus depending on who you are asking, but tire-fender gap will increase by the same amount.

C. Bite the bullet and get a new set of suspension. That said, I was under the impression that taller tires have a bigger effect on potholes and the like than suspension so not sure if this will have as much impact.

Overall, will need to balance cost, looks, functionality (don't we all).

Thoughts?

I’d swap you my touring suspension if you weren’t so far away!

 

[SteveB]

Maybe “bouncy" is not the best way to describe this. What I meant was due to the rigid suspension, wheels tend to lose traction and go all over the place when hitting little potholes, bumps, seams, joints and other irregularities in roads. They do not "hug" the road as well. Of course on a well paved racetrack it all goes away.

Will talk to a suspension shop and see what they say.

I have mentioned this previously on another thread but have you checked tyre pressures? I have sport suspension and Goodyear tyres on my Emira and noticed that when driving home from the Lotus factory the suspension was fine on smooth roads but I could feel every undulation on B roads. On checking tyre pressures they were as recommended for track use! Reducing to the recommended pressures for everyday road use (2.0 bar front/2.2 bar rear) made a noticeable improvement in feel. I suspect Cup 2 tyres have even stiffer side walls than Goodyears so reducing tyre pressures may make provide an even greater improvement in feel. Much cheaper to investigate lower tyre pressures than purchasing new tyres/springs/dampers!

 

[Pegasi]

I have mentioned this previously on another thread but have you checked tyre pressures? I have sport suspension and Goodyear tyres on my Emira and noticed that when driving home from the Lotus factory the suspension was fine on smooth roads but I could feel every undulation on B roads. On checking tyre pressures they were as recommended for track use! Reducing to the recommended pressures for everyday road use (2.0 bar front/2.2 bar rear) made a noticeable improvement in feel. I suspect Cup 2 tyres have even stiffer side walls than Goodyears so reducing tyre pressures may make provide an even greater improvement in feel. Much cheaper to investigate lower tyre pressures than purchasing new tyres/springs/dampers!

I second this^^. But also I like to problem solve in logical, cost effective steps. When the cups wear out replace with the bespoke Goodyears and then make another assessment. If it's still to bouncy/harsh, proceed to the next step.

In short be careful about making too many changes at one time.

 

[wallstbear]

I have mentioned this previously on another thread but have you checked tyre pressures? I have sport suspension and Goodyear tyres on my Emira and noticed that when driving home from the Lotus factory the suspension was fine on smooth roads but I could feel every undulation on B roads. On checking tyre pressures they were as recommended for track use! Reducing to the recommended pressures for everyday road use (2.0 bar front/2.2 bar rear) made a noticeable improvement in feel. I suspect Cup 2 tyres have even stiffer side walls than Goodyears so reducing tyre pressures may make provide an even greater improvement in feel. Much cheaper to investigate lower tyre pressures than purchasing new tyres/springs/dampers!

I believe 2.3 front/2.5 rear when cold. Goes up 0.2 after driving for a bit. Will try lowering a bit but rims could get a bit more vulnerable to the potholes. We will see.

 

[wallstbear]

I’d swap you my touring suspension if you weren’t so far away!

We are ONLY half a globe away it seems.

 

[Speedy Emira]

How do you know if the tyre pressures on the door shut are road use track?

 

[Porter]

I believe 2.3 front/2.5 rear when cold. Goes up 0.2 after driving for a bit. Will try lowering a bit but rims could get a bit more vulnerable to the potholes. We will see.

You honestly shouldn't be driving Cup2s in scenarios where you're going to be hitting potholes. They are a stiff sidewall track-focused ultra performance sport tire, and you're never going to get any sort of reasonable ride compliance or smoothness out of them.

If you're driving the car on regular roads, with traffic and broken surfaces, do yourself a favor and either get the LTS Goodyear F1s, or get an alternative set of comfortable sport tires like the Michelin PS4S. Quit messing around with track tires and expecting anything other than jittery feedback from them. That's what they are engineered to do.