Suspension: Touring and Sports options

[JasonR]

Been driving my tour suspension and keeps perfectly compliant in the corners but handles the UK roads fine. Have to say for UK roads tour is the way to go!

 

[KJD]

Well, you’re wrong (Obviously!)

#sportsguysareharder

 

[Concept24]

Yep. We can confirm that’s wrong. In many ways.

Different spring rates, damper rates and geo settings between touring and sport.

You can have the touring tyre (Goodyear) on the sport setup but it’s still the sport setup.
You can’t spec the sports tyre (Michelin) on the touring suspension.

Sports suspension with Goodyears is what I’ve got and I find it perfect for road use. I don’t find it too stiff at all but I have come from Exiges and sportsbikes before that.
The touring demo I drove, I found soft and wallowing in the corners.

I guess Harry of Harry's Garage disagrees. He loves the touring suspension. But as they say, to each his own.

 

[T6061]

I’ll spec the touring suspension (if I ever get the chance!) but living in Southern California gives us weather that could certainly make the Cup 2s an option. Once I burn through the first set of Goodyears I wonder if the Lotus spec Cup 2s might be worth considering with the tour suspension for an extra measure of grip (at the expense of wear of course). I thought I read that the sport suspension had different alignment specs depending on whether you opted for Goodyear or Michelin. Perhaps those alignment spec differences would apply to the tour suspension as well. Thoughts?

 

[kitkat]

I’ll spec the touring suspension (if I ever get the chance!) but living in Southern California gives us weather that could certainly make the Cup 2s an option. Once I burn through the first set of Goodyears I wonder if the Lotus spec Cup 2s might be worth considering with the tour suspension for an extra measure of grip (at the expense of wear of course). I thought I read that the sport suspension had different alignment specs depending on whether you opted for Goodyear or Michelin. Perhaps those alignment spec differences would apply to the tour suspension as well. Thoughts?

That’d be fine, spring rate isn’t drastically different — an alignment to add a bit of camber to the Cup2s would be fine — those are tires that are happy with a moderate amount of camber in general.

 

[T6061]

That’d be fine, spring rate isn’t drastically different — an alignment to add a bit of camber to the Cup2s would be fine — those are tires that are happy with a moderate amount of camber in general.”

A response from KitKat! Nice!! Thank you sir!

 

[Hapkin]

A response from KitKat! Nice!! Thank you sir!

Or Advan A052, Bridgestones ReE-71RS. Even PS4S.

 

[Tokion]

My longer explanation on the options

Touring (I wish they'd changed the name): this should be called "Road mainly ... and fine on Track". This will suit the majority of people who want a fun and spirited drive on a range of road types and surface qualities. It's not soft and saggy, you just have a smoother ride and still get loads of engagement. In high speed and sharp corners there will be some body roll but only enough to help you gauge the cornering dynamics. There will be excellent steering feel and feedback. It will ride bumps and uneven surfaces well whilst maintaining good grip. This setup makes a lot of sense for a daily driver and for road trips and fun leisure driving. It will also be very capable on track - most drivers will reach their own limits before the limits of the car. Touring will suit a lot of people and so far 60%+ of people have specified it.

Sports: this should be called "Track mainly ... and OK on Road". This will suit people who mainly use the car for weekend fun drives and/or track days. It will be sharper and stiffer, but not as stiff as an Exige or Sport+/Track setup with other marques. The sharper ride and handling comes with some small compromises, particularly on poor quality surfaces. This includes not only potholes but also broken or poorly-repaired surfaces, off-camber corners, concrete highways with cross-joints and tarmac with undulations. The condition of these surfaces will be more apparent to you through the steering and through the seat, and more apparent to your passenger. On longer journeys this could be more tiring. If you're coming from a car with a stiffer setup then you may be fine with this, but don't assume you have to get Sports with the Emira. For some people "enhanced feel" might mean too much feedback, depending on what you've driven before.

Bear in mind Sports isn't an "everything is better" option. It involves compromises. The stiffer springs/dampers and bushes and increased camber are geared towards track use and hence are designed to help the car perform in situations where the car is lapping at high speed, with high G corners, with severe and frequent changes of direction, and running a Cup2 track tyre optimised for those high speeds. This means on the road the tyre contact patch will not be as well-optimised as on track, straight line stability will be slightly lower and if you use the Cup2s then those won't work as well at lower temperatures.

Most people are unlikely to reach the limits of the car on track in Touring setup. The Track setting on Drive mode/DPM will give you another 0.5 to 1.0 seconds a lap advantage. Replacing the Goodyears with Cup2s on track with Touring will give you a few tenths more on a dry track, at the expense of quicker tyre wear and sub-optimal performance in cold and wet conditions.


Tyres

Tyres make up a significant part of the ride and handling equation, including contact patch, grip and sidewall compression/flex. Both tyre options for the Emira have been developed in collaboration with the manufacturers and are Lotus-specific versions of the tyres, so carry an "LTS" designation.

Goodyear develops a unique Eagle F1 SuperSport for the new Lotus Emira

Lotus has launched the Emira, the latest in a long line of stunning mid-engined cars from the famous UK sports car manufacturer. Lotus has selected the Goodyear Eagle F1 SuperSport as the original equipment tyre for the new model.The Emira has been developed to offer the trademark precision and...

news.goodyear.eu

With Touring the tyres are Goodyear Eagle F1 as standard. For Sports you have a choice of the Eagles or Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tyres. The Cup 2s are very track-focused and great if you're chasing lap times. They wear faster. But if you're likely to have cold or wet weather bear in mind their performance is degraded.

Pairing the Sports suspension with the Eagles is a good middle ground, which Gav has referenced in a few interviews. If you get into track days and have Touring, then switching to Cup2s (or having a second set of wheels with them on) is equally feasible if you want to improve times. But in many cases, an investment in driver training is going to make you faster on track than different tyres.

I've done a quick price check on the tyre options. The LTS versions of the Goodyears aren't on sale yet so I've used standard versions. It'll be roughly £840 for a set of the Goodyears and about £1200 for a set of the Michelins. Prices can change a lot with seasons, manufacturer offers etc and the LTS Eagles may be more expensive. But it gives you a rough idea. Also bear in mind that in like for like usage, the Cup2s will wear out more quickly.

Of course you can look at alternatives to the OEM tyres and the Michelin Pilot Sport 4S is a popular choice on Evoras and on other sportscars. My view is Lotus spend hours of testing to select the suspension components, tyre manufacturer and compounds. So I tend to trust their judgement from two years of fine tuning the setup, as tyres are a key component of overall ride and handling. Of course Lotus are also managing to a budget, but I know Gav made a strong case for the Goodyears as the tyre choice for Emira and it was an R&H-led decision not a budgetary one.

In winter conditions (below 7 degrees and in snow/ice) you're more concerned about safety than performance and R&H. So Lotus tend to recommend a winter tyre that isn't a Lotus-specific design, but they will still recommend a particular brand/model of tyre. I haven't seen anything about recommendations for the Emira yet but for Evora it was Yokohama W-Drive.

Tyre sizes are 245/35/20 front and 295/30/20 rear for both Eagle F1s and Cup 2s.


How can I test drive something that's close enough before demo Emiras are available?

You can test drive different versions of the Evora to get a good idea of the differences between the two setups.

Touring on the Emira is equivalent to the Evora S (Series 1) setup.

Sports is equivalent to the Evora GT410 (GT in the US) setup.

Any recent Exige V6 is a stiffer setup than Sports on the Emira.

I found it very useful to drive the two different Evoras back to back over the same roads. The main difference between them was steering feel and feedback, much more coming through with the GT410. I could get the GT410 to break traction on some particularly poorly surfaced cross-country roads, whereas the S maintained grip and hence traction. On a 50mph road that had recently been resurfaced but wasn't flat level, my passenger commented the GT410 followed every undulation of the road surface whereas the S tended to glide more and level out those variations.


What about resale values?

I'm sure "the market" will say Sport = better, because everyone has been conditioned by other brands to think Sport = upgrade = better so they can sell it to you as a cost option. But there are lengthy threads on every Lotus forum with arguments for and against each setup on the Emira. And, as Gav and everyone else at Lotus has said, it really depends on your usage. They will both be brilliant and both have slight compromises in certain situations.

At the moment both options cost the same on the First Edition V6. It's possible that when Base Edition pricing comes out that there is a cost premium for Sports, but we don't know yet. Both setups have the same component count and similar components. We do know that to get Sports suspension you will need to specify the Drivers Pack (which includes Track drive mode and Track features in the drivers display, LSD for the V6 manual and switchable exhaust sound) and that will probably be a cost option.

If you're worried about resale bear in mind that the current split is roughly 60/40 Touring/Sports, so there will be a good-sized market for cars with Touring. Sport may command a slight premium. I'd recommend getting the one you'll enjoy driving the most, rather than the one the next owner "might" pay a modest premium for.

As per your own words, in a shortened form, the two suspension set-ups could have been called: Track-focused and Road-focused (each with a sub-explanation that either is capable of the opposite activity: road and track). But as things are, we all just got to live with the terms chosen by Lotus and make our own experiences. (I chose Sports for my upcoming I4 FE).

I am already quite used to special suspension set ups since I own one F31 Alpina B3 (with original Alpina suspension that I feel is near perfection for the car), and for my E93 BMW 335i I got mounted a complete M3 suspension arms and bushings, as well as a complete Öhlins springs & shocks (keeping almost original ride height) suspension set. I am therefore quite interested in Komo-tec and JUBU Öhlins suspension sets, but wonder about the lofty prices of almost 8000 pounds/euro/dollar of these?

 

[TomE]

I have the Ohlins TTX on my Evora GT430 (they were standard fit on that model) and it is noticeably different on handling compared to an Evora 400 or GT410 Sport. Plus the added benefit they are 2-way adjustable, so I have different factory- and owner-recommended setups I can use for road, bumpy track and smooth track. I'm not sure I'd pay 8000 as an aftermarket upgrade though!

 

[TomE]

I’ll spec the touring suspension (if I ever get the chance!) but living in Southern California gives us weather that could certainly make the Cup 2s an option. Once I burn through the first set of Goodyears I wonder if the Lotus spec Cup 2s might be worth considering with the tour suspension for an extra measure of grip (at the expense of wear of course). I thought I read that the sport suspension had different alignment specs depending on whether you opted for Goodyear or Michelin. Perhaps those alignment spec differences would apply to the tour suspension as well. Thoughts?

Lotus offer Sports with both tyre options and only offer Goodyear on the Touring, but you can put Cup2s on too. I'd asked Gavan Kershaw about this when specifying my car and he recommended Touring for my usage and if necessary switch to a set of Cup2s for track days if I wanted the extra grip.

I've been told there are 3 different recommended geo setups for the 3 different setups Lotus offer, which suggests they are all different and not just 1 Touring/1 Sports or 1 Goodyear/1 Cup2. So far the setups haven't been published, either in the owners handbook or in the service notes, which is unusual. Once we've seen those we should be able to work out a sensible setup for the Touring + Cup2s option.

 

[Silver Storm]

I have the Ohlins TTX on my Evora GT430 (they were standard fit on that model) and it is noticeably different on handling compared to an Evora 400 or GT410 Sport. Plus the added benefit they are 2-way adjustable, so I have different factory- and owner-recommended setups I can use for road, bumpy track and smooth track. I'm not sure I'd pay 8000 as an aftermarket upgrade though!

Question for you TomE…if I decide to get aftermarket coilovers (like Ohlins), does it matter whether I choose tour or sport suspension to begin with? I’m assuming the answer is no because you’re swapping out the entire oem shocks and springs with a better coilover system. Choosing tour or sport would only matter if one doesn’t plan to do suspension upgrades. Am I correct?

 

[Briggo]

500 miles done so far and loving all aspects of the car and tour suspension! Just dont like the Sussex potholes!!

 

[GAVLA]

500 miles done so far and loving all aspects of the car and tour suspension! Just dont like the Sussex potholes!!

950 miles in and no crumbles either, I'm in Sussex too and tour suspension was absolutely the right choice!

 

[TomE]

Discussion about alternatives to standard tyres moved to new thread:

Alternatives to standard Goodyear and Michelin tyres

WHY NOT MICHELIN PILOT SPORT 4 S? I cannot imagine that LOTUS has not tested the Emira with MICHELIN PILOT SPORT 4 S tires. I currently use these on my two cars, and find them to be absolutely perfect both regarding sporting abilities as well as extremely capable under rainy conditions. I...

www.emiraforum.com

 

[frazzer]

650mi in, Touring is doing a great job of these often terrible West Herts B roads, many passengers commenting how unexpectedly easy the ride is. At road speeds no issues with turn in or anything else, all feels tight enough. Single hand drive on Motorways no problem, doesn't dart about at all. Loving the ride and glad I went Touring.

disclaimer, I haven't ridden Sport suspension, so nothing meaningful to compare to.

 

[petermal57]

Not quite. Emira Touring = EFS + ERSL + ELSR and Emira Sports = VFS + VRSL + VRSR. VFB/VRBL/VRBR is the Evora 400 spec and sits between the two. The diagram implies Evora 400 is closer to Evora GT410 but it's actually closer to Evora S.

Good Evening,

how can I see the differenz at the Emira, which Suspension i have? Do you have photos?
Kind regards Peter

 

[Foxy87]

Steht auf der Feder.

 

[VL3X]

Good Evening,

how can I see the differenz at the Emira, which Suspension i have? Do you have photos?
Kind regards Peter

The springs and shocks should both say Sport or Tour if you can get down there close enough to check!

 

[TomE]

Bottom of the shock absorber on the silver label

 

[petermal57]

Bottom of the shock absorber on the silver label

View attachment 26905

Thank you very much!