New Lotus Esprit Suspension

[Iceman 0]

Was wondering if I could get some feedback on those of you who have installed the newly researched Lotus suspension. One of our FL members a few hours north of me installed all four corners about 2 months ago, and he says on the higher level setting, which is supposed to be the stock Esprit height, is like a 4x4 Esprit!! Lotus said he has to give it time to settle... Man, I've seen plenty of other upgraded suspension setups/installs on other sports cars and have yet to see a car need more than 2 months to "settle"!?!?

The Final Run setup is just ridiculously expensive at $5K for the four corners... not to mention that there MUST be something even better 3 years later to upgrade to.

What's everyone's feedback on this???

Edited April 17, 2007 by Iceman

[ragingfool35 24]

I have not installed mine yet

but curious who in Florida you are refering too?

[Dermot 0]

Willy,

I have made come comments on the new suspension at

http://users.ox.ac.uk/~ohare/suspension.htm

There is also a link on there to a full discussion on LEW.

I don't understand where you get the $5K price from. I reproduce the published Lotus prices on my webpage.

Approx

[Rob 1]

There are two platforms on the new damper, the second will lower it 10mm from standard. There is about a 5 mm tolerance.

So, are you standard or dropped?

BTW I think Willy was referring to the setup that the final run of USA V8's had, rather than the latest updates. It's also bilstein/eibach but with a fully adjustable height platform - that's the set-up I had on my V8-GT. Kato refers to it as "Esprit 2003-04 (US spec)" on this page on LEW. Its much more expensive than the latest releases.

Edited April 17, 2007 by Rob

[Evil_Dr_Fish 1]

I know someone who has the Eibach-Billstein setup and was told to hang onto it as it's the best you can get on a V8.

[Jonathan 13]

I bet it's not been installed propperly - loads of people take the suspension off and then wang the new stuff on without relaxing the bushes.

When you take suspension apart you need to slacken the bolts somewhat to allow the bushes to pivot without any resisance from their snubber washers - you do the work and then drop the car back onto it's own weight and then tweek up the bolts / nuts to the correct torque.

It's especially common when moving the front wishbones clear of the front shock absorbers as you need to twist them 90 degrees upright to remove the damper.

I found the rubber bushes very susceptable to this in comparison to the poly bushes which are less plyable and less grippy to the metal they are adjacent to.

Other than that I have found on mine the springs don't easily drop correctly onto the platforms and need a bit of persuasion, or the platforms could be up the wrong way !

Or of course the spring part # might be wrong and the spring rate too high.

See if you can grab a picture of it.

[neal 4]

Stupid question - but did he get the correct suspension for the model?

I remember reading someone in the States with V8 wheels decided therefore to opt for the V8 suspension. But the model was an SE or similar and resulted in a substantial ride height increase.