Nitron Street Series on S1 - trouble with setup

[GreyKnight]

Hi guys

I'm asking this on here as well as on SELOC in the hopes that I might find somebody who's had a similar experience.

My S1 is currently with a local sports car mechanic to have its newly refurbished suspension set up and geo'd.  He's having terrible trouble with it due in part to lack of familiarity with setting up Elise suspension I guess, but also because of various advice we are getting on how it should be done.

I have purchased a set of Nitron Street Series from Seriously Lotus.  I am trying to achieve a lowered ride height of around 110mm front and 120mm rear.  A very knowledgeable chap from SELOC has been very helpful in offering my mechanic advice on what needs doing, part of this has been to insist that the car has at least 45mm of rear droop available.

The issue is that having set the rear springs to allow 45mm of droop there is a 15mm spring gap.  The mechanic has said I need helper springs, but having spoken to Nitron they say they have never heard of such a requirement on the SS dampers.

Now Nitron say that the SS dampers are designed for the OEM ride height, +/-10mm.  I'm guessing this is why there's a problem as the OEM ride height on the rear is I believe 140mm?

Does anybody have any advice on this type of issue?  The car has been away for weeks now and I'm getting a bit frustrated.

cheers

Graham

[russelld]

These replacement brackets may help. They should eliminate the need for helper springs and also keep the minimum droop with the much lower ride height.

 

https://www.eliseparts.com/products/show/10/1325/rear-lowering-damper-mounts/

 

A phone call to Eliseparts and they should be able to let you know how much these brackets lower the car, you can then raise or lower from that using the adjustable spring platforms on the shocks.

 

Russ.

 

 

[GreyKnight]

Hmm, thanks but I don't think that's the answer.  I've already bought a new set of brackets.  The car did have S2 Bilsteins on previously so have the appropriate brackets for that, but the mechanic said I needed a higher ride height so I ordered some OEM brackets from Lotus.

[russelld]

3 hours ago, GreyKnight said:

  I ordered some OEM brackets from Lotus.

Which work fine if you are keeping with standard ride height or just lower, but you are wanting to lower by quite a lot hence your problem.

[MilesH]

Russell is 100% right, I have run NSS on a couple of Elise's. You can lower the ride height slightly on the normal brackets but the only way to go lower is to buy the front and rear lowering brackets from EP. Give EP a call with the year of your S1 and they will tell you which ones you need as there are two types for the rear (I think or it may be the front). Either way they will tell you which set to buy.

My S1 is set to 100/110 with adequate droop travel but you won't achieve the heights you want without them.

P.S. You may also need to enlarge the front bracket slightly on the side to fit the NSS damper body with sufficient clearance.

P.P.S Nitron said the same to me about helper springs. You can run them, just be aware that unless you get a poundgae of spring that simply takes up the slack in the spring distance when at full droop you will be altering the overall poundage of the spring and damper combination.

 

[GreyKnight]

Okay, well SteveB over on SELOC has been advising me on this.  He said I should order the top mounts A1170077F from Deroure (which I did), sorry these are not the OEM ones, but part of the S2 -> S1 kit developed by Lotus and raise the rear mount up by about 15mm.  I have then had the mechanic speak to Nitron who have prescribed 60lb helper springs.

SteveB seems to think this will be perfect.  Right now I just want the car finished!

[polish 84]

had exactly the same problem, just needed the correct brackets