Michelin pilot super sports?

[Joetz]

Originally Posted by tbd_Evora

The Lotus Spec is pretty much performance oriented - as you would expect from Lotus.
But, if you spend most of your time in traffic tire wear may be more important. Just don't complain if you're not the fasted on a track day.

There is absolutely no discernible difference in handling with my alignment settings and I'm not blowing 1000 bucks every 5000 miles. If anything the evora handles even better now

[Bobsy Racer]

Originally Posted by Joetz

I don't think they were aligned to "lotus spec"

That would be setting the alignment to the same tire eating wacky setting the car had from the factory. I just told the alignment shop to fix my tire wear problem. 8000 miles later the Pirelli rear tires look brand new. At the rate I'm going my fronts will wear out first!

So, what alignment specs did your shop set your car to, that minimized the tire wear ?

[BOFslime]

Interesting, I was wondering if they gave it a little bit a toe from the factory (THEY DO! 1.5 mm toe-in each side in the rear). Zeroing out the toe should help tire wear a LOT. You will lose a little bit of that quickness at initial turn in though, it won't feel as light.

Camber's effects on tire wear pretty much depends on how flat you get the tires in the corners (how hard you corner it). This much you can easily see/feel by looking/feeling at/the insides of the tires. If your toe is 0 all around and you're wearing evenly, your camber should be good.

Looking at the stock specs I'm extremely happy Lotus engineers went with a healthy amount of positive caster, to run minimum negative camber angles. This is pretty much the exact same setup I went on my STi, another car that loves caster.

Stolen from another thread (source is the manual):

FRONT SUSPENSION

Type
Independent. Upper and lower lightweight forged alloy wishbones; co-axial coil spring/telescopic damper unit; tubular anti-roll bar

Geometry
Mid-laden ride height (2 x 75 kg occupants + full fuel tank)
set car to this height before measuring geometry: 
- front 125 mm below front end of chassis siderail
- rear 147 mm below rear end of chassis siderail

Castor - optimum: + 5.2°
  - tolerance range: + 5.0° to + 5.5°; max. side/side 0.3°
Camber - optimum: - 0.3°
  - tolerance range: - 0.5° to - 0.2°; max. side/side 0.2°
Alignment - optimum: Zero
  - tolerance range: 0.5 mm toe-out, to 0.5mm toe-in overall
Steering axis inclination: 9.4° nominal

REAR SUSPENSION

Type
Independent. Upper and lower lightweight forged alloy wishbones; co-axial coil spring/telescopic damper unit; tubular anti-roll bar

Geometry
Mid-laden ride height (2 x 75 kg occupants + full fuel tank)
set car to this height before measuring geometry:
- front 125 mm below front end of chassis siderail
- rear 147 mm below rear end of chassis siderail

Camber - optimum: - 1.6°
  - tolerance range: - 1.8° to - 1.5°; max. side/side 0.2°
Alignment - optimum: 1.5 mm toe-in each side
  - tolerance range: 1.4 to 1.8 mm toe-in each side; max. side/side 0.3 mm
Thrust angle - optimum: Zero
  - tolerance: 0.05°

[Lckitty]

Yes, so has anyone deviated from these manual specs? I'm about to go get an alignment and need to know what guidance to give the service guys. Looking for a nice balance of tire wear and performance/feel. I'm 100% street use. Thoughts?

[donour]

Originally Posted by Lckitty

Yes, so has anyone deviated from these manual specs? I'm about to go get an alignment and need to know what guidance to give the service guys. Looking for a nice balance of tire wear and performance/feel. I'm 100% street use. Thoughts?

I've played around with settings (more and less front camber), but don't have anything meaingful to report.

Remember that the Lotus specs are with 330 lbs of ballast in the front seats. Essentially no public alignment shops do that when they make adjustments and it does affect the measurement.



donour

[brgelise]

I will let my pyrometer guide me but I suspect (these are my guesstimations based on 8 yrs with the Elise) the track (street/track compromise) setting will be

Front toe: 0
camber: -1.25 to -1.5
Rear toe -1.0 or less
camber -2.5
I'll bet the VSA guys, Sector 111 and BOE have some numbers for us.

My Elise had -1.6 front camber and -2.5 camber and was damn near perfect for my needs!

These numbers reduce the toe a bit for quicker turn in and reduced wear esp on the rears is the benefit. Unless you get out of hand with camber it has never affected street tire wear that much for me.

[Sven76]

Rears have a lot of camber which results in high tire wear for highway use. Infers wear out faster. Don't care, won't change anything which compromises the agility of this awesome car, I bought if for fun, not to optimise tire wear. Got 8,000 miles out of the Corsa rears, that good enough.

[Notorious L.R.G.]

My Michelin's look brand new, at the same mileage as the Pzeros were worn flat in the centers...6000 miles.

Anyone else had bad experience with the tire shop damaging the fragile Lotus rims?

[squidward]

Originally Posted by Notorious L.R.G.

My Michelin's look brand new, at the same mileage as the Pzeros were worn flat in the centers...6000 miles.

Anyone else had bad experience with the tire shop damaging the fragile Lotus rims?

Yeah it happens quite frequently, actually. Most tire shops don't give a rats ass about scratching rims because most people with commuter cars don't either.

You need to ask first and ensure they have the proper equipment to do your wheels without scratching them. Not all tire machines have nylon edge guards on the pry arms, especially older machines.

[Plackslayer]

Mine hub had 1 bolt stripped out by a local tire shop. They won't be touching it again. I even requested no air tools to be used when putting them back.

[squidward]

One time at a tire shop I required them to hand-torque my bolts when reinstalling my wheels. I spent 10 minutes watching the tech go from station to station asking everyone if they had one to use, and sure enough no one did. Idiots. Ulitimately, I walked into the garage and handed them my own torque wrench from my trunk.. Unbelievable.

[Sven76]

A tire shop without torque wrench? Take your car a run!

[Eyegene]

Camber of rear wheels is a rather aggressive -2.8 degrees as from the Factory, contributing to high tyre wear on the inside. If you do not need high grip when exiting corners on track every week, my dealer in Ostend, Belgium recommends reducing the camber to -1.5 degrees, which leads to far less inner wear on the tyres without any loss in feel. Hope this helps! BW Bart


Sent from AutoGuide.com App

[brgelise]

Originally Posted by invictusmaneo

I had my dealer check alignment and all was within spec even though I chewed the rears at 8k.

I saved about 400 USd by going with the PSS but the Pirelli in the lotus specific compound are impossible to find. You can find the merc specs but they're no good there are some comments on here covering it

Pirellis are not an LTS spec. They are MO spec on our NA Evoras. Written right on the tires no discussion needed here. Available at Tire Rack. I'm at 6500 miles on rears and have 3/32nds left with a track day thrown in. 8K seems to be the magic number.

[ravencliff]

What are the torque specs for stock evora wheels?

[anthonyseven]

Originally Posted by brgelise

Pirellis are not an LTS spec. They are MO spec on our NA Evoras. Written right on the tires no discussion needed here.

Well, maybe a little discussion.

My 2010 NA Evora came with MO1 spec Pirellis on the rear, not MO. I believe these are what folks are referring to when they say it is a Lotus-specific tire.

When it came time to replace them, I bought the MO spec tires because they were easy to find.

I have noticed no difference so far, but I don't track my Evora.

[JLSELISE]

Originally Posted by ravencliff

What are the torque specs for stock evora wheels?

It doesn't matter if the wheels are stock or not, the spec is for the bolt , and in the manual it says about 77 ftlbs.

[brgelise]

Originally Posted by ravencliff

What are the torque specs for stock evora wheels?

77 ft-lbs

[brgelise]

Originally Posted by Eyegene

Camber of rear wheels is a rather aggressive -2.8 degrees as from the Factory, contributing to high tyre wear on the inside. If you do not need high grip when exiting corners on track every week, my dealer in Ostend, Belgium recommends reducing the camber to -1.5 degrees, which leads to far less inner wear on the tyres without any loss in feel. Hope this helps! BW Bart




Sent from AutoGuide.com App

factory specs -2.8?? You mean total not per side right? Several posts above they printed out the page with the factory specs
Optimum is -1.6 per side with a .2 diff. Seeing very even tire wear, no remote excess inside wear and only 1 track day. I agree you need less if you're highway driving.

[pioneer0943]

My rear P-zeros were nearly bald at 5,000 miles so I replaced them with Michelin super sports which now have about 2,000 miles and hardly any indication of wear. I'm curious about the camber comments because my wear seemed uniform across the tire which implies no camber whatsoever. Is that possible?

Keeping the original P-zeros in the front since they have a lot of tread left and previous comments here suggested mismatching front and rear tires would not be a fatal flaw.