Joined
·
29,081 Posts
Interesting experience.
I took it to some people I have been using a long time, Miramar Performance.
Funny note... they said "Hey, this is the second Elise in two days! We had a guy in here with a black (or dark something or other) car in here. Brand new but a wheel was leaking. They had Lotus replace the wheel so he brought it to us to swap over the tire."
Anyway, they drove the car up on the ramps. They use a laser sighted machine. Pretty cool. The car had about 1/2" clearance on driving up. That is if you move the moveable jack portion in. By the way, when we drove the car off the ramp... everyone forgot about that jack thing. And the car hit it. No damage, but something to keep in mind. They told me that the machine they use means that the lifting points is not an issue.
This shop is very competent and knew what needed to be done.
I first wanted to know what the present measurements were.
We had already taken out all the camber shims, so camber was maxed out.
BEFORE
CAMBER TOE CASTER
FRONT L -.8 1/16" IN 3.5 degrees
FRONT R -.7 1/16" IN 3.9 degrees
REAR L -2.8 1/8" IN
REAR R -2.4 1/16" IN
My plan was to get as much negative camber in the front I could and be legal per SCCA specs. Since I had already remove the shims, it was maxed and nothing else can be done. Second point was to get the rear camber closer to the front. I was thinking -1.8, maybe even a little less.
Then set front toe to zero and add some more rear toe to try to tame the looseness.
It was determined the easiest way to replace the rear camber shims was to remove the diffuser, so they allowed me to get under the lift and take it off. We only had the shims that came with the car, 2 from the right and 3 from the left. It turns out each shim in the rear is worth about .14 of a degree. So the best we could do with the rear camber was to put all the shims back in. So we did.
AFTER
CAMBER TOE CASTER
FRONT L -.8 0 3.0 degrees
FRONT R -.6 0 3.5 degrees
REAR L -2.4 3/16" IN
REAR R -2.1 3/16" IN
Is caster adjustable or is it just what you get?
It looks like if I want to reduce camber more in the rear I will need to get some shims. If possible, I would like more camber in the front, but we will have to tune around what it is.
I took it to some people I have been using a long time, Miramar Performance.
Funny note... they said "Hey, this is the second Elise in two days! We had a guy in here with a black (or dark something or other) car in here. Brand new but a wheel was leaking. They had Lotus replace the wheel so he brought it to us to swap over the tire."
Anyway, they drove the car up on the ramps. They use a laser sighted machine. Pretty cool. The car had about 1/2" clearance on driving up. That is if you move the moveable jack portion in. By the way, when we drove the car off the ramp... everyone forgot about that jack thing. And the car hit it. No damage, but something to keep in mind. They told me that the machine they use means that the lifting points is not an issue.
This shop is very competent and knew what needed to be done.
I first wanted to know what the present measurements were.
We had already taken out all the camber shims, so camber was maxed out.
BEFORE
CAMBER TOE CASTER
FRONT L -.8 1/16" IN 3.5 degrees
FRONT R -.7 1/16" IN 3.9 degrees
REAR L -2.8 1/8" IN
REAR R -2.4 1/16" IN
My plan was to get as much negative camber in the front I could and be legal per SCCA specs. Since I had already remove the shims, it was maxed and nothing else can be done. Second point was to get the rear camber closer to the front. I was thinking -1.8, maybe even a little less.
Then set front toe to zero and add some more rear toe to try to tame the looseness.
It was determined the easiest way to replace the rear camber shims was to remove the diffuser, so they allowed me to get under the lift and take it off. We only had the shims that came with the car, 2 from the right and 3 from the left. It turns out each shim in the rear is worth about .14 of a degree. So the best we could do with the rear camber was to put all the shims back in. So we did.
AFTER
CAMBER TOE CASTER
FRONT L -.8 0 3.0 degrees
FRONT R -.6 0 3.5 degrees
REAR L -2.4 3/16" IN
REAR R -2.1 3/16" IN
Is caster adjustable or is it just what you get?
It looks like if I want to reduce camber more in the rear I will need to get some shims. If possible, I would like more camber in the front, but we will have to tune around what it is.