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The Elise has 5 possible height settings on the stock shocks. It would be legal to use a lower or higher setting, if the factory service manual has instructions for changing the setting.
Has anyone looked in the FSM for such a procedure? Is it in there?
If it's allowed, then you can lower the car. But you'll hit the bumpstops sooner. That's probably a bad thing, but there are some people who have set up their stock suspensions to continuously ride on the bump stops and use them as the springs. The one I heard about was on a Neon, which doesn't have nearly as finely-tuned suspension as the Elise. So let's assume we want to avoid riding the bump stops.
The shock rules say that the overall extended length must be within 1" of the stock shocks. The length of the body plus the length of the bump stop must not be longer than with the stock hardware...you are allowed to change the bumpstop or have a shorter shock body to make this true.
So if you are allowed to lower the spring perches, then you can compensate for reduced bump travel by cutting the bump stops and/or using a shorter-bodied shock.
You can't make the shock body a lot shorter. You are limited by the fact that the extended length can only be 1" shorter...that means that if the body is 1" shorter, the shaft is not shorter...and the piston would collide with the bottom of the tube at the same compressed length. Someone who wanted to play this game would have to determine how close the piston comes to bottoming out with the stock bump stop, in order to know how much to shorten each part (the body, bumpstop, and shaft) in order te retain the most travel in each direction.
Alternately, the lower spring perches (if it's legal to use them) could be used to compensate for the increased ride height from using very high gas pressure in the shocks. High gas pressure can be used to augment the coil springs and provide a higher total spring rate.
Has anyone looked in the FSM for such a procedure? Is it in there?
If it's allowed, then you can lower the car. But you'll hit the bumpstops sooner. That's probably a bad thing, but there are some people who have set up their stock suspensions to continuously ride on the bump stops and use them as the springs. The one I heard about was on a Neon, which doesn't have nearly as finely-tuned suspension as the Elise. So let's assume we want to avoid riding the bump stops.
The shock rules say that the overall extended length must be within 1" of the stock shocks. The length of the body plus the length of the bump stop must not be longer than with the stock hardware...you are allowed to change the bumpstop or have a shorter shock body to make this true.
So if you are allowed to lower the spring perches, then you can compensate for reduced bump travel by cutting the bump stops and/or using a shorter-bodied shock.
You can't make the shock body a lot shorter. You are limited by the fact that the extended length can only be 1" shorter...that means that if the body is 1" shorter, the shaft is not shorter...and the piston would collide with the bottom of the tube at the same compressed length. Someone who wanted to play this game would have to determine how close the piston comes to bottoming out with the stock bump stop, in order to know how much to shorten each part (the body, bumpstop, and shaft) in order te retain the most travel in each direction.
Alternately, the lower spring perches (if it's legal to use them) could be used to compensate for the increased ride height from using very high gas pressure in the shocks. High gas pressure can be used to augment the coil springs and provide a higher total spring rate.