I absolutely love the touring suspension on the street, it's perfect. I'm going to mess around with better tires to see if it improves track handling. If that's good enough, I'll stay with the touring. If not, it'll be the softest Nitrons (FastRoad).

 

I suggest you look at a 19/20 setup.

 

I did. For the Emira, the OEM sizes have more tire options available than anything I could find with 19/20 even when fiddling with widths and outer diameters.

 

I took the Emira to Laguna Seca again. This time, a few changes.

• EBC RP1 pads, since the SR1's had too much friction. These were great!
• Castrol SRF brake fluid. No more spongy brake pedal.
• Michelin Pilot Sport Cup2 LTS tires. OEM sports suspension tire, combined with my touring suspension.

The first half of the day was pouring wet, so it was some serious car control practice. The Emira has nice chassis dynamics, and you can feel it starting to step out well before you need to intervene, so catching a slide is very easy. It feels like there's much more time to react than in my Elise on Nitrons. Using track mode, I did not notice the stability control intervening at all, but I'm also used to driving an Elise and never putting myself into a situation where it would be necessary. The traction control being off by default lets you spin a wheel if you want. This thing really does have the handling characteristics of my Elise, just in a big fat boat of a car, but the dynamics are the same.

The RP1 pads were much better, but as they get really hot, the friction coefficient changes a lot, so it's really easy to overwhelm the tire grip with the brakes. The Elise has the opposite problem, in that the tiny brakes are usually your braking weakest point, while in the Emira, it's definitely your tires.

Once the track dried off in the afternoon, I pushed the car quite a bit harder, and I managed to get it into the high 1:43's. I'm having a hard time feeling the tire slip angle, due to the fat car and less steering feedback. I suspect the touring suspension really cuts down on the car's communicativeness on the track, but never having driven a different Emira, I don't know for sure. The PS2's definitely had much better feel than the touring F1 Supersports, and they held up much better to heat. Since the track was never fully dry, I can't compare laps with the Supersports, but I was a tiny bit slower compared to dry track on them. On the street, the Cup2's are also super comfy with the touring suspension.

I'm starting to figure out the heel-toe geometry here, and I do it well 4/5 times. It's much easier when the brake pedal is firm with better fluid.

I can't get my AIM SmartyCam working right. The logger never triggers it, and if I turn it on manually, it's mssing the data feed from the Solo2, so sadly, there is no good video to post, just washed out, overexposed nonsense. I regret buying this instead of a GoPro.

 

You show the touring suspensions limits even in the wet....Too soft for any real track duty. Thus the heavy feeling due to the vague spring load feel.
God I hate it when folks compare an Elige to other cars....only fair comparison is a 4C and that is best compared to a V6....which we never got. Try to remember it was slow as dirt above 130indicated (120mph). At those speeds, your Emira will eat an Elige with anything short of 300+hp...and none of the BOE Rev 300 iterations ever passed me except in the hands of a few true experts.

 

I compare them because those are the two cars that I have and they're both Lotus I could throw my former FocusRS into that comparison, but both cars are so far ahead of that one, it's not even fair to compare.

 

I think it's a likely more useful comparison in this setting since the folks on this site are much more likely to have experience with an elise/exige than a 4c.

 

The elusive Elige. Rarest of all Lotus. Many attempts to mate an Exige with an Elise have been attempted, but no known success.

 

Actually not remotely true if you saw the cross pollination of members between 4C and Lotus Forums. It is significant.

 

New member here, but long time (circa 1991) Laguna Seca driver. A legit 1:43 is hauling butt.

My most recent dry PB there is a 1:43.25 in a Corvette C5 Z06, stock suspension and engine, but 315/30/18 square Falken RT615K+. My pro coach Mikael Miller put down a 1:40.20 in my car, and full NASA Spec Corvette race cars lap at 1:37.

Nice work!

 

Cars have gotten incredibly fast! The same day that I did my 1:43 laps, someone was running 1:28's in a 911 GT3 RS. That's 15 seconds faster. Crazy.

I'm ordering myself a Nitron suspension with firmer springs, we'll see how goes.

 

Good morning, can you let me know if you were able to change your seatbelt for a four or five point harness? In order to hit that type of lap, I’m assuming that you had something that held you securely into the seat.

 

FYI In order to get a members attention or to respond to a post use the reply, quote or @Username to get the attention of someone. Otherwise it goes to OP of the thread.

 

Thanks for the clarification. Will do going forward.

 

@marcinr Good morning sir, can you let me know if you were able to change your seatbelt for a four or five point harness? In order to hit that type of lap, I’m assuming that you had something that held you securely into the seat.

 

One member posted he installed Tillet B-10 seats. I have them in my Elise. They truly fit like a glove and are designed for three way belt or harness and for me eliminated the need for harness.

 

Thanks @Catsailr27. I’ll do some research on them. 👍