In order to maintain consistent ride and handling characteristics under maximum and minimum passenger fuel and luggage loads; to provide a soft ride over minor road irregularities and firm control over major ones, or to achieve a soft ride in straight – line driving without sacrificing roll stiffness in cornering RISING RATE suspension systems are common engineering practise.
Such suspension systems by choice of appropriate geometry and progressive –rate springs ( for the first 100lbs compress the spring one inch but for compressing it 2 inches additional 150 lbs are needed ) become more resistant the more the wheels move farther into jounce.
The suspension system of the Elise has spring- damper- units consisting of a constant rate coil spring surrounding a non adjustable damper = shock absorber made by Koni and nowadays by Bilstein.
But in the aftermarket you can get many other units which are claimed to improve ride and handling enormously and many Elise owners believe that the most expensive most probably will also be the best for their requirements. This units are adjustable in length and damping factor (jounce and also rebound )and they have harder or softer linear and even progressive springs.
Here in Germany you actually can get the cheapest aftermarket unit for ca. 1000 Euro and the most expensive for more than 4000 Euro. and certainly in the US the Tuners will start very soon to offer additional opportunities and also find some enthusiastic customers posting in this forum here that the unit they just bought really is the non plus ultra development in this technology.
Therefore please start discussing this subject before spending lots of money without much value for it.
Perhaps some of the prospective Elise owners in this forum are able to give some criteria for selecting the appropriate damper- spring unit for your rather heavy US-Elise .
Have fun.
Such suspension systems by choice of appropriate geometry and progressive –rate springs ( for the first 100lbs compress the spring one inch but for compressing it 2 inches additional 150 lbs are needed ) become more resistant the more the wheels move farther into jounce.
The suspension system of the Elise has spring- damper- units consisting of a constant rate coil spring surrounding a non adjustable damper = shock absorber made by Koni and nowadays by Bilstein.
But in the aftermarket you can get many other units which are claimed to improve ride and handling enormously and many Elise owners believe that the most expensive most probably will also be the best for their requirements. This units are adjustable in length and damping factor (jounce and also rebound )and they have harder or softer linear and even progressive springs.
Here in Germany you actually can get the cheapest aftermarket unit for ca. 1000 Euro and the most expensive for more than 4000 Euro. and certainly in the US the Tuners will start very soon to offer additional opportunities and also find some enthusiastic customers posting in this forum here that the unit they just bought really is the non plus ultra development in this technology.
Therefore please start discussing this subject before spending lots of money without much value for it.
Perhaps some of the prospective Elise owners in this forum are able to give some criteria for selecting the appropriate damper- spring unit for your rather heavy US-Elise .
Have fun.