Emira front ground clearance

[ttvetdoc]

Hi there,

I was wondering what the experience has been with UK Emira owners regarding the front splitter/spoiler ground clearance. Have you had issues going over speed bumps, entering angled driveways, etc? I had a 911 turbo and was constantly aware of the front lip spoiler and would occasionally scrape it even despite my best efforts. Just curious how good/bad it has been with the Emira.

 

[Rapture]

I had a mess about last night. its about as unscientific as I could make it with a steel loft ladder key and an off cut of OSB.
Mine is on tour and nearly up to 2000miles
Static clearance at the very front of the splitter is 170mm.
Taking a line roughly past the sacrificial bobbins (which are a hard ally by the way I thought they were plastic then steel but the magnet confirmed - metal but not steel) the angle is about 10 degrees.
Exige is a mare over road humps so do the same taking them at as big an angle as i can get away with.
Obviously descending on brakes with a load on board will make it a bit 'worse'.

Thanks very much for this, it helps take some worry away. I think I measured my incline at about 9 degrees, so hopefully I will be okay, maybe scrape the sacrificial bobbins a bit. I really appreciate your effort on this.

 

[Rapture]

Official front approach angle is 7.9 degrees, if that helps.

View attachment 30437

Thank you, but unfortunately, this diagram is a bit inaccurate. I don't believe any of the cars built have that rubber molding mounted under the front end. I also believe there may be slight difference between tour and sport either due to small difference in the components, and/or the tire height. I'm also suspecting that the U.S. cars will be slightly higher based on an interaction I had with Lotus a long time ago. Hopefully they will build some cars for this market, and we'll be able to confirm if there are any differences.

 

[Toomanyloti]

I measured the angle with the level on my iphone and it was rough so a bit each way is possible.
If i can find a thinner stiff bit of ply I'll post the results

 

[Medic518]

There are two what I can only describe as hockey pucks under the nose that would act as first point of contact if you were to ground the nose. I was told by someone that Evora was the same although I don’t remember mine having them. Perhaps only the later 400 series had them.

From the pictures @Balboa posted - could these (red circles) be the "hockey pucks" of which you speak? They seem to close to the nose to be jack points.. Harder to see in the full frontal photo, but they are visible..

 

[Pugwash]

Looks like it. Toomanyloti posted a picture earlier in the thread which shows one side on.

 

[Sentinel]

Reviving an old thread because this is relevant.

Just spoke with KW and asked if they had any plans for a Hydraulic Lift System for the Emira.

This was their response....

I just talked to our HLS Product Manager and I was told that currently there are no plans to develop an HLS-system for the Lotus Emira. Besides that there is our HLS universal kit BUT in order to be able to combine a KW HLS hydraulic cylinder with a KW coilover strut, a remaining thread of at least 65 mm is required in the lowest setting. In this very case it is only 15 mm. Changing the main spring would have far too big technical impact on the driving dynamics.

Furthermore there would be the option to do a special construction of the housing with a longer thread but this unfortunately is not possible neither due to the valve carrier and the adjustment unit at the lower end of the shock absorber.

So unfortunately there is no option to fit an HLS system in the Emira – sorry.

 

[Chobfreak]

Too bad, I definitely would have bought an HLS system...

 

[ManOfSteel]

I have managed to detach my front rubber splitter/spoiler 3 times I 2 years even being cautious when reversing out of my driveway. Never ripped it completely.
Very easy to reattach. Just a pain and inconvenience.
But have learned to live with the problem.

I did this backing out my driveway the second time I drove the car, taking it to the beauty shop (PPF/ceramic coat). I feel like an idiot. I almost NEVER scraped my Elise in over 16 years of ownership, and it has a front splitter! You say the rubber piece can be re-attached? I knew it was not good when I heard it flapping around under the car on the way there.

 

[crestima]

I did this backing out my driveway the second time I drove the car, taking it to the beauty shop (PPF/ceramic coat). I feel like an idiot. I almost NEVER scraped my Elise in over 16 years of ownership, and it has a front splitter! You say the rubber piece can be re-attached? I knew it was not good when I heard it flapping around under the car on the way there.

Wow, I f really feel for you ManOfSteel.
Some 15 years ago I had a BMW M5 front bumper completely ripped off and drop on the ground when reversing out of a concrete parking curb (aka parking bumper). I'm not sure what was worse: 1) the disgust of such a significant damage to a brand new car or 2) the embarrassment that ensued when I got out of the car facing the several spectators who witnessed what had happened and helped me pick up the bumper and broken parts.
I've owned several sports cars before and since then, my latest being a 911 Carrera S 991.2 and despite a few scrapes that can only be felt (not seen from atop) to the plastic front lip, none have ever been serious enough to need repositioning or replacing any part on the car. Granted, to this date, my cars haven't been the type with exceptionally low clearance ( and I suspect the incoming Emira will not be one either), so typically, I'm cautious when driving in to, or out of, sharp angled inclines and ramps (may to be the case of your garage/driveway). I find that going extra slow helps sometimes minimize/avoid damage under those circumstances. What I SHOULD actually do with regards to those Fuk@#$& concrete parking curbs, is reverse in to parking spots, instead of nose-in-first. Got to talk to my psychiatrist about this later one since, I may suffer from a mental blockage disorder because I stubbornly continue to opt for the Ill advised nose-in-first approach.

 

[Porter]

I have managed to detach my front rubber splitter/spoiler 3 times I 2 years even being cautious when reversing out of my driveway. Never ripped it completely.
Very easy to reattach. Just a pain and inconvenience.
But have learned to live with the problem.

Wait, what front rubber splitter? My car doesn't have anything under the nose except the sacrificial impact pucks.

 

[Maurice R]

Wait, what front rubber splitter? My car doesn't have anything under the nose except the sacrificial impact pucks.

There is no front rubber splitter.
The Evora GT does.

 

[seneca blew me]

It’s a sports car and it thereby has a front lip for aero, so clearly you have to be careful. But, the one thing I love about the Emira is how much clearance you do get, WITHOUT having a nose lift. I have scraped it only once, very lightly as I got the angle wrong on a drive way. Other than that, garages, speed bumps, etc, no issues. And, not having a nose lift avoids situations like with some other cars where you’re sat there in front of a speed bump with a line of cars behind you waiting for the nose lift.

You have got to keep it in mind but far more practical than any other car I’ve driven.

The one time you did scrape the car, did it cause any significant cosmetic or functional damage?

 

[geoffbland]

I've scraped the front of my V6 FE at least a dozen times but with no damage to the front lip or undertray that I can see or feel.

The problem is not the height of the car but the distance the nose of the car pokes out from the front wheels. The Emira easily clears all the speed bumps around me that my Elise does not. The nose of the Emira hits the ground going downhill when the road then sharply rises.

There's both a school and a hospital near me that have an carpark exit that sharply slopes down to the main road and then the camber of the road goes up - I've caught the Emira's nose there. I've learnt the scrape can be avoided by ensuring that you approach at an angle rather than straight on giving the nose more clearance.

I recently did the Stelvio pass, going up was not a problem but on the way down I scraped the front of the car several times. When taking a steep hairpin, tight on the apex, the descending road would occasionally flatten out and catch the nose.

It sounds awful when it happens but inspecting the car there's no damage to the plastic lip nor the undertray, no signs of any scraping at all - the lip still feels smooth to the touch with no scoring. There are two soft plastic stops about an inch or so deep on the front of the car that I assume hit the road surface first rather than the lip or the undertray. But it still sounds like you are wrecking the car when you hit them.

 

[Orchardbike]

I scraped mine twice when I was in France, both times over speed bumps. It sounded horrendous, but when checking under the car it’s the two sacrificial round pucks that have touched down. I was surprised how little they were scored as it sounded a lot worse.

 

[Toomanyloti]

Done same several times in mine sounds catastrophic but only minimal damage to the pucks.

Our speed bumps are horrendous so much so most have signifacant scrapes from farm tractor hitches smashing into them.

The emira takes them with ease but have to exercise caution on the decent. Only ever caught the pucks on a road gradient change as described above.

 

[EmirOfDenmark]

The one time you did scrape the car, did it cause any significant cosmetic or functional damage?

No, it was't too hard, and also, someone posted it here earlier: the front lip has underneath these two "hockey pucks" that are there to take the brunt of it in case you scrape. Honestly, compared to other cars (McLarens, GT3, Ferraris), which can be a pain, they managed to maintain that supercar low nose look, without the hassle of the nose lift. You still have to take care. I slow down a lot more for speed bumps, than with my RS5, for example. But it's not like my friend with the 600LT who uses Google maps everytime he goes somewhere to trace the road and see what awaits him .

 

[seneca blew me]

Is it possible to replace the two hockey pucks and the sacrificial bits in front of the front wheels?