Touring vs Sport suspension

[Evotion]

Like Harry did? 😄

Ha, he did a bit but not a day - in many different scenarios. Plus he is 86!

Yeah, it might well be that Touring is the fastest set-up too on just about every UK road so I am hoping the car just 'feels' better on Sports.

 

[Evotion]

Cost and weight probably?

Personally I’ll likely just be putting a set of custom 3-way adjustable dampers in. That way I can dial out some high speed compression if I feel like the car is too much for the road.

Something else I’ve always wanted to play with is a standalone DSC kit so I can tune my own dampers electronically.

Let's all wait until we drive them in anger. It might surprise you and not need tweaking at all, ever.

 

[TomE]

Ha, he did a bit but not a day - in many different scenarios. Plus he is 86!

Yeah, it might well be that Touring is the fastest set-up too on just about every UK road so I am hoping the car just 'feels' better on Sports.

Harry had the first car for 5 days and the second one for 1 day. There are some social posts from him saying, having done the reviews, he was taking the Emira out again because it was so enjoyable to drive.

 

[kitkat]

Let's all wait until we drive them in anger. It might surprise you and not need tweaking at all, ever.

For me, highly unlikely, but yes — driving it first is part of the assessment.

 

[PhilCP]

If Evo's review was this:

"Our Sport chassis car - wearing the standard Goodyear F1 Eagle tyre rather than the Michelin Cup 2 tyres customers can specify - has a beautiful flow to its ride, rich in Lotus DNA in how it dissects the surface to feedback everything you need to know and nothing you don’t. There’s a sense of it floating across the surface but with none of the aloofness this would traditionally be accompanied by."

This is completely at odds with Harry's review.

How much of this difference of opinion could be attributed to the tyres - Harry being Sports/Cup2 and Evo on Sports/Goodyear?

 

[Guest142]

Updated my vote post ordering. Touring is my selection.

 

[TomE]

If Evo's review was this:

"Our Sport chassis car - wearing the standard Goodyear F1 Eagle tyre rather than the Michelin Cup 2 tyres customers can specify - has a beautiful flow to its ride, rich in Lotus DNA in how it dissects the surface to feedback everything you need to know and nothing you don’t. There’s a sense of it floating across the surface but with none of the aloofness this would traditionally be accompanied by."

This is completely at odds with Harry's review.

How much of this difference of opinion could be attributed to the tyres - Harry being Sports/Cup2 and Evo on Sports/Goodyear?

Harry was talking specifically about lower speeds and skittering and fidgeting on a poor road surface. I’m not sure what scenario EVO are describing - sounds like higher speed sweeping corners.

The Cup2s have a stiffer sidewall so will contribute to some extra driver awareness of poor quality road surfaces.

Having tested the Evora equivalents of Touring/Goodyear and Sports/Cup2 back to back, I can confirm the latter is much more susceptible to road surface quality.

I don’t think the Harry and EVO write ups are inconsistent, but depends on the road surfaces and tyre temperatures.

 

[Leonard]

Harry was talking specifically about lower speeds and skittering and fidgeting on a poor road surface. I’m not sure what scenario EVO are describing - sounds like higher speed sweeping corners.

The Cup2s have a stiffer sidewall so will contribute to some extra driver awareness of poor quality road surfaces.

Having tested the Evora equivalents of Touring/Goodyear and Sports/Cup2 back to back, I can confirm the latter is much more susceptible to road surface quality.

I don’t think the Harry and EVO write ups are inconsistent, but depends on the road surfaces and tyre temperatures.

It's just crazy difficult to decipher any of these reviews for your own specific needs.
If id have heard Harry say before that Sport was like my GR Yaris I'd have gone Sport!
Yeah it's jiggly at low speed but the faster you go the better it gets!
I don't think any of us will really know until we either get a drive or pick up our cars. That's borderline exciting and terrifying 😆
I'm over the judgement now until I get my chance to be judge and jury... I'm hoping it turns out to be a misunderstood Jonny Depp...

 

[digilotus]

I'm sticking with Sports and Cup 2s. I'm not an old man and can take a bit of a beating.

 

[Sea4S]

I am going with touring… I can tell the car is not going to be low enough for my tastes In either flavor.
I will likely just bin the oem bits as soon as KW or Ohlins or the like give me a better option

 

[freefall_junkie]

There was some discussion following the reviews last week about whether the geo of the Sport suspension might be set up differently (camber, toe etc) for the Cup2 or Goodyear tyres. I asked the question of Lotus and this is what they have come back with:

The Sports chassis has stiffer springs for enhanced body control with revised damper valving and increases in camber and toe angles, this does not vary based on the tyre choice selected.

So, clears that one up

 

[xen]

There was some discussion following the reviews last week about whether the geo of the Sport suspension might be set up differently (camber, toe etc) for the Cup2 or Goodyear tyres. I asked the question of Lotus and this is what they have come back with:

The Sports chassis has stiffer springs for enhanced body control with revised damper valving and increases in camber and toe angles, this does not vary based on the tyre choice selected.

So, clears that one up

What i remember / my read was that the camber and toe angles were increased to take advantage of the Cup 2’s which to me implies the sports suspension was optimised specifically for the Cup 2’s. I’ve mentioned this before but i get the impression sports suspension + Goodyears aren’t an optimal combination.

 

[PhilCP]

What i remember / my read was that the camber and toe angles were increased to take advantage of the Cup 2’s which to me implies the sports suspension was optimised specifically for the Cup 2’s. I’ve mentioned this before but i get the impression sports suspension + Goodyears aren’t an optimal combination.

Presumably the toe/camber for Sports could be changed and set as per Touring settings giving a hybrid setup.

 

[kitkat]

Presumably the toe/camber for Sports could be changed and set as per Touring settings giving a hybrid setup.

Extremely high probability of that — and I’m hopeful the Emira has a good range of adjustment via eccentric bolts or shims even beyond the sports settings. Some of the track day tires I run require closer to 3+ degrees of camber — and likely the sports alignment is more like 2 degrees.

 

[Den]

After much more deliberation, reading reviews, threads and often changing my mind, I am now locked in with Touring.
The car will never see a track, not with me in it anyway.

 

[Porter]

I've ordered Sports with the Goodyear F1s.

If it ends up having too much high speed compression damping and feels jouncy/unsettled over road features as Harry experienced, I'll either buy a set of Touring dampers (simple fix but may have crazy parts delays) or put in 2-way or 3-way adjustables. The brilliant thing about Lotus's suspension design is that the dampers use a simple clevis attachment at both top and bottom and appear to use a standard 2.5"id spring, so motorsport-grade dampers should be a cinch to fit to the car even if a specific application isn't listed for the vehicle.

A set of Koni 8212 would be a good relatively budget-friendly 2-way option (~$500 a corner) that give a plush ride with a digressive rebound curve, or could go big with a set multi-way MCS, KW, Ohlins, or Nitrons. The factory spring rate on Sports is probably very appropriate for my (road-focused) purposes and looks to be linear 2.5in ID, so that should be usable without modification on most motorsport coilover shocks. It's all about valving and stroke at that point.


You have to love the simplicity of Lotus's design choices. It opens up an entire world of universal-fit options in ways that simply aren't possible with most OEM suspension designs. The upper clevis mount even has the upper spring perch integrated to maximize the spring length, so anything with a threaded body style lower spring perch would work if the ends of the damper physically fit into the lower arm and upper mount and the total length is appropriate.

For those going wild with damper tech, I bet the Evora GT4 open upper mount is available and bolts in interchangeably. I suspect the Emira GT4 uses the same, though I haven't seen a pic of it yet. This is the setup on the Evora GT4 (below), with inverted double-adjustable Ohlins and a short spring. Track-only in this case, since the suspension travel is quite limited, but the open upper mount like this could be used on any shock that has an integrated or threaded-body upper spring perch. The Nitron Fast Road kit for the Evora is a good example - no need for the upper spring perch on the mounting bracket with that type of design.

Once the Emira lands and people start modifying them we'll have to make a suspension fitment tech post with charts of part numbers for things that work or would be useful.