Wheel alignment

[3MIRA]

When I joined the SIDC Subaru Impreza Driver Club which was a UK car club, they had SIDC settings for wheel alignment. It made a dramatic difference to the handling of my car a 22b.

Does Lotus have cars leave the factory on conservative settings and do people change, if so how much benefit on say an Evora or Exige?

 

[kitkat]

The manual has specified alignment specs in the past, I’d expect them to do so again now. I’ve got to imagine that from factory it’s all a bit conservative and that adjustment without aftermarket shims and control arms is very limited. I remember reading most people with the factory eccentric bolts in the Evora can’t get more than -1 degrees of camber up front with the stock eccentric adjusters.

As for an hpde specific alignment — I doubt Lotus will release that you’ll have to copy what someone else here does or fine tune it yourself and buy a tire pyrometer to dial in a balanced alignment for your specific use case.

I’m sure I’ll be looking for way to get more camber up front as most of my track tires are happier closer to 3 degrees of negative camber.

 

[Leonard]

You would imagine with talk about understeer etc in reviews that the factory settings are conservative

 

[TomE]

It's deliberate, so people who are new to high performance RWD mid-engined sportscars don't experience lift-off oversteer and end up in a hedge

 

[kitkat]

It's deliberate, so people who are new to high performance RWD mid-engined sportscars don't experience lift-off oversteer and end up in a hedge

Agreed, makes total sense.

I'm particularly very interested to see what sort of range the alignment has.

 

[Leonard]

It's deliberate, so people who are new to high performance RWD mid-engined sportscars don't experience lift-off oversteer and end up in a hedge

Natural selection I say Far too many folk on the road that can only go fast in a straight line (and even that is being kind)

 

[Evotion]

Ha. Fair point.

I will never take the car out in the wet so I expect to always have it under control.

I did take off all the traction control on my 500HP C63 in the wet - that was fun. Not. Never doing that again.

 

[TomE]

I’ve done a few driver training sessions on skid pans and low grip surfaces. It’s very useful to understand how the car behaviours as you reach and go over the limit.

I decided to do that after I hit some black ice in my Elise and left the road, missed some trees, cleared a ditch and landed in a field. Amazingly, I didn’t injure myself and the car was repairable. Strong little cars, but something to avoid if possible.