Exige Cup car

All due respect to Guy as he builds very nice dampers but… thats very stiff… try winding it down 3/4 clicks on the Toyo’s (soft tyre walls mean they like to run stiffer shocks) and a bit more on the Yokos and I think you will see an improvement. Of course this is a matter of opinion.

4/3 with 475/525 springs keeps it pretty flat and gets those kidney stones out on the road

Just missed this one but .

mark i was going to book oulton on 7 may,who have u booked it through �135 is cheep,easy track askin �219.there was an orange exige there when i did a t day last year, was it you mine is a yellow mk1 ex51 gee.

Rob,

Not been before so it wasn’t me. It can be booked for �135 through http://www.lotus-on-track.com
Drop me a pm if interested.

All due respect to Guy as he builds very nice dampers but… thats very stiff… try winding it down 3/4 clicks on the Toyo’s (soft tyre walls mean they like to run stiffer shocks) and a bit more on the Yokos and I think you will see an improvement. Of course this is a matter of opinion.

Damping was increased by Guy at my request. I do know a bit about suspension set up and this suits my driving style and works well (remember Snetterton ).

All due respect to Guy as he builds very nice dampers but… thats very stiff… try winding it down 3/4 clicks on the Toyo’s (soft tyre walls mean they like to run stiffer shocks) and a bit more on the Yokos and I think you will see an improvement. Of course this is a matter of opinion.

Damping was increased by Guy at my request. I do know a bit about suspension set up and this suits my driving style and works well (remember Snetterton ).

Simon’s car was dreadful at Snett because it was far too stiff (also because it had extremely rubbish tyres) and since then we have massively improved things by going much softer on the shocks. I was running 12/14 from hard on mine when on Toyos and this was a bit too stiff, since changing back to Yokos I have gone to almost full soft as the sidewalls are that much stiffer.

There is more than one way to skin a cat though and I don’t doubt you have found a sweetspot that works well on your car. I’m stiffer on the springs than you now (400/550) which may say something? All interesting anyway.

I was running 600 front & 650 rear springs at Donny on saturday, on toyo T1Rs, initially at 15 & 17 from hard on my nitrons, and the car was understeering like a bitch, and slow through the bends…

Went down to 6 from hard on the front and 8 on the back, and a tad more pressure in the fronts, and got balanced handling, and loads more speed, though there was a lot of four wheel drifting going on !!

I am never sure what to do, to be honest - would be fantastic if we could really sort out what works best !!

Why not pop over to Oulton on Saturday 7th May for some passenger laps, or better still, drop me a line and pay �135 to join in

Mark
Gutted mate, the ‘naggin tackle’ is taking me golfing to Scotland for the weekend, hotel & course are booked Know where I’d rather be. �135 sounds a steal for Oulton, who is that with?
Now I recon, maybe, if I convince Jan that we should have a late start to Scotland, only the borders we are off to, & I cane the bike down to Oulton say hello & check out your passenger seat for a few laps!! Mmmmmm, leave it with me. I feel a plan coming together. long time since I’ve seen you and it’s you I have to thank for finally getting me to get my finger out and buy an Exige!!! Never looked back Mark, loving every second.
John

600 is very stiff at the front especially on road tyres, I wouldn’t be suprised if thats the cause of the understeer. Try going down to 500 at the front, I have some which have just come off the rear of mine if you want to give them a go at croft?

(400/550)

That’s a big old difference front to back. Is it more tail happy?

I’m currently enjoying 21/19 from hard (3/5 from soft, easier to count) for the road.

Ian

(400/550)

That’s a big old difference front to back. Is it more tail happy?

I’m currently enjoying 21/19 from hard (3/5 from soft, easier to count) for the road.

Ian

At a guess and Chris may correct me, he is probably running a much stiffer front bar. I use the std LSS bar, all be it on stiffest setting.

600 is very stiff at the front especially on road tyres, I wouldn’t be suprised if thats the cause of the understeer. Try going down to 500 at the front, I have some which have just come off the rear of mine if you want to give them a go at croft?

Thanks Chris - very generous of you !!

I did get rid of the understeer on the day, in the end, and I think it would probably be different on my 48s as well…

I have the standard anti-roll bar, set on one stiffer than the middle, and have previously found the car to be well balanced - I put the understeer down to newish Toyos, with loads of tread, and tyre pressures too low…

Bring the springs along and we can chat, but it would perhaps be a bit too much of a job to change them on the day ??

Cheers

I know Randy it seems over the top, but i ran the car on yoko 39’s at an event recently with the damping at 6/5 and it was horrible, could not find the grip and it was using possibly 60% of the available tread, far to much camber. i then spent 4 hours at the track the next week with better geo settings, lower ride height and going up 1 click a time at the back first and then the front. This is where i ended up to give you an idea, i had the week before on slicks at the same track done a time of 1:23.6 and was able to do a 1:21 dead again on slicks, the car felt completely different with stiff suspension and correct camber it had more grip than i have felt in it since i changed to the nitrons. I understand road tires are never going to work on the same settings, so i set it up for slicks as that’s what i race it on.

Please remember i do not consider 1 isolated lap time to be good, i go out for at least 5 laps on each click and make sure i can consistently do the fastest time. Also it does not scrape it’s nose under braking anymore which is great.

That is the beauty of a forum like this we can all post our settings which gives everyone an idea of what might or might not work, next time i might try alot softer and it could be a whole lot faster, and i would not have known about it had you not posted, as you might try the stiff settings and prefer them. It all depends on individual driving style, tyres, geo settings etc. I value comments which say my settings might be bad because that is how i am going to learn and hopefully improve.

Ian - If you think about it lots of people run 400/500 on an Elise so to go up 50lb on the rear of an Exige is no big deal considering the extra weight at the back the higher CofG and the less than ideal suspension geometry due to our big wheels. To answer you question, no it isn’t tail happy but after making a few setup changes to my car over the weekend I have succesfully managed to remove the big understeer I have always had with it although I don’t think it was the spring change which cured that problem. I may try 600lb rear springs at Croft but didn’t want to go that far straight away.

Mark - I have a standard ARB (on full stiff) on mine now but I do want to try a stiffer one at some stage.

Jason - Be careful not to prop the car up on the dampers, it sounds like more spring rate may be in order instead. Were those lap times at Donnington Nat by any chance?

Bring the springs along and we can chat, but it would perhaps be a bit too much of a job to change them on the day ??

Cheers

Only take ten mins to change a pair of springs. I’ll throw them in the car just in case .

Cheers Chris. I asked as you’d said before having spring rates too close front and back meant likely understeer, so wondered how far about they needed to be before the opposite occured.

BTW, Jason is in South Africa, so I doubt that’s a Donny lap.

Ian

Cheers Chris. I asked as you’d said before having spring rates too close front and back meant likely understeer, so wondered how far about they needed to be before the opposite occured.

BTW, Jason is in South Africa, so I doubt that’s a Donny lap.

Ian

I’ve not found the limit to that yet. On Simon’s race car the springs are 250lb appart which hasn’t caused any oversteer probs. We have found that it’s easy to stop the front suspension from working by running too stiff though.

Don’t know how much stiffer i could go on the spring rate with the nitrons, as they would really battle to control stiffer springs with current damping. Also the stiffer ARB has helped understeer for me tremendously. There is a hairpin in particular that in the orange car i could not get through quickly without understeer and experienced the same in this one when i first got it and fitting 3X stiffer arb helped alot, no more understeer.

Also and this is not a dig at Nitron just a question as i love the nitrons, how much damping change is there in say the last 5 clicks, is it exactly the same for the first 2 clicks and the last 2 clicks or is there a big difference for the first 10 clicks and then a slightly smaller increase for each one threafter. Just a thought and i would hope that it is linear but they seldom are.

Are you on single way Nitrons Jason?

Yep, first gotta get a handle on all adjustments before i can make use of the 2 way’s properly, it’s on the cards for next year, dependant on state of engine currently being rebuilt

What make of slicks do you run over there?