I’d like to lower the ride height of my S1 Exige. Apart from grounding out what other problems could I have and is it easy to do. I have the OE set up and the cars done 16,000 miles.
Thanks in advance
Michael.
I am no S1 expert but i don’t think the standard suspension has adjustable ride height.
You could try 100 mm front , 110mm Rear measured at the end of chassis longerons, but unless you are running hard springs you will not have any wheelarch liners after a bout of spirited cornering!!
But wait a bit as someone else might have other ideas.
Usual euro disclaimer about any responsibility etc.
What he Said ^^^^^^
Yep arch liners on mine definitely are suffering at 100/110 - seems to be worse since I swapped from Yoko A039s to Toyo R888s!
Alski
Steve Gugleimi set mine at 110/115 on the standard Exige height adjustable LSS. Never grounded out, but wheel arch liners became well ventilated! 
Thank you for the responses, does anyone know what the ride height was set to at the factory?
Would stiffer springs make it harder to drive on public roads?
Stiffer springs will make it harder
Harder to drive? I don’t think so but definitely more uncomfortable. It all depends how you use your car! I definitely won’t go to the spring rates suggested by some users here and I won’t lower my car. It all works so much better this way.
Yeah I would be careful fitting stiffer springs, especially to the standard shocks. If you use your car on the road then IMO you want to lean towards a softer setup. My car isn’t as stiff as some on the spring rates, but it is a full on race car and it is bloody horrible to drive quickly down a bumpy B road. A road biased car with half the power would be the quicker point to point car, simply because it wouldn’t feel like it was trying to kill you constantly.
haha.
Maybe I’ll just take it down a few mil and get the geo set up once it has an engine back in it.If anyone does know the standard ride height it would be nice to know what it should be.
I think for the road the ride height is best left alone, any drop in height will change the roll centres and geo. For track use I can understand optimising the set up, but if the Exige is being used on the road then lower and harder can mean slower and more difficult to drive, especially with the state of UK roads.
That said, when I was younger I was always messing with something on my cars, so maybe its old age speaking!
I agree. I’m sure the Lotus chassis engineers knew what they were doing when they did the geo for the road car. I doubt if many people could do a better job. If you’re making a track car however I’m sure you can dial out the compromises that they dialled in…
Exactly, I think the standard suspension / ride height setup is awesome for a B road blast kind of car. Our roads are 3rd world, i reckon you need all of the compliance you can get.
It gets really really difficult when you want a car to do two things. I do think that Lotus’s are better than probably every other car at beoing rewarding on road as well as track, but it will always be comprimised in some way.
My car is the best car I have ever driven on a track, it handles amazingly well, but oh my god, on the road it seriously just wants to kill you!!! I still drive it on the road though, cus I love it so much.
ANd as we all know a good road car feels like a big heavy wallowy turd on the track. My S2 Exige was an awsome road car, with the standar Ohlins dampers and ride height etc, but on track it was a bit poo. Don’t get my wrong it was good fun, but you start thinking it would be better if I did this and that and then hey presto you have wrecked your road car!
I will stop rambling and go away now.
Question …
My S2 Ohlins wont go any lower than about 120 mm on the front , is there a way round this to lower about a further 10 mm ? Rear is fine …
Thanks for the comments guy’s. The answer seems to be have two cars. One for the road and one for the track. Problem sorted. 
i run my front Ohlins right at the bottom as well, managed to get about 117mm.
Dont know how to get it lower though.
I run mine at 112 front and 122 rear as in the handbook with the softest springs I could get with Nitrons(250/375 I think).For the road I use 2clicks front and 4 clicks back and 8 more clicks F+R for the track.Its a good set-up-soft enough for the road and hard enough for the track.