Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Out of interest, here are the A arms fitted to a TVR 390.
Note the neat toe adjustment.

Nice design concept

cheers
Rohan

Maybe neat but if there are bushes at the chassis end you've got a small diameter weld and screwed rod in bending, which is not a good idea.
Racing wishbones get away with adjustability like this because they have rose joints and no rotational resistance.
That's the advantage of the Spyder wishbone - the joint is large and in a low stress area.

As I said nice "design concept" .... how you implement the detailed design and stress analysis is another mater but not insurmountable to make it suitable. Good engineering is both science and art

cheers
Rohan

I've been reviewing Spyder's website and they do say that the rear wishbones are powder coated.
I don't think mine were 6 years ago but I don't know what they were saying at the time.

MarkDa wrote:Maybe neat but if there are bushes at the chassis end you've got a small diameter weld and screwed rod in bending, which is not a good idea.
Racing wishbones get away with adjustability like this because they have rose joints and no rotational resistance.
That's the advantage of the Spyder wishbone - the joint is large and in a low stress area.

Coming from someone who has a pair of Spyder adjustables I don't think a design that puts strain on every welded joint is exactly inspired.

Besides the TVR arms take the grunt from a (435 Nm torque) 4.5 Rover V8 without a problem, so I doubt
an Elan would bother them.