Where Is The Best Place To Adverise My Elan+2 Zetec

PostPost by: gavk » Tue Jun 10, 2014 8:27 am

Jon, thanks for the info and pic, your car looks lovely, stunning colour too.

The black portion of Rich's wheels seem a slightly different style to yours and his silver rim seems to protrude slightly more giving a very small dish effect to the look of the wheel which I like.

Rich's ride height looks great and I remember a post where he said he didn't have big issues with grounding out so I was interested to know the sizes of his wheel/tyre combo in order that I could figure out the rolling radius. I have seen the other posts about Zetec +2 ride heights and know that there are a number of factors such as

Spyder raising body on Zetec conversions (read this somewhere, is it true?)
Zetec sump clearance
Zetec exhaust clearance
Tyre and wheel size (i saw post by spyder fan where he fitted larger tyres in order to fill arches and improve ground clearance

Thinking maybe it Could be Rich's use of the lotus chassis (vs spyder spaceframe) that also allows him to ride so low?
gavk
Second Gear
Second Gear
 
Posts: 113
Joined: 23 Apr 2014

PostPost by: jono » Tue Jun 10, 2014 8:55 am

Gav,

My two penneth for what it's worth..

The Spyder chassis is exactly the same dimensions and geometry as Lotus so it will not be that.

The wheels I have are 5.5 width and I specifically wanted them narrow to maintain a 'period' look. They are the correct offset to prevent fouling and maintain the correct Kingpin axis - Minilite know this and design the offset accordingly. I suspect Rich's wheels are at least 6's so perhaps that why they have a deeper dish?

There are also a number of suppliers of the Minilite style - 2 Gates were one, amongst others, but I think they went out of business. Across the pond there are others and all look slightly different.

I have height adjustable suspension with narrow rear springs and could have mine riding as low as Rich's, in fact I did.

The picture shows mine after I raised the height after crunching the front wheel arch lip on full lock in a pot hole when entering my drive ( to say I was upset is an understatement, anyway some fibreglass and paint later, all is well).

The car did handle better when lower and I will retun to that stance once the car has settled after more miles (it's amazing how much it sags while all the new bushes, springs and similar settle, that's what caught me out with the wheel lip).

Personally I would think Rich's car at that hieght is at risk of the same thing happening unless he has rock hard springs on the front which kind of runs counter to the Lotus philosophy. I think I would prefer to have slightly higher clearance than run the risk of bodywork damage.

I think the main issue with the 'offroad' Zetec conversion is sump height - but saying that I have no experience of them.

I will play around with mine and eventually find the optimum ride height - it's too high just now but half the fun is playing around with settings :D

Jon
jono
Coveted Fifth Gear
Coveted Fifth Gear
 
Posts: 2022
Joined: 17 May 2007
Previous

Total Online:

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 23 guests