Lotus Elan S3 rims

[rogerem]

I own a lotus Elan S3. I need to change the wheels and I would like to know which other wheels fit on the std mounting. Are there any other type (more racing ones) on the market? If so has somebody any on sale (please attach pictures and price). I live in the UK

Thank you for your help

[schroeder]

The S3 has the most narrow rear wheel arches of all the elans. So before ordering wheels from anywhere make sure you measure the amount of clearance to the arch and to the rear suspension. Also measure both sides. Lotus were notorious for haphazard bobbin location and as a result it is likely that the body is not true to the chassis. The other critical measurment is backspacing, the distance from where the wheel contacts the mounting flange and the inner wheel rim.

Once you have all those measurments in hand you are ready to go wheel shopping.

Paul Matty offers minlites that can be machined to your specific backspace dimensions (within reason).

Good Luck

[Emma-Knight]

We tried to test fit 5x13 Minator alloys with 155 Dunlop sp 10 from my
S2 to the S3 of a friend - no way! They clamped against the outer wishbone bush and had no way to go under the arches, both sides. Not even cutting back the return flange would have solved this. The car was running on Lotus bolt on's with Avon 155, still havon a 10mm gap to the flanges.

The S2 has original flanges but is assymetric about 1/2 inch side to side
and one tire rubbs slightly against return flange.

Anna

[bill308]

I ran Panasport knock-on's with 165/60 x 13's on my S2 and my firiend Tim did the same for his S3. A good bit of trimming of the inside of the rear wheel well arch was required along with a little hammering of the standard spring perch was also required on both cars. The other area of concern were the aft outboard suspension pickup bolts. The thin bolt heads must be on the outside, facing the rear, and the flats carefully oriented to prevent scrapping the inside of the wheel.

I later fitted 2.5 inch adjustable spring perches to the rear struts which provided additional clearance to the inside.

The front tires can scrape the inside wall of the wheel well at full lock under some extreme conditions. Also, I went off the track one time and and a front tire made contact with the wheel well lip taking a chunck of fiberglass off.

Bill

[rogerem]

Tahnk you very much to all of you for that information, I was not aware of nay of those problems

Roger