Protech shock absorbers

[mike40]

During recent suspension overhaul I fitted Protech shocks all round with new springs on the front. With the front of the car set to the correct height, (170mm), the suspension seems very soft, bottoming out on speed humps.

If you've got Protechs fitted, what have you got them set to?

The adjuster on the shock absorber rotates 13 clicks. I've got them set half way at 7 clicks.

Mike

[Jonathan]

Ooooh your on a hiding.

Prob is the bound and re-bound settings are going to be totally different from the way the car was set up as with the front spring rate.

IMO you should adjust them individually to the car and how you drive and want the car to behave.

Prob is with suspension is that it is an incredibly difficult and time consuming job - having the right settings for corners might take meters off your stopping distances for example if the fronts are too tight.

Depends how fussy you are about the car's handling, you should know what the car feels like and make adjustments as you go - you should find a sweet spot some miles down the road that suits you, but what you like might not be what someone else would set them to.

[mike40]

Thanks, Jonathon. I appreciate that with a non-standard set-up the best compromise is achieved by trial and error. It's just that I wanted to save some of the 'trial' part with a few hints from members who also use Protechs. I'm assuming that the adjuster knob is a needle valve which controls the fluid flow past the piston. If so I'll start by turning it clockwise and see if that stiffens the ride.

Mike

[Jonathan]

I'm no expert but I was planning to put adjustys on the race car I have stopped building (if that makes sense lol). Yesthe valve adjusts the amount of fluid between the piston chamber, bear in mind that it's not just resistance to compression that this governs but resistance to extension too (vs the spring's power).

What I was going to do was set the ride heights the same as standard and then mix the settings so it gave me roughly the same as the GT3 by litterally pushing down on the car (I know this is a completely cowboy way of doing things).

Then I planned to take it to a skid pan and look at stopping distances, lock ups, body roll at different speeds (keep speed constant and use a crude plumb line) before taking it to the track - this would set the car up, a round abouts before actually taking it on tracks to do times and messing with over/understeet, acceleration and braking.

If you haven't already have a good read of geometry and how it affects a car. Don't always expect that the harder the setting the better, on a road that could not be further from the truth !

The critical things are that if you dampen the spring too much you'll skip over small bumps in the road (great for nice smooth tracks but no so for UK roads) and you'll loose traction, also body roll plays a critical part in the way the camber changes in a turn and weight shift over the wheels on the outside edge of a corner.

I would start with them on the bouncy side to be safe, this will reduce the car's spritliness and the sharpness of the steering but be much less likely to lose you grip or promote excessive over and under steer.

Gradually adjust the clicks (1 at a time over a perioid of 100 or so miles) and record your findings - one thing you dont want to do is say put 3-4 clicks in at the back and then find the car goes from dosile to massive oversteer - I have no idea whether these dampers are linear or whatever with the valve - I know the AVO ones I had (horrible things) had ~ 20 clicks and they went from fairly sloppy to very hard in 4-5 turns so don't expect the full range to be available to you (ie 7 click might not be a mid setting !).

Remember although these have been certified for the car the designers would probably not have had access to fitting them to a real Esprit so have no idea opf the car's handling and weight shifting characteristics (unlike Lotus themselves) so i wouldn't be suprised to see that the car wont make full use of the damper's adjustment range.

I think personally the best way to judge the car is to read up on geometry (ideal if you have a game like GT4 on the playstation where you can actually learn and expeiment with the theory) and then take it to a track and put into practice what you know - then for the road un-wind the settings a few clicks to compensate for the horrible surfaces we endure here

[mike40]

I'll try one click at a time and let you know how I get on.

Mike

[dazmans3]

I ve got Protech's on mine. But just on the fronts for now. had to rebuild the whole front suspension on mine. Did you do the same on yours when you fitted. If so, did you torque down the suspension bolts with the car on all 4 wheels ect. If not tight enough this might have an effect. When I was first road testing I worked up the settings, but found I couldn't get a proper wieght on the bolts till I got her over a pit. As soon as I did this she seamed to thighten up nicely. I have mine set at 7 & she seams pretty good now. Mine has the same suspension as the earlier Stevens buy the way. Ride hight on mine is 160 on front & 165 on rear, which suits just fine. I tend to bottem out when I have a passenger, which is usually my GF, so I dernt say its cause of that. LOL.

Daz

[rens914]

i dont have the protec adjustable shocks. mine are from another brand but i have them at 18 clicks in front and 24 clicks for the backside. I must however say that i like a firm ride

greets rens

Edited June 19, 2008 by rens914

[lotuseffect]

Hi Mike,

I've got protechs on the back of my 88, with standard springs all round and standard shocks on the front. For the backs I settled on 8 clicks clockwise (of the 13 possible) and adjusted the spring seats so the top of each wheelarch lip was 685 mm off the ground. Seemed to work OK for me (and for a friend running a v8 who fitted the same shocks with the same settings). hope this helps - and good luck! Si

[Steve15]

Hi Mike,

I have fitted Protech's at the front, the ride height is a pig to adjust, the spring ends dig into the Aluminium adjuster rings and with the coarse threads it uses combine to make it impossible to move even when jacked up.

But I took mine back to 'Micheldiver Tyres' near me for the tracking (after I replaced the Rack which was worn) with the nice chap's help we went over all the official Lotus settings for the SE and came up with a 'custom' setup for their alignment machine.

[The default uses the S4 settings for power steering - not correct!]

Whilst it was on the alignent 'pit' he managed to get a 'C' spanner from the underside (which I could not on jacks!) and he set it up for me !

I am running 6mm nearside and 15mm offside for the spring pre-load and 4 clicks on the dampers.

The bad bump steering it had when I bought it, is now Much reduced and more confidence inspiring!

Good Luck - Steve

[DaKa]

If I may just pickup on this old thread.

While I'm replacing the rear discs I thought I would adjust the all corners protech adjustable suspension fitted.

My car is too low and bouncy grounding too often when I hit a dip in the road rather than a pothole.

I have some Spring compressors and thought it was simply a matter of screwing the adjustment up say, 3 cms. The problem is that I don't have a coil over spanner making it hard to turn by hand as I'm reluctant to compress the spring too much.

2 questions.

Is there a right coil over spanner to order or are they universal?

You mention another adjustment on the fluid rate - got any details on this e.g. What gets turned on the shock and does Clockwise equal stiffens suspension?

Thxs

[Vulcan Grey]

A Spanner would be best but I usually use some lube on the threads and a screwdriver or allen wrench to rotate the spring perches....

 

[Jacques]

^{And you could of course clean and lube the thread first, so the spring perches turn nicely.}

^{Kind regards,}

^Jacques.

[DaKa]

Thanks Travis, 

I got hold of a useful guy from Protect on the phone today. It seems they don't sell the spanners anymore and although I could take a chance on a Ebay universal, he suggested it my be too small as the Lotus esprit shocks may be larger than the 2.25 inch size they currently retail. He also affirmed your point about the unit having holes that you could put a tool in to create leverage.

He helped explain the fluid adjuster on the front at the bottom (black knob) which is seemingly 13 clicks, clockwise to stiffen the unit - he recommended 5-7 clicks?

I know have a plan for the weekend.

 

[DaKa]

Adjusted the rear now, made easier by the spring compressor. A special coil-over spanner was not required as a medium size Allen key fitted into one of several holes on the side of the Protech adjuster.

I was very surprised to find that the fluid adjuster on the damper (even though the car set low) was set to 0 clicks e.g. very bouncy!

It will be a bit of trial an error now I suppose but very easy to change now I know what to twist. I've set it to 8 clicks and will repeat the same changes for the front tomorrow which had also been set to 0 clicks.

Does anyone using Protech shocks have a recommendation on the number of clicks as I think the guy when I called the company said 5 clicks?

[Bibs]

Works out the total number of clicks then start with the fronts in the middle and the rears 2 clicks harder then adjust to suit

[gregs24]

My son was at Protech yesterday getting some advice and checks done for their Formula Student shocks and 6 clicks is the standard setting. The first 2 or 3 don't do much anyway. Certainly 0 clicks would be pretty undamped!

[DaKa]

Much appreciated advice.

Heigtening the fronts before stiffening the setting is proving harder as my compressor it too big and the adjuster need a coil over spanner.

Should I order a 2.25 size?

[Bibs]

I've a couple of sets in the shed somewhere I'll post to you FoC if you PM me your address? Worth a try? 

[DaKa]

The Ebay coilover spanner that I ordered at the weekend (just £8) arrived today - relatively easy to ratchet up the adjuster now, albeit the near side was made easier by disconnecting the track rod end.

It's obviously going to require some trial and error here as I've adjusted front and back up by 3 cms on the threaded shock adjustment, set the clicks to 6 front/8 on the backs (13 clicks being the max) and  now the car looks about 3 inches (8-9 cms) higher!!

I presume that I will need to take it for a run and see if it bounces back down a bit, but for this I will need to put the old rear callipers back on as I'm currently waiting for my new PNM upgrades to arrive.

I'm now wondering if number of clicks on the shock adjuster affects the height e.g. where it returns to when compressed?

I'll try a combination of fewer clicks and winding it back down 1 cm at a time to get it right - no big deal now that I have the right tools and knowhow. 

[andydclements]

The level of damping shouldn't affect height, it will just (to a minimal extent) alter how long it takes to settle at whatever height.

The effect of the spring perch is pretty much proportional to the change in perch, by a a ratio of distance between the pivot (the inner bottom bush and the bottom of the damper compared to the distance between the pivot and the centre-line of the tyre. It's not exactly because it's a straight line compared to an arc.That probably is around 1:2, so raising the perch 3cm would raise the car by c6cm..

[DaKa]

Thanks Andy,

I was aiming for circa 4 cm lift, so will need to wind things back down by about 1/3rd of the change I made.

 

[Herbert Harvey]

Protech Shock owners, can you guys give me an idea on how high you had to adjust your shock until the car stopped bottoming out? I started out with a lower front ride height and the front suspension clearly bottomed out, felt terrible! I keep turning the collar up in increments to hopefully remedy the situation. Right now the collar is about 1/2 way up on the threads, front suspension feels better, however when i hit those really deep pot holes car till seems to bottom out, I am getting worried that I am going to have the front end of my car looking like a 4x4 before I get the front end to stop bottoming out.  if your wondering I have the dampner dial set at 7 clicks at the moment, Done a lot of experimenting.. 7 or 6 seems about right. Any higher it seems to be a very stiff rough ride. 

Thanks for your help and suggestions..

 

[DaKa]

I have protect shocks front and back and will post a picture as soon as possible.

It is clear in my mind that the front and rears were about 1/3rd up from the lowest setting.

The front cross subframe needs to be circa 170 from the ground, mine was adjusted from 120 to 165 making an adjustment from the lowest setting to a third up as mentioned.

Remember the rebound setting dial which has 13 clicks. I set mine to 7 front and 5 backs as without this the car will bounce too much on road compressions and holes.

Protech not protect - auto correct typo.