Active Suspension

[Bibs]

[jonwat]

Sadly, I'm old enough to remember watching this on TV. Still very impressive though.

[nigeninja]

Nice not seen that,er how do you get brain damage then,is it from your head hitting the roof cos of the stiff suspension

[CharlieCroker]

Wicked, loved it. Can you get them for an S2?! haha...

[molemot]

Crikey! A Beagle Pup and a Twin Pioneer....wow! Interesting to see a reminder of the days when they still made television programmes for an intelligent audience, rather than the piffle one gets these days. Loved the active suspension; ought to be possible as a bolt on kit using the processor in a mobile phone, these days.

[cbclotus]

Fantastic thanks for posting What a car .....Cheers Mike

[Bloodnok]

I loved the shot of the whole car being moved up and down by pushing on the front end.

[semi42]

i remember seeing this when it was aired , great find!

if only i could get to see the reginald molehusband and weaverbird PIF then my trip down memory lane would be complete

[jonwat]

What happened to the Lotus noise suppression system where where they had a unit that took in the noise the vehicle was making & then produced the exact opposite noise so canceling all noise out??

I understood that it would only be a matter of a few years before every car audio system would have that built into it.

[skiing]

Totally awesome. Especially when they start it up, it rises up and goes... Would be very cool to own the original car and run it...

[mdw]

What happened to the Lotus noise suppression system where where they had a unit that took in the noise the vehicle was making & then produced the exact opposite noise so canceling all noise out??

I understood that it would only be a matter of a few years before every car audio system would have that built into it.

I remember seeing that on tomorrows world. However like you have not seen anything of it since.

[red vtec]

I remember having a magazine with a write up on it at the time the, the magazine was called something like Equinox. I can remember it having a blue cover, it may be in the loft somewhere. If I find it i'll do a scan of it

Just found this: http://www.sportscars.tv/Newfiles/activeridelotus.html

Edited May 20, 2012 by red vtec

[hedgerley]

What happened to the Lotus noise suppression system where where they had a unit that took in the noise the vehicle was making & then produced the exact opposite noise so canceling all noise out??

I understood that it would only be a matter of a few years before every car audio system would have that built into it.

Lotus teamed up with Harmon a couple of years ago to productionise the system. Now known as HALOsonic its been demo'd several times (the latest version is in the Evora 414E) and is rumoured to be appearing in several production vehicles shortly, including a BMW hybrid.

Its been covered in Lotus Engineering Proactive magazine a few times times -

http://issuu.com/lotuscars/docs/halosonic

[jfitz981]

Very cool!

[eddie111S]

is that right the system got stripped out and car sold on. Shame. For sure now you could have a voice activated version. The video is long and there other stuff probably not so relevent. Here I made a short version, just on this artical:

[hedgerley]

Lotus were at the forefront of most of what we take for granted these days. Take a look at SID -

http://www.lotusespritworld.com/EOtherstuff/sid.html

This was 1992 remember - it had a GRP and Nomex honeycomb monocoque tub as well as a bunch of other stuff;

For starters it is not just an active suspension car, nor is it just a four-wheel steering, fout-wheel drive or monocoque test rig. It is rather a rolling test bed of all these things, a drivable focus of the technology developed in the Lotus engineering research project into Structures, Isolation and Dynamics: SID for short. SID is the cleverest car Lotus has developed, perhaps anyone has developed. And that's without the anti-noise system and steer-by-wire technology that exist at Hethel as, for the time being at least, parallel research projects.

If only they had had the money to bring it all to market. One can dream.

[Deanchad]

I have a sort of active suspension fitted to mine at the minute, ok not really active in the sense of counteracting role in corners but height adjustable and spring rate adjustable from the drivers seat. I wanted the car to have a tourer type feel under normal driving condition but also be able to stiffen the suspesion whenever it was need............... plus I am able to get off my steep drive without catching the splitter

I have only been using it for around a week so there is some tweeks to do and some component hiding to be done but if the wife says '' isnt it smooth'' then i think im going in the right direction.

[MrDangerUS]

...height adjustable and spring rate adjustable from the drivers seat. I wanted the car to have a tourer type feel under normal driving condition but also be able to stiffen the suspesion whenever it was need............... plus I am able to get off my steep drive without catching the splitter

I am very interested in your system. Could you tell us what components did you fit on your car and how did you do it?

[Deanchad]

I'm using ridetech/fox air struts single adjustment with double conveluted bags. With accuair ride height control system.

I've managed to install with no chassis mods at all which was priority. The rear were straight forward and fit great fine. However the front suspension needed some attention.

[saggitarius]

Citroen - a few years later - had an "Activa" version of their hydropneumatic suspension system installed in the top of the line versions of both the XM and the Xantia. According to Wikipedia the Xantia Activa has exceptional road holding comparable to true sports cars. In the Swedish magazine Teknikens Värld's moose test the 1999 model of Xantia V6 Activa still holds the record speed through the manoeuvre - faster than the Porsche 996 GT2.

With the base system in the Citroen it was easier - and cheaper - to install the active part than in most other cars, but still they are not making anything like it any more.

[islandbloke]

My AMG Merc CL55 shopping car has active (ABC) - I think it's pure hydraulics rather than hydropneumatic with lots of gyros to detect movement and a CPU to do all the calculations. Has three ride heights selectable and is switchable. Completely flat cornering when turned on, but the worry is that if it goes wrong, new dampers are almost a grand each...

[mattthesparks lotus esprit]

Found this on you tube very interesting! Enjoy

[FRANTIC FRANC]

I wonder if this is the origins of the technology that ended up on the Williams F1 cars during the Mansel years?

[rizla603104]

It was certainly the technology that ended up on the Lotus for a year or two. It was ideally suited to the street circuits, but if my memory serves me right there was some kind of overhead for having the active suspension - probably weight.

[Vulcan Grey]

They also had it in SID.

http://www.lotusespr...rstuff/sid.html

http://www.lotusespritworld.com/EOtherstuff/sid2.html