The story of Little Red Riding Hood

[sailorbob]

The specification for the S300 rear wheel camber is 1 degree +/- 0.1 degree (i.e. 1 degree +/- 6 minutes).

The camber offset can be calculated very simply using the equation offset = diameter * sin (θ)  where θ (theta) is the angle in degrees.

[Jacques]

I think that woil be the same.

So, easy enough to calulate an dadjsut accordingly.

Thanks.

Kind regards,

jacques

[fjmuurling]

use the rim (size) for the measurements and the calculations, and not the tires.

[Escape]

Jacques, your calculation is correct, because of the very small angle. Using sin would be more precise, but the difference is far less than the tolerance or your measuing accuracy.

Good tip to use the rim, that way you take the deformation of the tire (both sideways and in height) due to the load out of the equation.

Nice to see you being so scientific about it!

Filip

[Steve V8]

Someone's been watching too many mathematical programmes. 

Level surface, a plumb line, and two blocks of wood screwed together at 1° should suffice. 

[Escape]

55 minutes ago, Steve V8 said:

Someone's been watching too many mathematical programmes. 

Level surface, a plumb line, and two blocks of wood screwed together at 1° should suffice. 

yes, but how will you accurately measure 1°?

[Steve V8]

55 minutes ago, Escape said:

yes, but how will you accurately measure 1°?

49p protractor from Tesco.

1° is 1° wether it's 18" or a mile ,

METHOD. Cut two pieces of wood to sit across wheel rim, using a protractor or any similar device, mark off 1° on one peice and screw the other in line to the 1° offset marked, attach vertically to wheel rim, with the car sat on a perfectly level surface, drop a plumb line (or set square up) close to the wood, when the outer edge off the wood is parallel to the plumb line 1° is achieved. (Negative or Positive) depending which way up your wood is)

[Jacques]

I understand that the tires are in principle wobly and deform to a certain extent, where as the rims are same size and shape always.

But the number is varying if I use a far smaller r (the rim) in stead of the complete wheel.

Just for fun, I'll bring a ruler and measure the hight with wheel on the ground and say 2,2 Bar and then with 2,5 bar and see what it does to the radius, thereby affecting the arch length. A minimal difference, but none the less.

Yes, I did some comparisons with this mothod vs. using Sin vs. a third method. Anyway, as long as I got the method to calculate, it's easy enough. And when not having my trusty HP41CX nearby in the garage, I like to have a method to calculate it with the highly sophisticated piece of paper with a pencil

Sinus work well for me too if the plastic brain (41cx which I've had for 33 years) is around.

Yes, I am being anal about it. Precision is good. Detail is good. I am also counting every gram (or as close I can get) I subtract from the car

The Esprit is a precision road weapon, not a people carrier. It's about search and destroy (911 Chaos cars).

Anyway, I'll stick to 12,4mm arch length. There's impression in this as well, as it it was to be calculated precisely, one would have to divide the arch to the horizontal ine into small objects, and calculate those to get nearer a true value.   I think it's good enough for now. I cannot adjust it so precisely anyway. But I can strive to get say 12,4mm. We'll see how it handles with that setting. Or I'll redo it with just 1 degree equaling 11,3mm.

So what are peoples experiences in real life with camber values? By experience, is it better to stick to factory values, or maybe something different, while still avoiding too much bump steer?

Kind regards,

jacques

 

ps: Oh no! this post now show 727 nonsense points... I hope that they don't lead to 737MAX8, which would unmistakeably lead to a crash in calculations...

pps: in fact I'd better make a small programme on the plastic brain that asks for data and throw the result. Yes, I know in this case, it's quicker to just calculate it,  but it's just for the fun of it.

 

Love OPN or RPN as you say over there, so here's my plastic brain my  HP41CX with a couple of math and stat modules and it's back up siblings:

[drdoom]

We should not be overly disparaging of the tyres' dimensions versus those of the wheels. Lift a wheel clear of ground, spin by hand and observe how little runout there is in the structure of the tyre. What little may be seen is not significant in terms of the aligning dimensions, as I recall.

Very impressive look to your car, Jacques! 

[Jacques]

Cheers But as I usually say: If I cannot outrun them, at least I can try to psyche them into oblivity beforehand 

Jacques

ps: Where I live, there are many lowered beemers, Mercedes, and japscrap and what not. Lot's of fat exhasut pipes coming from a seemingly thin single pipe, and thay are so fun to drive up to at a red stoplight. Or jsut behind then in the same lane. The Esprit is flat, fat, and ticks all the right boxes, being a supercar, not a doorslammer.

 

[Escape]

@Steve V8 your method does sound easy enough. My problem is with accurately measuring 1° (not to mention 1°6') on a standard protractor. Unless it's a very large one, you're don't really have a resolution of 1° or less. Whereas measuring 12.4mm or even 6.2mm is relatively easy.

Filip

[Jacques]

Exactly my thought. And I would have to buy some stuff to set it up. For example I have a relatively large protractor from Festool which could be used. But as Filip said, I don't think it's enough precision-wise. It's good for Wood working, but probably not for this purpose. Anyway, it's always good to have a few methods.

Thanks all

Kind regards,

Jacques

 

[Jacques]

A quick feedback on the new tires:

So, after having calculated the camber and adjusted accordingly, I've now had a chance to drive Little Red Riding Hood for two days. And does she dance! The grip from those Wheels are really a step above the grip from the AWI Monobloc, and they too were already an improvement from the 1990 SE wheels. You can simply go around a roundabout until you get Dizzy  Or a bit faster on curvy back roads, which I really like. I have a certain route of 115km's which is backroads mixing forests, fields, hills going between very narrow and just narrow 1 lane roads, all with lots of hills and curves. The car Sticks even better to those sharpish turns. I haven't hada  chance to drive in the wet, so cannot comment on that yet.

The quality on these tires seem to be good and they seem fairly quiet, the carry very Little balance weights and they don't upset the suspension, nor the chassis.

The Pirelli Pzero Rosso Assimetrico in 315/30-18 grips very well, once warmed up a bit and in an outside temp. above +10 deg cel. A Summer tire. Recommendable.

Little Red Riding Hood is most pleased with her new dancing shoes.

 Kind regards,

Jacques

[Giniw]

(it's been a while you haven't shown up, I hope everything is OK!)

[Jacques]

Ure. I am just enjoying driving the Esprit and as usual, waiting for more parts from the UK (terribly slow...).

Other than that, I am working all Summer, building a new pc, and updating my Laverda mortorcycle making small nice aluminium and titanium bits and pieces for it; been in hospital for a few days because of rat infection on my job... and now back and healthy again. Also, in my free-time, I am working on some of my leather works for some customers. For example, it takes around 15 hours to make a belt, complete with my own custom wrapping, box, silk paper etc.

And this coming weekend, there's the Copenhagen Historical Grand Prix, right where I am living, so as usual, I'll get over there and Watch it (on this coming Saturday). Also, I am looking into a Corvette C6 for a friend. Then I discovered that my sofa in the livingroom is moving backwards a bit every month or so, so had to get a bigger version of our B&O tv; then I had to modify that to suit my likings, and not having cables and external boxes and what not lying around all over (which I seriously dislike). Then I decided that I'd like to get the pc Picture and sound on my tv, but it's not all cromecasts that will Work on an internal usb cable only, and I need that, as I built it into the tv, not wanting external Things and cables and certainly not any small Black cheap chinese powersupplys staring at me. But I did finish up on that. Then I bought som new big loudspeakers and found out that I like my old ones better, so sold them on. Instead I will do some more filter mods internally and play a little more with changing some of the sheeps wool I have placed inside the loud speaker cabinets, for some camel wool, that I got from the zoological garden. It does make a  difference how the speakers sound, but more testing and experimenting is needed.

Then I needed to MOT bot cars and they sailed right through, only to see a week later that I needed som new seals on the drive axles on the Corrado. So had to Work two days on that too. Meanwhile, my wife kindly asked me to redo the veranda outside in the garden, so spent some days doing all of that too. And than my left knee felt better, so in order to stay fit for driving Little Red Riding Hood, I took up running again, not overdoing it of course. Now I've found a special super heat resistant cable sleeving which I will look into for the Esprit, as I am keep on protecting some of those cables from turbo heat. Driving wise, I have found out that the 315 Pirelli P Zero Rosso Assimetrico rear, and the 235 Toyo Proxes Sport Assymetric, is a great combo, that really stick to the road, far beyond what I am supposed to be doing  They grip really well, very assuring from the start and while being warm as well, while not making a lot of noise. Nothing scrapes on the Esprit, so no problems with Wheels/tires/bodyshell/suspension arms. So pure fun! And Little Red Riding Hood is most thrilled!

Being out of leather treatment for the Esprit, which I usually treat every two weeks; I usually use Leatherique for Little Red Riding Hood, I called the Danish importer, but they seem to have been shut down. so don't know where to get it any more, with out being heavily punished by a certain Mr. Trump's taxation agenda

Today, I did speak to a company who is supposed to redo the terribly bad made tailgate in carbon fiber that I bought long time ago, but they are really busy, so it will take some months until I get an answer.So lot's of things to do and very little time to be on forums lately, as I have  been working full tiem on my job, not having ben on vacation. I'll update as I get parts, some time in the future...

Cheers,

Jacques

[Jacques]

Alright, so went with Yasuo from here to Knutstorp Racetrack yesterday, as there was a trackday with a famous italian brand with a dancing donkey and McLaren. After having read and seen all kinds of not so pleasing stuff related to the later brand, I thought I'd better go there myself and take a closer look. All I can say is this: long lines of porches, and also long lines of ferrari's, lot's of McLaren cars, 1 viper and this Esprit. None broke Down during the day of 6 hours of constant racing.

On the huge carpark inside the track, where guests could park their sportscar, the Esprit caught an insane amount of attention. I'd say near equal to the Senna Edition from said McLaren. Everyone took Photos of Little Red Riding Hood and some asked questions. Unbelievable that a 30 year old Lotus is so lusted for. Most pleased on behalf of Lotus. They (Lotus) should direct FAR more attention to this and all of the old cars. In Sweden and Denmark, there's zero happening from Lotus. Read: nill, 0, zero.  What a shame. Anyway, they must have done something right 30 years ago

All the ferraris' and Mclarens went around the track the Whole day, Again and Again and Again, some cooked their brakes, most didn't. But good fun it was. Sorry, didn't have time to take some snapshots, so here's just one from the now Electric ferry home from Sweden, to the Motherland of Denmark   Looking at the Photo when I came home, it appeared to me, how overdesigned that new audi behind Little Red Riding Hood is. Chaotic lines going in every direction all over. Not my cup of tea, really. But clearly, the audi must have been upset by the beauty of a 30 y.o. because it looked so angry

Also visible is how easy a set of 10,75" rims with 315 rubber hide under those standard Esprit Turbo SE Wheel Arches - no rubbing, no trouble.

Nah, give a 30 y.o. Esprit every time, and I'm a happy bunny.

Kind regards,

Jacques

 

[Jacques]

Okay, so a new set of Nitron NTS 40 road version arrived here. I can add that the springrate is 50N/mm on all four corners, and that the helper springs rear are 15 N/mm.

Adjusting collars are not gold anodised but grey as the damper bodies themselves. Looks very nice. Adjusting knob are on top on all four dampers, and are not blue anodised but black. They have short travel between clicks and a very distinct click to them, so feels nice.

I won't be driving with them untill Spring, so cannot comment till' then on how they perform and with the 50 springrate on my Turbo SE 1990 model. We'll see.

As ca be seen on the picture, there are a few parts accompanying the set, which is not shown in the advertising. This is two upper helperspring platforms and a nicely made springbase adjustment tool. I haven't measured up the distances for the mounting bushings (below), nut those delivered in the set are very nicely made to shape and are offset for the rear dampers.

One ned to buy new bolts, nuts, washers and four sets of damper bush kits, A082C6036F, which is used both front and rear.

[Jacques]

A funny little thing.

Today I serviced the headlamp power washer system, taking parts apart and cleaning it up. A nice blue Hella plastic bag to contain pump and fluid.

Upon reassembling I found that it didn't work. So I measured all wires: good. Pump: good. Relay: good.

It turns out that Lotus got the system from Landrover Defender and in that car, it is necessary to have the headlamps turned on, the doors closed and only every 3'rd of 4'th time the head lamp jets wash, to save cleaning fluid, and this is done via a timer circuit. It's active only for ½ second.

It works just fine in the Esprit, with the only condition being that the headlamps must be turned on. Also in the Esprit it's only active for ½ second.

That is funny

Kind regards,

Jacques

 

[Escape]

Aah yes, the illusive headlamp washers. Those are from Range Rover BTW, the Defender never got such tricks. 😉

Filip

[Jacques]

So small update. Today Little Red Riding Hood got the new coilover suspension kit. That should hopefully tighten things up a bit. As far as I know, she's had new dampers and springs many years ago, so time for modern suspension.

I've got some stiffening for the chassis ready to be installed. And some really funky chassis mod as well, if all turns out to be doable. A seperate project, so no worries over the Nitron springrate.

As I've mentioned earlier, I thought about Öhlins and Nitron. Came down to Nitron for now, as Öhlins wanted my car for soem weeks and a whole lot of cash. No way I am leaving my car iwht others. Just won't happen. As Nitron had their kit developed for the Stevens and onwards Esprit, I setteled for that. Albeit it was in reality for the V8 model.

I received the kit with some nice discount thanks to our always helpful forum leader  and opened the box to see what I'd pay good money for. In the package is also an adjustment tool, which can also be bought seperately if need be, a basic manual on installation and basic adjustment, two stickers and a basic build sheet. Packaging is well done and safe for shipping. A nice kit. The picture above shows the kit as in the package. So, the differences from earlier installed sets, as mentioned on this site, is the collars to tighten the wprings with, are not gold anodised, but grey as the rest of the body and some of the fittings. That suits me nicely.

Another thing are the big greyish spring plates, which are not going to be used on Little Red Riding Hood, as it's a 1990 Esprit Turbo SE, which is different with regards to spring perches in the rear. No adapters are needed for the front suspension installation, only the rear.

I opted for the standard delivered 50N/mm spring rate, even though Nitron personally told me it's 60N/mm. Never mind, this is the road kit, and if it shows up to be americanised soft, I'll change the springs for the next step up, 60N/mm.  Helper springs on the rear dampers are 15N/mm, and all numbers are clearly marked on each part. Easy peasy, no guesswork.

As Vulcan Grey et al mentioned elsewhere, on the Turbo SE, are needed two adapters for centralise the more narrow springs of the Nitron modern spring'ed coilover kit (as others also are), as the chassis have an inner ring that obstruct a direct installation, so he was very kind to send me a drawing of his own making, so I could have those two parts made at a company. I had them anodised grey to suit the Nitron kit. There may be a slight variation from american cars to european cars it seems (to be confirmed), as I needed the inner diameter to be slightly enlarged by 1,5mm to suit the special metal washers and rubber bushings. I also had the edges beveled slightly. Speaking of which: they seem to be nla, so luckily MrDangerUS came to my aid and sent me two fresh sets. Meanwhile at the mancave, I found a solution to get polybushings for the job, as Nitron does not deliver any parts needed as other brands does. That's a bit odd in my humble oppinion. It seems that Avo have had their bushings made in poly for their own coilover kits, and a dealer was kind enough to sell me 8 bushings to suit my car seperately, without having the need to buy a whole coilover kit 

I was told these would need to be modified slightly to suit the inner damper rod. That is not the case, they press fit nicely and I am using those now. As I took off the old suspension, I did not split the front dampers, but left them complete for another job. Instead a dealer supplied me with fresh original Lotus top hats with bolts, so that was wasy peasy to assemple. The Nitron Kit comes with special made stainless washers, but only for the lower and uppermost washer on the 4 rods (for the flat side of the bushings). So inbetween the old ones have to be reused. These special Nitron washers, have to be faced correctly when installing, so look at them first. As I did not take the original front suspension apart (serious springload!), I could use the washers from the two kits I received.

The installation is very simple and straight forward. I did undo the front arb while doing this work, easing the moving ud the lower track arms when taking the old dampers and springs out (as one assemply) and installing the new complete "legs". I hung the brake calipers in strips, and only removed as little as possible.

This whole work in only a testfit, to see what mods I need to do, to make the Nitron kit suit the Esprit Turbo SE. When it is all in place and working to my satisfaction, I will undo it all and renovate the whole arrangement of track arms in front and the front arms in the rear, plus all new Lotac bushings, bolts, nuts and other hardware. It's all on the shelf, ready to be used.

I did not want to use some sort of rubber cushion on the top of the springs, so I opted for some poly rings there as well. Fits nicely and should isolate a bit of roadnoise.

The lower mounting point on the rear dampers are made so one end is protruding longer than the other end, and the long end should point towards the front of the car, to make room for installation. It's all obvoius when installing. I did chek for dampers being propperly assembled and tightened before installation.

One mod is to file ever so slightly the lower edge of the upper inner wheelhousing to make enough room for the Nitron adjustment button, which is top mounted, to be installed, as I had taken it off to while installing, and as it anyway have to be taken off to assemble the whole "leg". that is very easy with just one small countersunk "pinol" screw.

The collars to asjust the springs with and likewise the collars to secures the uper ones with are made of pretty soft aluminium, and the method is not a traditional "hooked" key, but a nifty little tool with just a round locating pin that fits in a series of small round holes in the collars. Take care, as they could deform easily.

Another observation point is the rear echaust side, where the heat protection cover for the top of the damper rod, does no longer fir propperly, when using Nitron suspension. It can be fastened though. This will have to be undone, if you want to adjust he otherwise easy click-adjustment of the combined damping/rebpund setting. There are 30 positions on bot front and rear dampers. Standard setting is 11 from the hardest position (Nitron says 10 in their documentaton, but I counted 11 on all 4 dampers), and since I have not driven the car yet, I'll go for that as a first try. Knob for adjustment is shaped to aid and is black hard anodised. The click in itself is very positive and secure and easy to find. Well made.

Springs are light blue in typical Nitron colour these days (changes from time to time), and is well powdercoated. Anodising is also wll made and not overly thin, I guesstimate around 30-35 micron, so should protect the aluminium well for some time. I won't be using Little Red Riding Hood in bad weather, but will probably hit the odd rainshower from time to time, so it's nice to knwo, it won't corrode at the first outing.

AS a first try, I lowered Little Red Riding Hood considerably, so don't take notice of that. I'll working on a full geo asap. Then, later on, I'll readjust the height, and redo geo. Upon moving the car outside, to make suspension settle in it's natural position, I found it to be quite firm on the rear dampers and slightly firmer front, compared to my otherwise okay original dampers. No real drive as of yet. We'll see about that later in the Spring.

Another nice feature of the Nitron kit is the weight, which is much lighter than the original steel ditto from Lotus. I have measured all bits and parts on my scale, and I record a total saving of 10,858 Kg. Total weight of Little Red Riding Hood is slowly getting closer to 1100 Kg, which is my goal without any real visual difference and lack of features. To be able to get there, I probably need setting up a small carbon part manufacture in the garage, and vacuum and bake the parts. We'll see later this year. There are many good parts to be replicated and painted to keep original look. More on that later on.

My first impression with the Nitron Esprit kit is both positive and a bit negative. It should be mentioned, that I find the kit to be mechanically well made, and with a good finish. Installation is not difficult, but note that some parts in the kit are not needed, and some you will have to fabricate yourself, plus the problem with the heatshield for the left rear. Also the fit is not faultfree, as there are a couple of small details that could have been made to suit better. Stiction, polishing and valving, adjustability and general performance is too early to talk about. I'll get back to that later on. Nitron recommend that they rebuild the kit every 10 to 15 hours of track and race use, and every 20.000 - 30.000 kilometers with road use. I'd be wary of that, and have it rebuilt before doing 30.000 kilometers in the Esprit.

As the Lotac suspension kit is doubled in price over a few years and in my humble opinion have it's own few quirks, I find it natural to look for other more modern solutions, to be able to gain on newer development of suspension building. While I know Öhlins and their level of internal polishing and lack of stiction, they are very pricy and lands at around the same price as the most extended set of Nitron with seperate reservoirs, seperate slow/fast damping and slow/fast rebound. Nitron offers in my eyes so far, a basic coilover kit with the most needed adjustment possibilities, which with some observation can be made to fit the Esprit of 1988 onwards, and hopefully works well. Recommended so far. So says Little Red Riding Hood too.

Kind regards,

Jacques

 

 

[Jacques]

Meanwhile at the batcave:

When you do some of this, you get some of this.

And then apply some of this, to get some of this.

And finally get this. Then onto this.

So, two evenings of work, and they are finally all out. New parts ready to go in, but hey, can't do that, despite no rust at all, so arms are now off for a fresh cup of tea.

Little Red Riding Hood is looking ofrward to get back to a normal state of being.

More later.

Cheers,

Jacques

 

 

 

[Jacques]

Hmm... yesterday, the battery started to play up, and since no programme to desulfate the battery worked, I went out and got a new battery. To avoid the shop, I paid online, and they wore plasticgloves while carrying the battery outside and placed it safely behing a gate, where I picked it up. Installed and now on full charge. A Varta blue top battery. The old one were a Global and it's heavier, so saved another 2,9 kilogram. Nice bonus.

Meanwhile at the batcave, I have hung up some of the front suspension parts that I'd rid of old crud and rustprotected them, painted them black again and a clearcoat, all in heatresistant paint. Now ready to be reinstalled with other fresh new parts. Basically I want the underside to be the same cleanliness as the rest of the car, so I had the lower front track arms glassblasted and delivered them to dipped in acid and get a new fresh galvanizing. They had no rust at all after 30 years, but had turned a bit black'ish and did not look nice at all on closer insoections, hence the regalvanizing. More later as a pile of parts from a uk supplier are now hopefully being shipped to me, despite the lock down and what not. Hopefully dhl will still get through.Little Red Riding Hood likes the new battery, bus is a bot anxious to be reassembled soon, so she can go outside in the spring sunshine and make some dance moves around an ugly chaos car - 911.

In the meantime, I will try to speak to a driving suit expert, adn ask if they can do some correctly done fire proof embrodery on my race suit. We'll see. CESA - Copenhagen Esprit Saturday Agenda.

Kind regards,

Jacques

[Jacques]

So, last I spent some hours trying to find out usable front lower track arm ball joints, as the ones I have bought earlier from one of the usual suspects  do not fit. They are different, for example too thin to fit te track arms. I looked up Delpi TC170, and since that is no more available, I found many replacements, some of them looking of less quality than others. I decided for these, and this morning I called a car parts dealership some 25 miles south of Copenhagen, who happened to have a supply of the oens I want. The spec count: 89mm total height, 49mm width, 14 x 1,5 thread, 49mm length, 43,3mm installation width. They are readily available locally to me in a decent quality. The funny part is that while I found these specific ball joints from that specific brand, I found prices varying wildly: from 300 dkr per piece, to 1800dkr per piece. So, I asked the company from whom I bought them for a fair price, and he let me have them for his own price plus tax - 600 for two. Imagine the nerve it must take, to demand 1800dkr - an earning of 1500 dkr per piece... That is 3000 dkr or 350 gbp. Mglp! Oh well... We'll see how these ball joints fare with time and milage adding up. They have a nice black surface treatment, so could possibly last a bit longer look-wise as well. Arhh... I'll give them a coat before installation

The car they originate from, is semi old Opel Manta B and Opel Ascona. Well know cars in Denmark, although there are only very few left. So more spare for Lotus  I originally wanted to use some adjustable S2 Elise ball joints, but spoke to Lotus Elise Shop in Holland, and they said that unfortunately, the Elise ball joints are too thin and small, so no go. On all the cars I've ever seen getting new track arm ball joints, they always broke because the rubber boot got broken and let water and dirt do it's job. So now I am looking into better and very soft boots. No fat heavy duty rubber boots for my new ball joints plase, as they introduce way too much stiction in the suspension. More on that later.

So got those two now, ready for installation, and voila, the company who regalvanised the two front lower track arms, also called today, so I just managed to pick them up. They were kind enough to wait a bit after closing hours, so I could reach there.

Only miss the little package from the UK with two front arb outer bushings, and ready, set, go! The way to having a clean car underneath, is now one step closer.

Kind regards,

jacques

 

[Jacques]

Spent two hours working on installing the two new lower ball joints on the front lower track arms. The big C-clamp tool set that I borrowed, did not fit a Lotus Esprit Turbo SE from 1990, so had to use my vice and a soft alujaw, not to affect the ball itself. That was pretty hard to press in, as my vice is not that big. Now in place. Had to do many other things tonight, so no more time to play with new bushings.

One small step for the track arms, but a giant step for handling  

Cheers,

Jacques

Not yet fully pressed in below, but I managed to bend the adjustment rod on my vice. I think I must make one in better steel.

[Giniw]

This is very nice, but aren't you worried to be afraid to go out with your car after all this pretty restoration? I would be horrified at the thought of a dirty road!