Front Adjustable Anti Roll Bar S2 Elise

[hunt205gti]

Has anyone fitted the stiffer anti roll bar to their S2 Elise and what are the results on road and track.

Thanks for your help,

[21TonyK]

Thinking of doing the same and have read several reports on various bars including comments from LMS guys saying "leave alone".

I can get the splitter to touch when cornering or braking. Maybe I need new shocks (18K miles) as well but been thinking of stiffening up the front but I don't want to create understeer having got rid of it.

[VX Foxy]

21TonyK said:

I can get the splitter to touch when cornering or braking.

Stiffer ARB won't help this. ...stiffer springs would help - as would removing the splitter

[21TonyK]

VX Foxy said:

21TonyK said:

I can get the splitter to touch when cornering or braking.

Stiffer ARB won't help this. ...stiffer springs would help - as would removing the splitter

Shhh.. been trying to keep new Nitrons/Quantumn or Ohlins from the Mrs for 6 months!!

[VX Foxy]

21TonyK said:

VX Foxy said:

21TonyK said:

I can get the splitter to touch when cornering or braking.

Stiffer ARB won't help this. ...stiffer springs would help - as would removing the splitter

Shhh.. been trying to keep new Nitrons/Quantumn or Ohlins from the Mrs for 6 months!!

Good plan!!

[shangani]

I had a stiffer arb put on at a time when I was doing trackdays almost every weekend. I honestly didn't notice a great deal of difference at the time. My understanding now is that in isolation the impact of a stiffer arb depends quite a lot on the sort of spring rates you are using.

At the time of fitting it I had 325/400 springs and actually my impression was that the car might even have been more understeery after the arb was fitted. I had big issues with hitting the bump stops, lifting the inside rear on slow corner exit giving poor traction and eating wheelarch liners under braking.

I now have 475/650 springs and all round the setup is much much better and more pointy. Having said that, whenever my car ends up understeering like a dog and being crap under braking, the culprit has always been worn / hard front tyres more than any other component of the setup.

So in summary, I wouldn't look at the arb in isolation. Identify what problems are you having handling-wise that you want fixed. If you are running std suspension, I would leave it alone. If you are looking at a total change of suspension setup, then decide what sort of use you want from the car - track mainly or road mainly, what sort of spring rates you will use and then make the decision of arb around the whole suspension setup. People like Scuffers and randy have been incredibly helpful to me over the years with really good advice in this area.

[Scuffers]

21TonyK said:

Thinking of doing the same and have read several reports on various bars including comments from LMS guys saying "leave alone".

I can get the splitter to touch when cornering or braking. Maybe I need new shocks (18K miles) as well but been thinking of stiffening up the front but I don't want to create understeer having got rid of it.

despite the usual /lotus/ talk, there is not real downside to a stiffer ARB (till you get to really stiff 1"+ ones), the std item is very soft.

typically, stiffening it up makes the front end a little more pointy and less prone to the front corner tucking under in braking/turn in, but you have to remember that you can't really look at this stuff in isolation to the spring/dampers either.

personally, on road cars I like the feel of the 7/8th (EP), even at it's stiffest setting is not intrusive, and helps limit the front end roll without resorting to stiff springs/dampers

[aceofspades]

as above, look at the springs (and ride height) first. after going default config nitron/eibach i was pretty happy with everything except the amount of roll and swapped out the lotus adjustable arb for the EP 7/8 which is plenty good enough for trackdays while still being very driveable on the road.

[The Bandit]

Simon i've got the EP 7/8th ARB(with 2 way Ohlins)set on the middle setting but still suffer with low speed understeer(worse than before).
Tyres still have 4mm on them. Do you think its worth going stiffer or softer or change the fronts and try it?
Thanks a lot

[Scuffers]

The Bandit said:

Simon i've got the EP 7/8th ARB(with 2 way Ohlins)set on the middle setting but still suffer with low speed understeer(worse than before).
Tyres still have 4mm on them. Do you think its worth going stiffer or softer or change the fronts and try it?
Thanks a lot

if it's under-steering, it;s not the bar that's causing this, you need to check/reset the basic geo etc.

if you on Ohlins, I assume your running it relatively low, so check the front bumpsteer out.

[thegreenhell]

I fitted the EP 7/8 bar to my S1 when it was still on relatively soft S2 Bilsteins and a 'fast road' geo (<1 degree negative camber on the front). It noticeably sharpened up the front end of the car. I think fact that it was stopping the front end from completely rolling over into positive camber outweighed any weight transfer effects that it introduced. It had a slight negative effect on ride comfort, but only really on badly uneven roads.

[21TonyK]

Scuffers said:

21TonyK said:

Thinking of doing the same and have read several reports on various bars including comments from LMS guys saying "leave alone".

I can get the splitter to touch when cornering or braking. Maybe I need new shocks (18K miles) as well but been thinking of stiffening up the front but I don't want to create understeer having got rid of it.

despite the usual /lotus/ talk, there is not real downside to a stiffer ARB (till you get to really stiff 1"+ ones), the std item is very soft.

typically, stiffening it up makes the front end a little more pointy and less prone to the front corner tucking under in braking/turn in, but you have to remember that you can't really look at this stuff in isolation to the spring/dampers either.

personally, on road cars I like the feel of the 7/8th (EP), even at it's stiffest setting is not intrusive, and helps limit the front end roll without resorting to stiff springs/dampers

Cheers Simon, one more track day next week and then I'll get one on it I think.

[The Bandit]

Scuffers said:

The Bandit said:

Simon i've got the EP 7/8th ARB(with 2 way Ohlins)set on the middle setting but still suffer with low speed understeer(worse than before).
Tyres still have 4mm on them. Do you think its worth going stiffer or softer or change the fronts and try it?
Thanks a lot

if it's under-steering, it;s not the bar that's causing this, you need to check/reset the basic geo etc.

if you on Ohlins, I assume your running it relatively low, so check the front bumpsteer out.

Cheers for that, i'll get the geo re checked and bump steer checked out. Its running 120mm at the front, is there a simple way to adjust the bumpsteer on an S2 or do you need to go down the EP kit route?

[Scuffers]

The Bandit said:

Scuffers said:

The Bandit said:

Simon i've got the EP 7/8th ARB(with 2 way Ohlins)set on the middle setting but still suffer with low speed understeer(worse than before).
Tyres still have 4mm on them. Do you think its worth going stiffer or softer or change the fronts and try it?
Thanks a lot

if it's under-steering, it;s not the bar that's causing this, you need to check/reset the basic geo etc.

if you on Ohlins, I assume your running it relatively low, so check the front bumpsteer out.

Cheers for that, i'll get the geo re checked and bump steer checked out. Its running 120mm at the front, is there a simple way to adjust the bumpsteer on an S2 or do you need to go down the EP kit route?

at that kind of hight, it's in the range that moving the steering rack up/down can deal with I would have thought.