This series of postings reflect my experiences, but I am not an expert in the selection, installation & tuning of new dampers & springs. After driving Lillie’s Elise with Nitrons last year, I decided that I would eventually upgrade my dampers/springs. I held off doing it because of the cost. Then, last month, I received a bonus, which my understanding wife agreed could be spent on “frivolous” things for the Elise.

Based on my readings and discussions, I decided that I would buy dampers with external reservoirs. I have no plans to compete, so I didn’t care about SCCA legality. I wanted something optimized for track performance. Given the reduction in travel that results from higher spring rates, I think the external reservoir is important. I considered the brands that were readily available: Nitron, Ohlins & Penske. Based on Sector111’s performance chart, it seemed that the Nitrons were a better choice for my application than Ohlins. I had seen the excellent mounting system for the Penske reservoirs, but after checking with Robert at Blackwatch Racing I learned that the Penske’s cost about $1,000 more than the Nitrons and that it would take a month to get them. Sector111 had the Nitron Track setup in stock, so I bought them. I got them right away and installed them with the help of my friend Carl (4Carl on ET). I left them at the ride height that resulted from installing them “as received”, then we aligned the car. There were essentially no instructions about installation, but since Carl had installed several Nitron Sport systems, it went very quickly. I couldn’t find a good place to mount the external reservoirs; for now they are mounted to the lower A-arm cross braces, as you can see in the photos. This is not ideal because it is unsprung weight. I need to find a place to mount them where they will become sprung weight. Note in the photos how I routed the tubing to the remote reservoir. It’s important to avoid rubbing on moving things. We adjusted the alignment to the following specs:
Driver Rear Passenger Rear Driver Front Passenger Front
Camber -2.1 -2.1 -1.0 -0.9
Toe-in 0 3.2mm


I took the Elise to Buttonwillow and started with the following settings (clicks away from full hard):

Compression Rebound
Front 4 4
Rear 7 7 The car felt great and I was pleased!

I ran hot tire pressures of 26 psi in front and 28 in rear on my AO48 tires the whole day.

I made a couple of adjustments (serially) to reduce rear-end bouncing over bumps and then to correct a bit of oversteer on the medium-speed LH sweeper after the esses (counter-clockwise). I was a little surprised that a small change to the damper settings has a very significant effect on the handling of the car. My adjustments were successful and the handling of the car improved significantly. I tried to measure tire temps, but my new pyrometer didn’t work :-(

Someone pointed out that the rear ride height seemed high: the gap between the top of the tire and the fender was bigger than on some other Elises/Exiges with Nitron Sports.

I adjusted the rear ride height, but quickly got to the point that the spring had no preload on it. NOTE: to lower the car, you reduce the spring preload, unscrewing the adjustable spring perches. I was uncomfortable having no preload (thinking about springs rattling around), so I tightened the adjuster 1.5 turns from the point that they just touched the springs. Unfortunately, that didn’t really seem to reduce my ride height. This is what I wound up with:

Driver’s side Passenger’s side
Front 117 124
Rear 133 134

I don’t know where there was such a big difference between driver’s side and passenger’s side in the front.

For the drive home, I loosed all the settings 12 turns and had a very comfortable drive back to Santa Barbara. After some head scratching, I discovered that I didn’t have the “Track” spring rates, but I had the “Sport” spring rates installed on my “Track” dampers. It turned out to be a little mix-up at the Nitron factory. The fine folks at Sector111 (Shinoo & Lillie), Hunting Ridge Motors (Mark Starr), who are the U.S. importers, and Nitron (Guy) got some new springs to me. The Track springs are 475/600, whereas the Sport springs are 425/550. I didn’t want the springs to “rattle around” at the setting for my desired ride height, so they supplied tender springs as well. Tender springs have some spring rate (in this case 150 lb/in) whereas helper springs have negligible spring rate (e.g., 4 lb/in). In my mind, I picture the tender springs pushing the wheel/tire back toward the ground when going over a bump that might otherwise leave that chore to gravity alone, which would be slower. I didn’t want to secure the adjustable collar with a dab of silicone as some people do, so they supplied lock nuts (see photo).

I hoped to be able to install the new springs without removing the dampers from the car, but that’s not possible. The dampers need to be completely removed from the car and the retainer at the bottom (as installed) removed. There is a clip that needs to be removed to take off the non-adjustable spring perch. The clip resembles a circlip, but is round in cross-section. I used my circlip pliers to remove it. To remove the clip you need to compress the spring to take the load off the clip. Since I no longer have a spring compressor, I loosened the adjustable spring perches to the point that the springs were loose.

I loosened the adjustable spring perches all the way and then installed tender springs on the rear below the regular springs with the supplied link between the two springs. While compressing the springs manually, I slipped on the clip, locking things in place. I was able to do the first one by myself, but the second one required an extra pair of hands.

Note in the photo that the tender springs are taking up a lot of room that would normally be space for the spring to “rattle around”. I had planned to install tender springs on the front also, but there isn’t room (which means that they probably aren’t required to keep the springs from rattling around).

I adjusted the ride heights as follows:

Driver’s side Passenger’s side
Front 111 112
Rear 120 120

I found it impossible to adjust ride height in the front using the adjuster from Nitron with the springs on the car – there just isn’t room. Note in the photo how big the tool is. I shortened the tool by cutting off the handle at the point in between lightening hole #2 & #3, then grinding it down to a decent shape and getting rid of sharp corners. It was still too big for ideal use on the car (and too small for ideal use off the car!). I recommend the tool from Nitron for use off the car, but some different (short) one for use on the car, for which I’m still shopping.

I did not adjust corner weights, which should be done. I also did not check the alignment, which should be done. I did take out my last shim in front, which should have brought my camber to approximately the following specs:

Driver Rear Passenger Rear Driver Front Passenger Front
Camber -2.1 -2.1 -1.2 -1.2 I took the Elise to Buttonwillow and started with the following settings (clicks away from full hard):

Compression Rebound
Front 4 4
Rear 3 9

I ran hot tire pressures of 26 psi in front and 28 in rear on my AO48 tires the whole day.

The car felt great and I was pleased!

To reduce low-speed understeer, I decreased the front compression damping from 3 to 6. It worked like magic! But I had gone too far since I now had oversteer on those low-speed corners, so I backed off the front compression damping from 6 to 5.
I noticed a bit of oversteer on the medium-speed LH sweeper after the esses (counter-clockwise), so I decreased the rear rebound damping from 9 to 11. I couldn’t really notice any effect from this change.

My final settings were:

Compression Rebound
Front 4 4
Rear 5 11 I recorded tread tire temperatures (using a probe that you stick into the tread) after each run of the day to check on the amount of camber that I had and to see if I could learn anything else. Typical results looked like this profile after the last session:

Driver’s Side Passenger’s Side
Outer Middle Inner Inner Middle Outer
Front 158 162 175 162 160 156
Rear 171 174 184 179 168 171

So, what does this tell me? I’m not exactly sure. I’ve been told that the readings should be within 10 degrees C. (18 degrees F.) across each tire, which these are. It’s interesting that the inside of three tires is the hottest point. I don’t want to throw away negative camber, so I think I’ll try lower tire pressures. The front passenger side profile was the flattest all day long. When I recheck the alignment, I’ll look for differences there. It’s also interesting that the driver’s side front was hotter than the passenger’s side, especially considering that we were running the track counter-clockwise. I re-checked ride height and discovered that the drivers’ side front was actually 104 mm instead of the 111 I thought I had set it to. Being lower would put more weight on it, cause it to work more and to heat up. Looking at the fender liner on the driver’s side (see photo) confirmed my hypothesis: mystery solved!

For the drive home, I loosed all the settings 10 turns and had a very comfortable drive back to Santa Barbara. I love how this has transformed my Elise (and my driving)! The transformation happened in three stages:
1. I felt more confident
2. I drove faster
3. I drove differently

I still haven’t measured times, but I can now keep up with some fairly fast people, and the really fast people don’t disappear over the horizon quite so fast any more. I feel that I am on the verge of further significant improvements in my driving based on the Elise’s handling improvements and my increased confidence.

I’ve also realized that my Elise has become a “project”. There are so many variables to adjust in my quest for optimum performance! Tire pressures, alignment, ride height, damper settings, etc. Being an engineer at heart, I’m destined to twiddle with them all for a long time. The good news is that the car’s performance is fantastic in its current non-optimized state and I love it!

Thanks for plenty of advice and help go to Sector111 (Shinoo & Lillie), Hunting Ridge Motors (Mark Starr) and Nitron (Guy). Here are some excerpts from some of the helpful emails I got from Guy at Nitron on the installation and setup of my springs. They were helpful to me -- I hope you enjoy them.

OK, let’s start with ride height. Lower is better, to a point. Lower just lowers the centre of mass (weight), and as such when you go round a corner, there is less tendency to ‘tip over’ like a tall bus or truck would want to. This reduction in rolling force means that the tyres are more evenly loaded, so you ultimately get more grip. Less roll also has many other good side effects, more ability to apply power, better wheel geometry constraints, more stable underbody gap for aero work (if relevant), and it feels better! So, I would suggest going no lower than 100mm front and 110mm rear. There should always be a 10mm rake in the chassis front to back. Too low, and the roll centre geometry starts to work against you. In your case, 110 / 120 would be good, or if you have road issues then 120 / 130.

Helper springs. These are used in addition to main springs to stop any rattling around. Why do we get rattling around? Well, when you set a car down on it’s springs, they squash a given amount. A soft spring will squash a lot, and a hard spring will only squash very little. We call this ‘sag’. No matter what spring rate you fit, a car will always squash the spring to a given loaded position, and this is defined by the load you are pushing down onto the spring. The load will always stay the same, unless you change something on the car, like lightening it for competition use, for example. Then the load down on the spring will be reduced. So a hard spring will squash less than a soft spring, so fitting harder springs will raise the car’s ride height up and up as you go harder and harder, until you reach the point where the car would hardly sag at all if you fitted extremely hard springs. So as you fit harder springs, you wind the spring platforms on the shocks to lower the car down again. The harder the springs, the more you have to unwind the spring ‘pre-load’, to get the same ride height. This is until the spring starts to rattle around, then you have no pre-load at all. If you want the car lowered and want to run very stiff springs, you either run them rattling around (which we used to do all the time on racing cars until recently), or shorten the shock’s piston rod length, or fit helper springs. These springs are much softer than the main springs and usually squash flat when the car is sat on the ground, but extend when the car is raised up and so stop any rattling. They also help by continuing to apply a load down on the tyre when the shock extends past the point when the main spring is fully extended. We only fit one size of helper to Lotuses, these are 2” long and 150 lbs rate. They work very well, and I have them on my car. The only thing that sometimes happens is that by the time you add the length of the spring onto the main spring, it can be too long for the shock body length. Not a problem on the back of your car but could be on the front if you wanted to go very low. I run a ride height of 85 / 95 and so I have to use 4” long front main springs and 5” long rear ones.

Adjustable length top eyes can be retro-fitted, in fact as these dampers are race dampers any part can be changed, including the upgrade from 2-way to 3-way if required. They would require setting up, and it may be that this is the excuse I need to visit California and make sure they are fitted correctly. The only issue is that they are a longer assembly than the fixed height ones on the front, ranging from +14.5mm screwed in to +21,8mm screwed out, and on the rear they are shorter than the ones you have by -5.5mm screwed in to +1.8mm screwed out. So I am not really sure this would work on the front, and although it would work on the rear, they have a very small adjustment range.

As for a tuning and set-up guide, this is certainly something I would like to try and write, but I require a lot of feedback from customers to know how they like it for the road, what works for the tracks etc. I would need to see what modifications are done to the cars to see what extra effect this might have, and to see the tyres you run as well. I have seen your geo. specification, and this is very much a road biased set-up, racing would allow extra camber, lower tyre pressures, lower ride height, some front toe-out, but I guess the whole suspension would feel ‘tighter’ as we use nylon bush kits here to stop the wishbones moving about. I suppose I could write a basic cause and effect guide, which would act as a starting place only, but could be useful. I do however open myself up for criticism because suspension set-up is not an exact science and there is a fair degree of subjectivity and opinion in these kind of guides! What works well for one person might be hated by another, and not all cars are the same….

As the spring rate increases, so does the outside diameter of the spring as the wire thickness goes up but the inside diameter remains the same 2.25”. Sometimes the springs are a little big on the inside diameter, which should be 2.25” ID. This allows them to be moved very slightly to one side of the bold spring platform. Also, the ends of the spring are ‘closed and ground’ which means the coil winding is closed up and the end then ground flat. One side of the spring will effectively stick out further (the ground side), whereas the where the grinding tapers to nothing, this side sticks out least. If the ground side of the spring faces the chassis, and the spring is slightly offset on it’s platform (or even centered when it could be offset away from the chassis), then you might get rubbing.

I will come out to California and meet all you guys, and maybe I can spend some time looking over a car in detail and seeing if there are any improvements we can make, I am always keen to improve both our product and service. And please feel free to use any of my words on EliseTalk, maybe I should write you guys some specific articles. I can also come out with Matt who works with me and we can do some set-up work, it may prove useful. outstanding feedback for the nitrons, i think i will be buying the track set also very soon. before i install them, how does one verify that they recieved the track springs which are supposed to come with them, rather than the slightly weaker sport springs, which i wouldnt want............. i guess, how can you tell the spring rate by looking at them before putting them on the car. is there a written # on them anywhere? i also appreciate the feedback on the adjustments and how they helped or hurt your over/understeer issues.
(clicking on bookmark this thread) This is very interesting. I have the track Nitrons. As I recall, we set the ride height to 120 mm all around and I needed to have the castor reset since it was 1 degree too low. Did you have this? More important, how do you determine if you have the correct springs? Also, it appears from your pictures that you have locking collars for the spring perches - I don't and was told specifically that these were not supplied. Can you explain? Finally, helper springs seem like the right approach to me and maybe should have been supplied (along with the locking collars) in the first place. Nitron never responded to my email when I got the units; how do you reach them? I forgot, I also did not receive an adjusting tool, which surprised me. The spring rate is written on each spring as part of the part number. I'm sure that they are essentially always correct -- I was the unlucky one.

Mine did not come standard with the tender springs. I ordered those later. In my personal opinion, tender springs for the rear should be part of the kit because I think everyone should have them.

Mine did not come standard with the tool, although I've talked to some people who got a tool with their Nitrons. I've also heard of people using strange things instead of a proper tool (philips screwdriver, allen wrenches, etc.). In my opinion, adjusting the spring perches will be done by many/most people who buy them & they should have a proper tool. I'm still looking for the tool that I consider to be "proper".

I encourage everyone considering the Nitron Track dampers/springs to go for it. The car is TRANSFORMED! (And I loved it before, with just the LSS.)

Thanks,

Joe I haven't checked castor, but I've heard that it is affected. I've just checked toe & camber so far.

I followed the tuning guides on ET that were originally written for BMWs and for Ohlins Elises. At least I tried. Sometimes I twiddled the wrong knob by mistake... Thanks. Still, two questions: did your setup come with locking collars? Mine did not. Also, how did you get Nitron to respond? My setup did not come with locking collars -- I bought them separately from Sector111.

I think that Nitron is looking to have the dealer do the first-level support (Sector111 in my case). Hunting Ridge Motors is the U.S. distributor, so they appear do second-level support. I think that Nitron is doing third-level support.

I'm not sure how I got into a dialogue with Nitron. It didn't happen at first. I agree with their support strategy, which needs to be able to work well for them. I suggest you try to get the support you need escalating along the way when/if necessary and letting the 2nd and 3rd level folks know you reason for escalating.

Send me a PM if you are having a particular problem with which you need help from Nitron UK.

Thanks,

Joe btw, the links to the tuning guides that I used are:

&

&

a Lotus Sport chart for the Ohlins that I can't find online at the moment -- sorry. Here are some excerpts from some of the helpful emails I got from Guy at Nitron on the installation and setup of my springs. They were helpful to me -- I hope you enjoy them.

OK, let’s start with ride height. Lower is better, to a point. Lower just lowers the centre of mass (weight), and as such when you go round a corner, there is less tendency to ‘tip over’ like a tall bus or truck would want to. This reduction in rolling force means that the tyres are more evenly loaded, so you ultimately get more grip. Less roll also has many other good side effects, more ability to apply power, better wheel geometry constraints, more stable underbody gap for aero work (if relevant), and it feels better! So, I would suggest going no lower than 100mm front and 110mm rear. There should always be a 10mm rake in the chassis front to back. Too low, and the roll centre geometry starts to work against you. In your case, 110 / 120 would be good, or if you have road issues then 120 / 130.

Helper springs. These are used in addition to main springs to stop any rattling around. Why do we get rattling around? Well, when you set a car down on it’s springs, they squash a given amount. A soft spring will squash a lot, and a hard spring will only squash very little. We call this ‘sag’. No matter what spring rate you fit, a car will always squash the spring to a given loaded position, and this is defined by the load you are pushing down onto the spring. The load will always stay the same, unless you change something on the car, like lightening it for competition use, for example. Then the load down on the spring will be reduced. So a hard spring will squash less than a soft spring, so fitting harder springs will raise the car’s ride height up and up as you go harder and harder, until you reach the point where the car would hardly sag at all if you fitted extremely hard springs. So as you fit harder springs, you wind the spring platforms on the shocks to lower the car down again. The harder the springs, the more you have to unwind the spring ‘pre-load’, to get the same ride height. This is until the spring starts to rattle around, then you have no pre-load at all. If you want the car lowered and want to run very stiff springs, you either run them rattling around (which we used to do all the time on racing cars until recently), or shorten the shock’s piston rod length, or fit helper springs. These springs are much softer than the main springs and usually squash flat when the car is sat on the ground, but extend when the car is raised up and so stop any rattling. They also help by continuing to apply a load down on the tyre when the shock extends past the point when the main spring is fully extended. We only fit one size of helper to Lotuses, these are 2” long and 150 lbs rate. They work very well, and I have them on my car. The only thing that sometimes happens is that by the time you add the length of the spring onto the main spring, it can be too long for the shock body length. Not a problem on the back of your car but could be on the front if you wanted to go very low. I run a ride height of 85 / 95 and so I have to use 4” long front main springs and 5” long rear ones.

Adjustable length top eyes can be retro-fitted, in fact as these dampers are race dampers any part can be changed, including the upgrade from 2-way to 3-way if required. They would require setting up, and it may be that this is the excuse I need to visit California and make sure they are fitted correctly. The only issue is that they are a longer assembly than the fixed height ones on the front, ranging from +14.5mm screwed in to +21,8mm screwed out, and on the rear they are shorter than the ones you have by -5.5mm screwed in to +1.8mm screwed out. So I am not really sure this would work on the front, and although it would work on the rear, they have a very small adjustment range.

As for a tuning and set-up guide, this is certainly something I would like to try and write, but I require a lot of feedback from customers to know how they like it for the road, what works for the tracks etc. I would need to see what modifications are done to the cars to see what extra effect this might have, and to see the tyres you run as well. I have seen your geo. specification, and this is very much a road biased set-up, racing would allow extra camber, lower tyre pressures, lower ride height, some front toe-out, but I guess the whole suspension would feel ‘tighter’ as we use nylon bush kits here to stop the wishbones moving about. I suppose I could write a basic cause and effect guide, which would act as a starting place only, but could be useful. I do however open myself up for criticism because suspension set-up is not an exact science and there is a fair degree of subjectivity and opinion in these kind of guides! What works well for one person might be hated by another, and not all cars are the same….

As the spring rate increases, so does the outside diameter of the spring as the wire thickness goes up but the inside diameter remains the same 2.25”. Sometimes the springs are a little big on the inside diameter, which should be 2.25” ID. This allows them to be moved very slightly to one side of the bold spring platform. Also, the ends of the spring are ‘closed and ground’ which means the coil winding is closed up and the end then ground flat. One side of the spring will effectively stick out further (the ground side), whereas the where the grinding tapers to nothing, this side sticks out least. If the ground side of the spring faces the chassis, and the spring is slightly offset on it’s platform (or even centered when it could be offset away from the chassis), then you might get rubbing.

I will come out to California and meet all you guys, and maybe I can spend some time looking over a car in detail and seeing if there are any improvements we can make, I am always keen to improve both our product and service. And please feel free to use any of my words on EliseTalk, maybe I should write you guys some specific articles. I can also come out with Matt who works with me and we can do some set-up work, it may prove useful.
Great information! Thanks for sharing! Here's how Guy at Nitron mounted the reservoirs on the front of his Elise race car.