Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

After consulting with a friendly tire engineer today about sidewall flexing and how to identify tires which likely have the stiffer sidewalls. He pointed out the best way is to just compare the weights. The heavier tires have the extra weight because the sidewalls are thicker and therefore are prone to flex less with the same loading. Okay, that's a good bit of info to know. He said that correlation was apparent in the industry wide databook. I'm going to start searching for a copy of that book!

Based on that info I chose poorly by selecting the Sumitomo HTR T4s which only weighs in at 14 pounds. There's ones which weight in close to 20 pounds as other choices. It means that I still have a chance I can find a trackday and everyday tire which does not require wider wheels then the stock 4.5J ones. I'll going to try and sort it out. :blink:
-Keith

On the tailend wiggling issues.

I had an elan +2 S130 who's back end handling could best have been described as 'squidgy'. The wanderings were caused by the rear wheel bearings on 1 side moving laterly in their seat by about 1/8 inch. The alloy hub carrier was knackered. Replacing both rear carriers with Spyder Systems fabricated ones cured the problem. No more shakin that ass!

Hamish.

:rolleyes: