Scottish Elises

My 2nd thread in Technical on the same day already ?!?!

Currently I have S2 Bilsteins on the car which have been on for about 7 years now and done 40K + miles and at least 20-30 trackdays. I'm wondering if they're possibly past their best and worth replacing. Not aware of any leaks, but (and this may be all in my head) the car doesn't feel quite as planted as it used to and I'm wondering if this is why.

If I decide to get further into debt and change the suspension, what's the current thinking on Streets Vs Expensives for someone doing under 5k road miles per year and maybe 5/6 trackdays per year. The Expensives are clearly much more costly to buy, but have better resale value so may cost less overall, but are they more hassle with regular re-builds? Is the performance of them really much much better than the Streets etc for fun trackdays, not racing!?

Thoughts and advice please peeps!

Cheers,

Dave.

Get a shot of Hambo's car. On expensives.

I have NSS as you know, but can offer no help as yet.

Been pondering this myself, Dave.

My Bilsteins have seen less action than yours but I think they are tired too. No funds for changing just now, but winter maint this or next year might see them swapped. I'd comfortably default to another set of same unless the price diff to Nitron Street was negligible...but even then, Lawrence always spoke very highly of Bilstein dampers (he described some "self-adjusting" property which they had, not sure if myth or otherwise but it made sense!). So for a tinker-free experience, it's tempting to stick with what you know.

OTOH the world generally believes the std S2 Bilsteins to be too soft for serious trackday use, and the LSS S2 Bilsteins to be too harsh and crude in comparison to correctly set up and valved Nitron NTRs. Or so I recall... Personally I have really liked them and there are other failings in my setup (somewhere between the steering wheel and the seat!) which would mask any constraint the dampers were placing on things in any case

I have had "expensive" Nitron NTR with quite stiff springs (475/550) on my old Elise.
Except that they were a little crashy in the alps with the springs so hard, they really worked a treat.
The stiff springs combined with bespoke valving and quite softly set dampers were surprinsingly comfortable and nice on the streets.

As my NTRs need a rebuild I decided to go for NSS during the waiting time.
Their build quality is similar to the NTR (well, almost) and they work good too.
Problem is due to the soft springs (which one is not advised to change for harder ones as it will fcuk up the bespoke valving) one has to turn the damper into the hard direction to prevent body roll.
They are considerably better than the S2 Bilsteins which I drove on some other Elises.
Due to the hard set dampers and soft springs, they remain a bit crashy on normal roads.
When in attack mode, they're fine and not too harsh but when driving around they are considerably worse than the NTR with proper spring rates.

For normal use with a bit of hooning here and there, they're really fine but if you do lots of trackdays the NTR's are really worth the bigger money.

I've got the NTR but with softer spring rates, 300-400 I think? Body roll is excellent, I could see why people fit harder springs having spent some time with the shocks, maybe a half way house might be ideal. When I got them on track they were amazing. I think a key thing to consider is that when you get to NTRs, suddenly the possible options become massive so you essentially end up getting bespoke shocks by spring,valving,length etc, while streets are an off the shelf one fits all solution (AFAIK) with adjustable ride stiffness.