An interesting article I found on nsxprime.com
In it, Mario Andretti talks about the handling charachteristics of the Lotus Esprit.
Perhaps, it may shed some light on the Elise LSD issue.
http://www.nsxprime.com/FAQ/Media/magazines/rt9906.htm
The Best Handling Cars in America
Testing the limits of cornering and adhesion with Mario Andretti
By Sam Mitani
Photos by Ron Perry, Jeff Allen and Brian Blades
After I cautioned Mario that the brakes on the Lotus
Esprit had a tendency to lock when they became hot, he
smiled and said with a wink, "Lotus cars never give
you problems." An understandable statement when you
consider that Andretti won the 1978 Formula 1 Drivers
World Championship in a Lotus 79. However, he was much
less jovial about the Esprit after several laps around
the track.
"You reach the handling limit of this car too
quickly," he noted. "It has no roll stiffness in the
front, and the car needs more roll stiffness for you
to get a feel for its handling limits. Only with that
can you really get after a corner."
Perhaps the car's main problem is that it's finally
showing its age. The Esprit's backbone chassis and
suspension system, which consists of an upper and
lower A-arm setup in front and upper and lower
transverse links at the rear, have undergone little
change since the car was introduced in 1975. In 1994,
Lotus engineers retuned the suspension to eliminate
the car's understeering tendency...but did they go too
far?
"They took too much understeer out of the car's
handling," Andretti noted. "When you're trailing
throttle, you're thrust into an immediate oversteer
situation. Even on high-speed corners, you're hanging
on because there's a tendency to oversteer
everywhere."
That said, the back end of the Esprit, which lifted
the inside rear wheel through sharp corners, never
swung all the way around, even when the throttle was
punched in mid-turn. Why? Because the open
differential allows the inside rear wheel to spin
freely, limiting excessive power from going to the
outside rear tire (the one with grip) and keeping it
from breaking loose.
"I don't necessarily like spinning the inside rear,
but it beats the hell out of spinning the car,"
commented Mario.
The most impressive facet of the Esprit's handling was
its turn-in response. Credit here goes to the Lotus'
rigid chassis and responsive rack-and-pinion steering
system. And despite no dead pedal to use for bracing
himself, Andretti found the Esprit's cockpit
comfortable, with the seats providing excellent
lateral support.
Mounted behind the cockpit of the Esprit is Lotus'
turbocharged V-8 that produces 350 bhp and 295 lb.-ft.
of torque, enabling the wedge-shaped sports car to
outrun all but one in this group to 60 mph. However,
through both the hairpin curve and the transitional
sections, the Lotus was slightly slower than the rest.
And although the Lotus managed an impressive 0.93g on
the skidpad and 61.0 mph through the slalom, these
feats were good enough for only fourth and sixth,
respectively. Still, for this "patriarchal" car to be
considered the sixth-best handling car in America
today is a testament to the advanced thinking of Colin
Chapman and the engineers of the original Esprit.
"The Esprit is a car that, if you drive it at 8/10ths,
it's a lot of fun. But if you have to hustle it at
10/10ths, it becomes unsettled. The rear begins hiking
up, disrupting the feeling and balance of the car, and
the inside rear tire lifts off the ground. Also, the
turbo-charged engine isn't that flexible so you can't
corner with just the throttle. Only if you hold back a
little does the car reward you with good cornering
feel and response."
—Mario Andretti
OVERALL RATING: 349.1
Skidpad rating: 91.2 (0.93g)
Slalom rating: 94.0 (61.0 mph)
Segment times: 91.9 (12.26 sec.+ 11.40 sec.)
Mario Andretti's rating: 72
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