Damper/Shock Dimensions

[RoddyMac]

A friend of mine was asking if I knew the extended and compressed dimensions for Europa dampers, but I haven't a clue.  Does anyone have a front and rear off their car without springs that could measure them?  I know there's a difference between early and late S2 (1.9 ID springs and 2.25 ID springs), but is there also a difference in length?  My car came without dampers, so I can't measure what I have/don't have.

Thanks,
Rod

[EuropaTC]

Hi Rod,

This is for the TC version and as you can see, adjustable dampers.  However, when I took the old ones off the overall dimensions of the rears at least were identical because I've a photo of them side by side for comparison. It wouldn't surprise me to hear that the S1 & S2 variants are different, but this is a starter if nothing else.

The numbers are taken from on the car with suspension at full droop and laden with car weight. The numbers in the blue text are what the car was like before I fitted adjustable dampers/higher rate springs.  One thing that did strike me was the amount of travel on the rear dampers and how much that disappeared when loaded, I don't get that.

Brian

Edit to add.

Just found some older notes and the OEM rears were the same as the new ones unladen. The fronts,  with 2.25" springs were slightly longer at 31.5cm between centres on full droop.  Spring length 23cm unladen, ie with fitting pre-load only, and 19.7cm under car weight.  The spring platform probably accounts for that (Dim. C) but I haven't numbers for that.  Don't take these numbers as 100% representative because when I ran the OEM spring dimensions through the calculator they came out as higher than the manual quoted.  Lotus, eh ?