Roadholding Robin Hoods

[Guest art stringfellow]

hi there

do you think I am expecting to much from my 2B+ I have owned 3 lotus cars and 1 porsche and the ride/ roadholding of the Hood dont even come close to these. dont get me wrong I love the looks and open air motoring just think its not very fast on the twisty bits. cant help thinking why nobody races them against other Kit cars. look forward to comments stringy

[Guest chris brown]

hi there

do you think I am expecting to much from my 2B+ I have owned 3 lotus cars and 1 porsche and the ride/ roadholding of the Hood dont even come close to these. dont get me wrong I love the looks and open air motoring just think its not very fast on the twisty bits. cant help thinking why nobody races them against other Kit cars. look forward to comments stringy

I have never come across anyone complaining about the road holding of a 2B but you have to remember it is much heaver than most 7s and was intended as a road car not a track car so performance using the equivalent engine is not so quick but that doesn’t stop lots of us enjoying track days. You say you are not happy with yours on the twisty bits, what tyres have you got? And what pressures are you running? Most people run with around 20 psi all round. You also don’t say what suspension you have. The wishbone version is the best with the sliding pillow being the worst but having said that I know some with the sliding pillar that handle quite well. Also good coilovers make a great difference as the Zimmerides supplied with the wishbone version were not very good also changing the rear to coilovers rather than the Sierra front springs fitted to the rear also make a great improvement.

[Guest STEVE OXON]

...and pound for pound,its prob much more fun than a porker costing several times the cost of a hood.

but as previous reply says, it depends on what set up youve got

im more than happy with mine.

[Guest art stringfellow]

hi there

do you think I am expecting to much from my 2B+ I have owned 3 lotus cars and 1 porsche and the ride/ roadholding of the Hood dont even come close to these. dont get me wrong I love the looks and open air motoring just think its not very fast on the twisty bits. cant help thinking why nobody races them against other Kit cars. look forward to comments stringy

 

from stringy

I am running the tyres at 20 psi front and back I have ordered some Gaz dampers so I hope this will help a lot .I have wishbones on the front converted from sliding pillar with zeemers the back appears to have sierra front struts welded onto the spring platform its a very poor arrangement what I was meaning was do robin hood owners have expeirence of other sports cars to compare with thanks again stringy

[Snapperpaul]

How much did you pay for the 2b?...... No i don't want to know but just to put in your mind that if you payed not to much then dont expect the 2b at the cost of a few grand to meet with the expectations of someone who has paid large sums for supercars.

Did you not test drive the car before buying?

Did you not research what you were buying?

 

You may be approaching the whole Hood owning experiance from the wrong direction, you now have a LSIS that can be developed in your own way to your own taste.

You want to go faster, develope it.

You want better handling, develope it.

[Guest chris brown]

from stringy

I am running the tyres at 20 psi front and back I have ordered some Gaz dampers so I hope this will help a lot .I have wishbones on the front converted from sliding pillar with zeemers the back appears to have sierra front struts welded onto the spring platform its a very poor arrangement what I was meaning was do robin hood owners have expeirence of other sports cars to compare with thanks again stringy

When you say you’ve ordered Gaz dampers I take it you mean coilovers and are you getting them for the rear as well as this makes the biggest difference also the springs you need are 300 to 350 lb for the front (most seem to go for 325 lb and 1.9" id. 2.25" will fit but are VERY tight). The rears need to be around 300lb but can be either 1.9" or 2.25" id.

Lots of owners have had various sports cars over the years but not so much fun for the money. Let’s face it for the cost they have to be the most grins per £ there is.

 

 

Ups you beat me to it Paul

[Joel]

from stringy

do robin hood owners have expeirence of other sports cars to compare with thanks again stringy

 

I don't have much experience of high powered, rear wheel drive cars, but I find it quite difficult to 'feel' where the limits are in my hood, compared to the many front wheel drive tin-tops I've driven anyway. That's not to say I'm not happy with the way it handles, but I think I'd have to take it to a track to really get to know how it works at the limit.

[Longboarder]

I think the suspensions on the various models of Robin Hoods are underdeveloped. Main reason was the original owner/designer/engineer was so full of new ideas that he never had time to develop one mark before he was releasing the next. They were originally entry level into the LSIS world at less than half the price of the nearest competitor. To keep prices so low, as much as possible of the single donor sierra was used and some of the supplied parts were basic. However one kit plus one donor and a lot of work made a car to realise a dream.

 

The suspension can be developed easily by replacing some of the sierra parts and using better quality replacement shockers etc. Many owners have done this type of development and produced better handling cars for track or sprinting. But that's only a small part of what owning an RH is about. It was always intended as a road car and a fun car. Attend the shows and see the club in action. Sociable, inclusive, accessible, insanity, big barbies, plenty amber nectar, friendship and families,. Then wander round most of the other club areas and see the difference in atmosphere, cliquey, I've got the biggest one, there must be more than three of us reality of owning a Rush or whatever.

 

If you look around the kit car world, many owners of expensive exotica or fearsome trackday weapons will be happy to tell you they started with a Hood and were it not for such an economical entry to the kit car world would never have made that start.

 

Nigel

[Guest STEVE OXON]

i will second that. a group of five or six hoods creates a lot more interest than a pack of porkers.

[Guest chris brown]

i will second that. a group of five or six hoods creates a lot more interest than a pack of porkers.

They certainly do and also remember your Hood is the only one like it as you will be hard pushed to find two the same as every builder puts his own ideas into the car unlike some other LSIS which can be built in a few weeks and are all the (yawn boring) same.

As Nigel (longboarder) says come along to the shows and see which club site is the best attended. Newark for instance presents a plaque to the best attended club site which we have won for the last 10 (I think) years. And don’t forget your local area meets

[Big Jim]

Get the suspension as best it can be, with decent shockers, tyres etc, and most of them handle pretty well, we've upset many a motorcyclist on our runs when they cant keep up with us round the twisty bits (OK, they leave us standing on the straights, but thats just power/weight)

[Guest SEgan]

Lets face it; you get a good starting point,

 

Low centre of gravity, almost 50/50 weight distribution and rear wheel drive.

 

Almost everything is, or can be adjusted, geometry, springs and dampers. I bet no two hoods handle the same but the optimum set-up is down to the owner.

 

Tinkering and tweaking, it’s all part of the fun

 

Sean

[Graham B]

But its a really good idea to replace the Zeemers as soon as possible...

Or they might do this !!

[Guest timswait]

To be honest I don't have the experience of driving other sports cars (except for an 80s MR2 for a few laps around Barkston, and the Hood was a lot better than that), but I do find my 2B pretty good to drive. I actually find it fairly predictable on the limit, and can get understeer or oversteer on demand. I run my car in a sprint championship and tend to run the same kind of times as the fastest hot hatches and the slowest Imprezas, Elises and Westies. It's unusual that I get beaten by a car which is less expensive or less powerful than mine, and I'm often mixing it with cars which cost 3 to 10 times as much.

I find my car works well on a relatively smooth track, but can be a bit of a handful over bumpy twisty roads, but hopefully I can improve on that.

I've got standard front wishbones, Gaz coilovers, 300lb springs and Toyo T1-R tyres all round. I don't know what angles I'm running on the front, but I fiddled around with toe and camber settings until I was happy and tyres wore evenly. My next plans for improving the car is to upgrade to brakes (work fine, but I'd like better feel), fit longer dummy mchperson struts to the front to improve the geometry and to make up some angled shims so I can start adjusting and experimenting with the toe and camber at the back. At some point I'd also like to get round to making some camber/toe gauges and some corner scales to set it up more accurately.

Remember Lotus and Porsche spend millions on developing new models, Robin Hood probably only spent a few thousand (probably not even tens) on the 2B, that money's got to go somewhere, so it would be amazing if the likes of Porsche and Lotus weren't better.

[Guest Takumi]

I agree with the fact that you need to get it setup correctly.

 

There are so many variables with front suspension, each tiny change can make a big impact, all the elements need to work in harmony to acheive a perfectly balanced front end..

 

I've just started a Toe/ Camber / Caster thread in Mechanics, so other owners can post what details they have of their setups, and if they've have it setup professionally and what the changes were..

 

it should be an interesting read..