EC17PSE
Freelancer
- 5,891
- 3,483
- Nov 1, 2008
-
London, UK,
Europe
Post #1:
Hey everyone,
As many know I’m very into suspension design, kinematics, and dynamics. Some of you may have even bought some of my parts over the years!? Well today I’m here to show you the Suspension Test Rig I’ve been working on! It’s some very exciting stuff for me and to my knowledge has not been done for our cars before. Hopefully the data extracted from The Rig (Should we give this thing a nickname?) will be useful in some way to the DSM Community.
It sometimes can be difficult to visualize or imagine how a specific component is going to function when modifying and what it does altering another thing. So in an effort to clear the fog and gain a better understanding of our vehicles front suspension, I’ve created this test rig and will be using it to establish a baseline of camber, caster, and toe / bumpsteer with respect to changes in steering angle. Bumpsteer data maybe not in the first couple of tests as I’m still working out the jig itself, but it’s a start. I really don’t know how this came about exactly… I think we was talking one night and he just spurted it out, but this is definitely @mountain_man (Roger’s) fault. He made me do it, ! So here we are.
Hey guys, Roger here… I made Bobby do this by threatening to get him banned from Disney. It was surprising effective, haha! But in all seriousness, the purpose of The Rig as bobby mentioned above is to establish a measurable baseline of the 2G DSM suspensions behaviour before we begin using any type of suspension modelling software. Basically, if we make a 0.5 deg. camber change in the computer and it states you pick up 1/16” of toe-out. How do we know that’s actually what’s occurring? How are we to know that we’re not picking up ½” toe-in in reality? The Rig will help us 1.) verify our computer model is providing good data, 2.) provide us a way to meaure the effectiveness of new parts, 3.) help us visualize the suspensions behaviour when making changes, and 4.) quantify what’s working and what isn’t. Back to Bobby…
The Rig is not complete and it’s still being tweaked but the main components are there. I still have to:
• add brackets for measuring the height of the arms in order measure ride height(s)
• add a point for raising and lowering of the system
The items I will be measuring and gathering data on are:
• camber
• caster
• toe
• bump steer
I’ll be able to do this by having 2 lasers attached so I can plot the full range of motion (up and down movement) on a sheet of paper. Yes, paper. The first data pulled will all be from OEM suspension items (thankfully I’ve kept a lot of it) with OEM parts so I can see exactly what’s going on, this will be done at various ride heights.
After the OEM setup is complete, I will then run the same battery of tests on my adjustable arms and get data for those too. Roger and I have a rough outline of a testing plan but we’ve got plenty of time for trial and error.
I think this is it for now so hope you like our plans and I shall try keep this updated as we go.
Thanks Bobby and Roger
Hey everyone,
As many know I’m very into suspension design, kinematics, and dynamics. Some of you may have even bought some of my parts over the years!? Well today I’m here to show you the Suspension Test Rig I’ve been working on! It’s some very exciting stuff for me and to my knowledge has not been done for our cars before. Hopefully the data extracted from The Rig (Should we give this thing a nickname?) will be useful in some way to the DSM Community.
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You must be logged in to view this image or video.
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It sometimes can be difficult to visualize or imagine how a specific component is going to function when modifying and what it does altering another thing. So in an effort to clear the fog and gain a better understanding of our vehicles front suspension, I’ve created this test rig and will be using it to establish a baseline of camber, caster, and toe / bumpsteer with respect to changes in steering angle. Bumpsteer data maybe not in the first couple of tests as I’m still working out the jig itself, but it’s a start. I really don’t know how this came about exactly… I think we was talking one night and he just spurted it out, but this is definitely @mountain_man (Roger’s) fault. He made me do it, ! So here we are.
Hey guys, Roger here… I made Bobby do this by threatening to get him banned from Disney. It was surprising effective, haha! But in all seriousness, the purpose of The Rig as bobby mentioned above is to establish a measurable baseline of the 2G DSM suspensions behaviour before we begin using any type of suspension modelling software. Basically, if we make a 0.5 deg. camber change in the computer and it states you pick up 1/16” of toe-out. How do we know that’s actually what’s occurring? How are we to know that we’re not picking up ½” toe-in in reality? The Rig will help us 1.) verify our computer model is providing good data, 2.) provide us a way to meaure the effectiveness of new parts, 3.) help us visualize the suspensions behaviour when making changes, and 4.) quantify what’s working and what isn’t. Back to Bobby…
The Rig is not complete and it’s still being tweaked but the main components are there. I still have to:
• add brackets for measuring the height of the arms in order measure ride height(s)
• add a point for raising and lowering of the system
The items I will be measuring and gathering data on are:
• camber
• caster
• toe
• bump steer
I’ll be able to do this by having 2 lasers attached so I can plot the full range of motion (up and down movement) on a sheet of paper. Yes, paper. The first data pulled will all be from OEM suspension items (thankfully I’ve kept a lot of it) with OEM parts so I can see exactly what’s going on, this will be done at various ride heights.
You must be logged in to view this image or video.
You must be logged in to view this image or video.
After the OEM setup is complete, I will then run the same battery of tests on my adjustable arms and get data for those too. Roger and I have a rough outline of a testing plan but we’ve got plenty of time for trial and error.
I think this is it for now so hope you like our plans and I shall try keep this updated as we go.
Thanks Bobby and Roger