good suspension setup or not???

[3literpwr]

Making a roll cage from Ti is a gross waste of money!! Not to mention that NO racing org will allow you to run such a beast! As far as Ti rotors
go there is another HUGH waste of money on a wear item...

On the note of shocks here is my take as I have built motorsport shocks for years...

Konis are inconsistant!! valved for street cars...

JIC are absoulte garbage!! I dont care what anyone has to say about who runs them!! they are junk! I have dyno data to prove it!!

AGX are a decent shock for the money...

I have yet to dyno a tokico, so I cant comment.....

I built a set of control arms for Dennis Grants car a little over a year ago that used 20mm bearing and I guess they have worked well for him........

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Cheers
Larry

 

[HondaKilla]

Originally posted by 3literpwr
Making a roll cage from Ti is a gross waste of money!! Not to mention that NO racing org will allow you to run such a beast! As far as Ti rotors
go there is another HUGH waste of money on a wear item...

On the note of shocks here is my take as I have built motorsport shocks for years...

Konis are inconsistant!! valved for street cars...

JIC are absoulte garbage!! I dont care what anyone has to say about who runs them!! they are junk! I have dyno data to prove it!!

AGX are a decent shock for the money...

I have yet to dyno a tokico, so I cant comment.....

I built a set of control arms for Dennis Grants car a little over a year ago that used 20mm bearing and I guess they have worked well for him........

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Cheers
Larry

I'm glad you may think its a waste of money Larry but when you own a machine shop you can get material alot cheaper then the avg. consumer. Considering we ordered over $100,000 dollars of material just this last month we get material quite cheap. Although granted that material has gone up some considering its mostly going over seas now. Whatever you may think about titanium go ahead and think it, but can you really sit there and explain its properties to me in full detail? Have you worked with it your whole life? Have you tested it? Have you machined it? Have you welded it? Have you even used it before? I have been working with several diffrent grades of pure titanium for several years and my father has been working with it for over 12 years. We have used it for many goverment projects. Projects have included anything from the hummer to their jets. We have also done a few projects for Bridgestone/Firestone. Now do you really think that titanium would be used by out military if it hasn't been tested to offer a great strength to weight ratio? So now maybe you should try and back up your findings about titanium instead of just trying to tell me that its just a waste of money. Oh and if I want to piss away my ####ing money on something that saves me weight and still gives me atleast equal strength, I'll go ahead and ####ing do it regardless of what you may think.

Cheers!

 

[3literpwr]

I have worked tool and die, and designed and built dampers for the last 4 years... I know a bit about machine work, But I will admit that I have NOT worked with TI..... I was not stating that I did but simply that the cost would more than likley out weight the benifits! I dont care if you own the whole factory its still will cost lots! But I guess thats there are differences in the mentality of Street pimpers and real racers.....

So go ahead and build you ti cage to go cruise around your neiborhood....


Cheers
Larry
#622 SCCA club rally

 

[HondaKilla]

Originally posted by 3literpwr
I have worked tool and die, and designed and built dampers for the last 4 years... I know a bit about machine work, But I will admit that I have NOT worked with TI..... I was not stating that I did but simply that the cost would more than likley out weight the benifits! I dont care if you own the whole factory its still will cost lots! But I guess thats there are differences in the mentality of Street pimpers and real racers.....

So go ahead and build you ti cage to go cruise around your neiborhood....


Cheers
Larry
#622 SCCA club rally

...I think you have some things confused here Larry...the mentality of having less weight and greater strength sounds quite large to me. I may not be a "hardcore racer" and so on but I dont need to be to tell you the weight advantage and strength advantage of a titanium cage over a steel one is by far greater. To the average consumer YES it is quite expensive, compared to steel it is MORE expensive. I never said that it wasnt. I just said I can get it cheaper then the avg. consumer. I never said I was going to go off and start selling titanium cages and shit, but if you have the resources to do so at a reasonable price then why not!? I simply had material laying around the shop. It was mostly done for shits and giggles. It all depends on who your talking to on wether or not its worth it. It's like if Bob said a Mercedes is not worth the money, and Bill Gates thinks it is, when Bob is driving around a 81 Accord and can't afford a Mercedes. Wether you think its worth it or not doesnt really mean n e thing and neither does me sayings its worth it, It's all in the eye of the beholder. All I'm simply saying is that to me it is not a waste of money. I'll bet you that if other people had access to titanium that was just laying around, that they to would probably do the same thing and make several items with it due to the significant weight savings. I think the question here is simply why not?! (besides cost)

 

[3literpwr]

Yes a Ti cage would be super light!....But I was trying to say that you could not run it anywhere.... No sactioning body that I know of be it
Rally, road racing or Drag has any provisions in there rule book for a Ti cage... that was my main concern.... Ohh and I guess price...

They real question is will be be THAT much stronger?
4130 has a tensile strength of around 180,000psi
There are many types of Ti and most if not any will exceed
the strength of 4130 especialy if the Ti has been anneled in which
case it may be much less... I have never put a Ti tube in a bender and im usure what is required to be done to the material to bend it.....

Then Will the welds be adaquit? Welding Ti is not an easy task..AS it to be welded in a ARGON FILLED CHAMBER... Not with the argon just turned up..Ti has an extreme reation with oxygen wilst in a molten state... Not properly welding will result in inferior weld that could end you up with a 10,000$$ death cage

I know that many works race teams built alum cages in the past, but have sense got away from doing that for saftey and rule book reasons.....

Larry
#622 scca rally....

 

[HondaKilla]

Originally posted by 3literpwr
Yes a Ti cage would be super light!....But I was trying to say that you could not run it anywhere.... No sactioning body that I know of be it
Rally, road racing or Drag has any provisions in there rule book for a Ti cage... that was my main concern.... Ohh and I guess price...

They real question is will be be THAT much stronger?
4130 has a tensile strength of around 180,000psi
There are many types of Ti and most if not any will exceed
the strength of 4130 especialy if the Ti has been anneled in which
case it may be much less... I have never put a Ti tube in a bender and im usure what is required to be done to the material to bend it.....

Then Will the welds be adaquit? Welding Ti is not an easy task..AS it to be welded in a ARGON FILLED CHAMBER... Not with the argon just turned up..Ti has an extreme reation with oxygen wilst in a molten state... Not properly welding will result in inferior weld that could end you up with a 10,000$$ death cage

I know that many works race teams built alum cages in the past, but have sense got away from doing that for saftey and rule book reasons.....

Larry
#622 scca rally....

Well first off 180,000 psi tensile strength isnt really saying anything. More details need to be brought up with that, such as is that annealed, water quenched, normalized!? At what temps.?! What size?! For instance, 4130 normailzed at a temp of 1600F, air cooled, and 4 inch dia. has a tensile strength of 89200psi. As far as any other method I do not know off hand the tensile strength but dont see it being 180,000 psi. Now as far as the titanium part goes! First off, off hand I do not know the tensile strength of titanium. It will definitly match the tensile strength of steel and has less then 60 percent of its density. As far as welding goes it is tricky and not easy to do, but it all depends on what kind of welder you use and so on. The strength of titanium after being welded is still equal to steel and depending on what grade stronger. As far as it not being approved to use for drag and so on, I dont see why you couldnt get it approved!? Also I dont know if you where just shooting out a number, or not, but if the 10,000 dollars is refering to the cost of the cage, that is waaaaaaaaaaaay off!

Adios!!

 

[MNGSX]

No racing sanctioning body has anything on the books for a ti cage.

Also the tubing has to be seemless right?

Back to the arms...

Space the ball joint on the lateral arm up and build a mounting tab for the longitudinal arm on that spacer so it mounts to the arm tip and not the spindle.


Then you can use a standard bushing (not sperical) in both arm eyelets. With one pivot point on the bottom of the arm they dont move when steered like they did before.

 

[Velo7825]

like this? Got bored at work today. If you want i can model all the parts for the suspension and put them into assembly. If hondakiller could actually make us some parts that would work I'm all in to help with some CAD.

 

[Velo7825]

I'll try and get a rough version of the upper control arm by today. Sucks though I don't have any other picture hosting then this site. Guess it was time to redo my gallery anyway.

I can work pretty good off of dimensions but, put this here and that there gets a little vague.

oh and Ti would be nice but lets be realistic. to actually make more then 1 or 2 parts like these chromoly or somthing would be faster and cheaper. also if you send someone a part to try and it has fitment issues then how could they modify it at all.

 

[Velo7825]

3literpwr: from your picture it looks like you used a spherical bearing in the back(left) bushing recess and a standard bearing in the front(right) bearing recess. Any reason why. I would think that you would want the shock to be able to move and not the control arm. Your way (if i'm seeing the picture correctly) then the control arm can move horizontally and vertically. I guess the metal sides on the frame where the arm mounts is the only thing stopping it from moving horizontally. Fill me in cause I'm confused about that one.

 

[MNGSX]

Look at the bottom of a 2g spindle...

Two ball joints = two pivot points. Therefore the arms have to swing in order to steer.

I do think a spherical bearing would work better for the shock mount.

Now do what I suggest... Connect the two lower arms at the tip and just have one ball joint at the base of the spindle and you can run a solid bushing in the frame end of the control arm... Stock config... no..

Also this changes the mount point of the suspension so it is against SM rules if I read them right...

 

[jtmcinder]

Originally posted by MNGSX
Also this changes the mount point of the suspension so it is against SM rules if I read them right...

Nope. The SM rules extend all the way to the inboard pick-up points. If you want to create a true lower A-arm by connecting the outboard ends of the lateral and compression arms, you can.

Not that this would be something that I would do, mind you.

I do agree, however, that both the inboard bushing and the lower shock bushing should be full sphericals. I would add that you should leave the compression arm's bushing alone, as this is what provides some useful dynamic front toe.

- Jtoby

 

[Velo7825]

I think it would be alot more difficult to make a single pivot point on the bottom of the spindle. The 2 ball joints create a virtual king pivot point for the spindle. you would really need to redesign the entire suspension to accept the new lower arms.

Also I don't see how having a spherical bearing on the inboard part of the lateral arm would help. This means the lower laterall arm would be allowed to twist, which would effect caster along with everything else. So instead of the lower control arm going just up and down now it can go side to side also.

The spherical bearing needs to go in the lower shock mount on the lower control arm. and in the upper shock mount too.

I think designing the lower lateral arm to drop the shock mount 1 to 1.5 inches below the center line from the inboard lateral arm mount to the ball joint would be ideal. It would make a better angle where the ball joint mounts to the spindle, and it would give you more travel for your shock.

Back to the upper control arm: I'm still having trouble figuring out how the upper control arm can be designed so that it won't contact the inner fender well when the suspension is fully compressed. Even in the stock form it will still contact the inner fender, it just has a little more travel.
Really you need to redesign the part so its arc gets "steeper" the higher it goes. This will have 2 effects, 1 it will give you more neg. camber when compressed and less neg camber when rebounding. 2 it will give you more travel in the suspension to compress.

edit: i quess ill have to find new hosting for my pics.

 

[jtmcinder]

The lower LCA is not going to twist ... the shock will prevent that. The reason for a spherical at the inboard end of the lower LCA is so the arm can swing forward and back as the compression-arm bushing is yanked around by acceleration and braking. The reason that we want this is because it provides dynamic front toe of exactly the sort that will help: toe out under acceleration and toe in under braking.

- Jtoby

 

[Velo7825]

Jtoby: if we put a spherical on the inboard of the lower lateral arm and not one on the lower shock mount then it will definetly twist. Also we have to look at the effects this will have on the upper shock mount. We already know having too hard of a bushing here will damage the shock, so unless we add a pillow ball mount here at the same time, this will make that problem more dramatic.

Also i agree with your idea of more dynamic toe, however this will put the entire force of braking and acceleration into the compression arm. Stock, both the compression arm and the lower lateral arm keep the wheel from moving horizontally.

lastly what effects will this have on caster and how will that effect everything else.

with this type of suspension i think you really have to look at the virtual pivot point. we don't want that to move as we accelerate through a turn or brake into one. yes we want the spindle to rotate around that point but we don't want it to move. This is getting to were I will need to research more to really get into things.

 

[MNGSX]

Originally posted by Velo7825
I think it would be alot more difficult to make a single pivot point on the bottom of the spindle. The 2 ball joints create a virtual king pivot point for the spindle. you would really need to redesign the entire suspension to accept the new lower arms.

Not really... The only thing that would change is the caster. This can be altered via the upper control arm... Even a stock one with a K-MAC.

 

[ACM]

The lower arm would shorten by a few inches. That will have quite an effect on overall geometry.

That is not to say that the benefits do not outweigh the negatives, but it is a significant change in the virtual length of the lower arm.

If going to the trouble of fitting spherical bearings to the lower arm one should fit them for both the shock bushing and the inboard pivot. If there is significant concern about the arm twisting - and it probably will a little - use sponge rubber rings between the bearing and the outer bolted part; these, if slightly preloaded, will stop the arm from twisting much and will also serve the dual purpose of keeping dirt out.

Note that if you use a spherical bearing for an inboard pickup that was originally designed for a rubber bushing, it is virtually certain that the mount points will be damaged, as the peak loads seen by the mount hardware will be an order of magnitude higher than the design spec. Something along the lines of hardened washers tacked in place will be needed to strengthen the mounts sufficiently.


Charles

 

[MNGSX]

Originally posted by ACM
The lower arm would shorten by a few inches. That will have quite an effect on overall geometry.

It wont shorten it much at all.... Definately not a few inches...

Also it will have a good effect on the geometry since the lower arm will swing towards level under compression instead of being there already..

.

 

[ACM]

The virtual pivot point is on the other side of the rotor, that's far enough to have a significant effect.

As to being good or bad, you have no idea MNGSX, and neither do I.

There are far too many variables changed by this mod to be able to state with any confidence what effect this will have. If you stopped and thought about it you would realise that doing this has a significant effect on the virtual swing arm length and on the roll centre location. It is also highly likely that the RC point is going to move an awful lot dynamically due to the short VSA - look at the angle of the upper arm, now compare it to the lower arm - see what's going on ?

Until someone plugs the numbers into SusProg or WinGeo or whatever, it is impossible to state with any certainty that this mod will be beneficial overall.

If the only concern is camber, then yes, this will increase static and dynamic camber, and that - in of itself - is a good thing. There's more (tyre) life than camber however, and there's an awful lot more to handling than just camber. It doesn't take 3D modeling to see what's happening to the roll centre for example.

Charles

 

[MNGSX]

I think I'm tracking not about the virutal pivot... The centerpoint of the pivot is on the wheel side of the rotor as opposed to the backside...