The Suspension Setup Thread

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(quote old thread Johnny_08)

well i don't have rose jointed anything, would it matter? hey slippery is that setup nice around corners or are u more of a kick it out sorta guy tongue.gif

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(quote old thread federal)

rose jointed control arms will change the 'actual' castor alignment

with a bushed control arm you max out the castor rod, but the control arm can't move freely into the castor, so it pulls back abit

with a rose jointed control arm, you max out the castor rod, and with the minimal resistance due to the Spherical ball in the joint, your control arms will move into the castor with near 0 resistance and have no "pull back" on them...

ofcourse this also changes if you are running rosejointed castor rods with bushed or rose jointed control arms

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when i said maxed out, i meant because i had no more gaurd clearance with 205/50/15's on mine and with a street orientated car that is setup for an improvement over standard as opposed to going all out, you wouldn't really want to cut up gaurds.

I also had stock camber at 2 inches under standard hieght (like -.3 degrees from memory) and i found mine to be good at 4 degrees castor.

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(quote federal)

i see what you mean now....

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thread updated, if anybody has any ideas on other things to discuss in the 1st post, let me know

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(quote old thread slydar)

nice post. would be sticky if i were still a mod.

re roll centers.. generally speaking, on a lowered car with rcas, do you think it is of benefit to lower the rear roll center?

i will be building a diff soon, and have noticed most production based live axle race cars, where the rules allow, the panhard bar is quite alot lower than it ends up on a lowered sprinter.

i have asked one person who has performed this mod on an ra40 and he said it made a big (positive) difference.

for this reason i was thinking of lowering the panhard bar mount on the diff down until the panhard bar was level with it anchored on the body at the stock location.

further down the track when i rose joint everything i will make it adjustable at both ends, as i will be re making the mounts to suit imperial rod ends
anyway.

but do you think this is a wise baseline to work from? (ph bar level)

apart from other evidence mentioned above, i also liken this to the use of traction brackets.. basically youre lowering the diff within its mounts like what an rca does at the front, so i don't see how i could go wrong.. unless I'm missing something.

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(quote old thread anthony)

Yeah great information. My only gripe would be to avoid going out of your way to widen the drift/grip divide. The information is equally useful to both disciplines so I'd hate to see someone interested in drift to disregard it

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1st post updated just for you SLYDAR rolleyes.gif

seriously tho, with regards to the panard bar, unless you make all the 4 link bars equal length and parellel with each other and the ground, the best thing to do would be to make a panard bar thats hieght adjustable at the body and diff end and just stuff around with it till your happy. There are ways of measuring where the rear roll center will end up whilst using un-parellel 4 link bars but it still comes down to how it feels to you. With the traction brackets, i assume that the idea is to lower the diff end of the lower rear links? I havent seen them but if thats the case they can work well. If they lower the links to the point that they are paralell with the ground it can only be a good thing, for best results (if thats what these traction brackets do) i would also run equal length, paralell top bars and correct the pinion angle while i was there, as i assume the nose of the diff points up at the floor atm if your car is severly lowered.

Then with a height adjustable panard bar, the rear roll center will be the center of the bar so easy to see, let alone work out.

Anthony: Whilst i can see what your saying and i appreciate that drifters and grip guys can share parts and information, they are in effect chasing different goals. A grip driver wants to make the best possible use of the grip he has and will try as hard as possible to avoid excess slip and a drifter wants a car that can hold a high speed, stable, controllable slide and have the car controlable after grip has been mostly lost. Anything that involves car control can be shared between the two but to many other things are at odds. I'm all for uniting the 2 factions of drift and grip but what i think we really need, as loc33e said, is a thread like this but for drift, and unfortunately theres not enough good tested theory on drift atm to do that.

The main reason I put the title up the way i did was to hopefully avoid people putting up drift setups and confusing the thread but as u said, some of the principles in here can be used for drift...

Well that and i know stuff all about drifting

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(quote old thread anthony)

Just call it car setups in general, Make it a universal document. ie. pinion angle... if you do A you'll get B, if you do C you'll get D and let people take from that what they want.

If some beginners are chasing slip from the start, eventually they will want grip back, and if they understand how the two relate from the very beginning they will be able to get a lot more out of their car.

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(quote old thread gunner)

thats really helpful dude, as i know sweet fa about suspension set up, though i have a question, bit noobish but anyway.

I have an s14 rear cradle sittin around, anyway from pickin it up and movin it, its lighter than my t series, I know that, to have all the work done to fit irs to the rear of an 86, kinda outweighs the positives, and i know you can get a live axle car to handle/grip just as well as an irs car, but my question is, would it be an improvement, due to the removal of so much unsprung weight, I've spokin to my fab bloke who is doin my cage, and hethinks it wouldn't be much more work, considering, that we wouldn't be doing equal 4 links and those associated pieces. plus i end up with my brake conversion for the rear too.

Anyway back to the question i would like answered. Would removing the unsprung wieght of a live axle, and replacing it by the sprung weight of a rear irs cradle be an improvement, and would it help to offset the wieght of a bigger engine?

Cheers
Rhys