FR-S/BRZ vs cough double wishbone suspension
 

I'll admit I am a sucker for double wishbone suspension, there is just something about the way a double wishbone can retain composure with uneven poor public roads. But in a way I am glad the FR-S doesn't have it, lot fewer bushing to replace in 5 years. Somehow Subararu pulling off a great suspension on the FR-S without double wishbone, saved a ton of weight and maintenance costs.

But I guess our only comparison here is the Miata, Get in an average 12+ year old Miata or even an EG Civic and a single drive will tell you the car is basically totalled if you were paying someone to replace all the bushings because they always all need replaced and the car just sucks with worn bushings. And replacing them is a sh*t job for a 40 year old anyway.

But is the FR-S as controlable on the late turns and other crazy things that can happen on public roads, especially rural roads at night as the double wishbones ?

Anyone whish the FR-S had double wishbone (pun intended) ?

it would be awesome but the kinda sorta double wishbone it has works well enough

costs had to be kept down somehow

I cant tell a double wishbone apart when driving, can you?

The total package means more to me than the individual parts; and its not like performance without wishbones is uncommon.

Exactly!!!

Just ask Porsche and BMW.

While the M3 and many porches handle very well, you could also say the same about other non-wishbone suspensions. Newer corvettes and even the mustang with its live axle have been praised recently. Any suspension configuration can be tuned but I'm willing to bet that given the same amount of effort into suspension tuning, the double-wishbone configuration will out-handle struts/leafs/live axles/torsion beams, etc. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) we live in a world with a free market economy and double-wishbone setups are just more expensive and less practical (less leg room for the front passenger). Thus, the number of cars with a double-wishbone setup that cost less than $100k today is something like... 5? Miata, RX-8, S2k, 350/370z, maybe some lotuses? Oh and the GTR (if you count that as less than 100k).

So imo if cost weren't a factor, double-wishbone would be king (Formula 1/2, ALMS, etc). In a consumer oriented car, the costs may not be worth it over a very well-tuned Macpherson setup. Practically all super- and hyper-cars today employ a double-wishbone or multi-link setup.

Double-wishbones up front would ruin the handling characteristics of this car. The engine would have to be raised and/or pushed forward to make clearance for the suspension. This would shift the polar moment forward and/or raise the otherwise stellar CoG.

To fix that, we could mount the engine in the trunk/rear seats. Then it'd be a completely different car (looks/price/etc.).

They engineered the suspension to strengthen this car's key attribute - low CoG (thanks to the boxer engine). They did it right IMO.

not really

they could have done a wishbone implementation even with the boxer engine but it would have required some trick thinking and unorthodox design

ie

money

instead they just kept the Impreza base and called it a day.

the front of the car is literally a 1993 Impreza, not much has changed.

that all else being equal and unlimited money thing makes sense when all else is equal and we have unlimited money. i dont so im forced to buy the cars that sell in the world i live in. as long as we keep measuring means to an end instead of an end, were going to miss the point
i personally would rather have double wishbone up front over a boxer motor. i would like the camber curves in the front to be as useable as the ones in the rear. on top of that, i wouldnt even call the cog stellar. the miata has a lower cog and it does it with an iniline 4 and double wishbone. the cog isnt that important. it seems more like a marketing thing than anything

1" is a big deal in terms of cog. I'd rather have a 1" lower cog than wishbones over struts.

IMO, a LOT more is made out of the superiority of wishbones over struts than is really in it. Struts have a camber curve as well, it's just more on the order of ~0.5deg per inch of travel as opposed to ~1deg per inch typical with wishbones. Truly not a big deal, particularly with a track oriented stiff suspension.

Wishbones are "better", but struts can be *very* good as well. For me, the hood/fenderline height due to struts is as big a negative as not having wishbones. I.e., it's not a *major* deal. Particularly for a street car.

My barely-modded (struts/springs/sways and some minor geometry mods) Z's strut suspension will outhandle rings around my wishbones-all-around S2000, and be more linear/predictable/hang-it-all-outable while doing it.

where did you get the info that the miata had a lower COG?

that isn't close to anything i have heard.

+1

well we cant say that the boxer gives us a cog that much lower than an inline motor. while i agree that the differences are small, i think its safe to say that small differences in the contact patch shape can make big differences in predictability and grip. not to mention that with a larger, more useable camber curve you can run softer spring rates and put more suspension to use allowing you to deal with more road imperfections, curbs etc.

look at it this way, how would you feel if you went to get an alignment and they were off by half a degree?
shaikh over at fat cat motorsport pulle it up off of nhtsa crash test data. if you get this excited about cog you really should be driving a c4 corvette

Easy enough to just dial in a bit more static negative camber with struts, now you have the *same* contact patch in cornering. Before you say "but more camber hurts braking", so does the additional camber gain of most wishbone setups, which can start with less negative camber, but gain more up front under braking. Especially if running softer springs as an wishbone advantage...

And how would you feel if you took it to the track on that alignment, and didn't even notice you were missing it until after the fact? In my experience with street/track compromise cars, being a half degree below optimal camber isn't a huge deal. I've seen racers lose more than a degree and get totally wack toe due to battle damage and only lose a couple/few tenths per lap because of it.
Again, though, easy enough to dial in additional camber. Honestly, I haven't had any issues running lowish camber (in the -2 to -2.5 range) in the Z. Track tires, even autoX compounds, lasted me a LONG time, with only slightly more outside wear. Ideal? No, but not a big deal on a street/track compromise car. On an allout race car, you might have to run more spring and more static camber, but again, not necessarily the end of the world.



I never felt like I needed wishbones on my Z, my 240SXs, BMW's, or Porsches that I've driven at the track.
I do appreciate that the S and FD have them, but for me they would still be great cars with struts.

i know what you mean. i think we are more on the same page than off but the fact sill remains that the less static camber you need, the better the contact patch in all circumstances. im not saying that it is a high priority. im just saying that the cog isnt a very big deal either. i have never been in an evo or mustang and thought that i needed my cog 1" lower either. i think more than anything its a cost issue and this seems to be a great car for the cost so im not complaining about any of the singular components since the whole exceeds my expectations.