Quote:
Originally Posted by Racecomp Engineering
I always hesitate to compare a normal street car to a supercar or formula car. Electronically controlled swaybars, high dampers, separate dampers for pitch, ride, roll, bump,...it's not always something you can compare.
Remember that "magic" suspension frequency often cited? 2.4 Hz or whatever? Why do so many go sooo much stiffer than that? Well that number is for ride. Not roll. And on our cars, we have 4 springs that affect ride. With swaybars we can increase our roll resistance beyond that without affecting ride motions so we can have that magic* suspension frequency and still have more roll resistance if needed. There is an effect on single wheel bumps and that's why instead of big ass swaybars you'll see stiffer springs.
If you read through the optimum G articles, they talk about having separate dampers for ride, roll, and pitch. Ideally you have 10 dampers. Obviously no one does that but for complete control that's what you do. If you can't due to rules or compromises like packaging and money, you use 4 and to try to control everything that way.
I'll write more after lunch.
- Andy
*there's no such thing as magic
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Yeah, that 2-2.5Hz thing with the rear being about 10% higher in frequency than the front (recommended for low downforce cars)... well there are a lot of successful autocross setups that reach well into the 3+ Hz range (and downforce isn't much of a factor at autocross speeds).
There's that old Chapman quote, something along the lines of "any car suspension will work if you don't let it"...
OptimumG and anything written by Mark Ortiz is some great reading.