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Old 08-12-2012, 04:02 PM   #1112
DarkSunrise
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Quote:
Originally Posted by fatoni View Post
thats the nc. i was referring to the na. and all that aside the c4 corvette was rolling around with a cog of 15" for about a couple decades before this car came around. fwiw, i would trade .9" of cog for double wishbone suspension especially since people seem to ignore the importance of cog in relation to roll center and just talk about it like an absolute.
Why bring up the NA Miata and C4 Corvette? Both of those cars have long been out of production and were created in a different era. Due to increased public awareness about crash safety, it would be difficult for Mazda and Chevy to create cars like that again. In the modern era, what Subaru and Toyota have accomplished in terms of lowering CG on the 86 is very impressive. Both the BRZ and FR-S received 5-star safety ratings and conform to modern regulations re. minimum bumper heights, all while keeping CG below any other mass production car.

Also double-wishbone suspension isn't as important on the front end of a RWD setup. BMW and Porsche have long been successful running RWD cars with macpherson strut based front suspension (both consumer cars and full-out race cars). The limitations of the macpherson strut design are minimized in that layout. For instance, you can largely overcome the lack of a proper camber curve on a lowered macpherson strut suspension by running relatively high rates of negative static camber. And roll center on a lowered macpherson strut setup is actually pretty easy to correct. Not to mention the additional weight and complexity (i.e., cost) of running double-wishbones.
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