Stock ride height or lower?

[WingsofWar]

Yeah, iv heard of people getting better feel with air suspension for motorsports and claim better laps. I personally haven't been around to many people who are on air & do tracking, so i cant say anything about it. My biggest gripe about air suspension is space. The fact that you have to run a tank and air compressor. Hiding those items without building a box for it is a big challenge, especially on a small car like the miata, or FRS/BRZ of similar dimensions.

Theres no way in hell air suspension is going to touch my rx7. Theres simply no room for a compressor or tank. The rear trunk/cabin is completely caged, and im running two external aeromotive fuel pumps sitting next to my fuel cell.

So that said...even if a tuned air-setup is better than a tuned entry level coilover system. There is just too many items and sacrifices; tanks, airlines, compressor, space, controller, weight, electricity, plus the price of all those components. Especially as you get closer to more dedicated hardcore motorsports on the spectrum, it becomes apparent that any gains you get from air ride will get negated. Overall making coilovers the best cost effective choice in both price, practicality, and performance.

[serialk11r]

So Bose (yea the same company that makes the overpriced over-EQ-tweaked headphones) developed an electrically controlled active suspension that can actually follow bumps in the road to give a nearly perfect ride and perfect handling...but it sounds really expensive.

But the nice thing is that it just replaces the shocks with linear motors, and just requires a controller and some extra 40A or so juice from the alternator under rough conditions.

Anyways, so wait, why do people who are serious about the performance and want to race their cars get coilovers instead of drop spindles, especially the ones lowering their cars a lot? Wouldn't the suspension geometry be compromised with a significant drop?

[WingsofWar]

Originally Posted by serialk11r

So Bose (yea the same company that makes the overpriced over-EQ-tweaked headphones) developed an electrically controlled active suspension that can actually follow bumps in the road to give a nearly perfect ride and perfect handling...but it sounds really expensive.

But the nice thing is that it just replaces the shocks with linear motors, and just requires a controller and some extra 40A or so juice from the alternator under rough conditions.

Anyways, so wait, why do people who are serious about the performance and want to race their cars get coilovers instead of drop spindles, especially the ones lowering their cars a lot? Wouldn't the suspension geometry be compromised with a significant drop?

people super serious shops about performance suspension with money to drop, should aim towards a cantilever suspension. Assuming their sanction allows it.

With a significant drop on coilovers there are things you can do to combat changes in suspension geometry. Suspension tuning also involves tie rods, control arms, ball joints extensions, knuckle modding, sway bars, camber rods, etc. Biggest issue people face with "to much lower" is bump steer..which can be reduced with supporting suspension mods. As well as roll center, and camber and caster curves, toe changes, and chassis reaction forces. which are also geometry compromised when tuning suspension for racing.

Heres the thing about the FRS/BRZ though...macphearson struts up front does cause a few more suspension adjustment limitations than a multilink suspension.

There are shops that specialize in racing alignments and corner weighing (important measurement). I suggest anyone getting into any motorsports with modded suspension get their shit checked out before heading out on the track.

[balance]

Originally Posted by WingsofWar

Heres the thing about the FRS/BRZ though...macphearson struts up front does cause a few more suspension adjustment limitations than a multilink suspension.

This...

Curious to see how the aftermarket will resolve the loss of dynamic camber curves associated with the strut setup.

Probably, the camber plate will be the only viable solution on the grassroot motorsports level, thus requiring people who are serious about handling and traction skew towards the coilover setup.

[Dave-ROR]

Originally Posted by LSxJunkie

People should really be running drop spindles in conjunction with adjustable coilovers. Use the drop spindles or extended ball joints to lower the car and then fine tune and corner balance with the coilovers. People stay away from drop spindles, however, because they're expensive. I don't know about extended ball joints because I have no experience with them.

Extended ball joints are fine, and not expensive. Still seems like a band aid to me though :shrug:

[DommerEOD]

Coming from the world of off-road sized coilovers, and bypasses, makes me wonder.. is there a market for external reservoirs on some of these aftermarket coilovers? I'm not at all educated in small-car suspensions.

[Ryephile]

Originally Posted by balance

Curious to see how the aftermarket will resolve the loss of dynamic camber curves associated with the strut setup.

You can bet that they won't. After all, the aftermarket has had generations to fix the camber curve problems with Porsche and BMW, yet they don't. What makes you think they'll spend development time and money on a relatively inexpensive entry-level sports car where the demographic likely will spend even less on quality suspension solutions?

Originally Posted by DommerEOD

Coming from the world of off-road sized coilovers, and bypasses, makes me wonder.. is there a market for external reservoirs on some of these aftermarket coilovers? I'm not at all educated in small-car suspensions.

Yes, however it's typically reserved for higher-end dampers where damping consistency over the duration of the session is important. In the case of the FR-S/BRZ, it's possible that the short strut length will force damper manufacturers to go with remote reservoirs to get any reasonable quantity of fluid volume.

[7thgear]

Originally Posted by Dave-ROR

Extended ball joints are fine, and not expensive. Still seems like a band aid to me though :shrug:

They are not band aids.

The car is designed to be driven on the street and therefore is designed the way it is designed. Which by the way is pretty fucking awesome.

Those people who will take this car to the track and want to maximize performance will need to turn their street car into a race car. Chassis tuning is all about compromise, so certain parts need to be modified. This is what is known as tuning.


Do you think the WRC prepped Subarus have stock suspension pickup points and uprights? Do you think that team Subaru is using band aids when they create custom light weight uprights and cross-members?

[Dave-ROR]

Originally Posted by 7thgear

They are not band aids.

The car is designed to be driven on the street and therefore is designed the way it is designed. Which by the way is pretty fucking awesome.

Those people who will take this car to the track and want to maximize performance will need to turn their street car into a race car. Chassis tuning is all about compromise, so certain parts need to be modified. This is what is known as tuning.


Do you think the WRC prepped Subarus have stock suspension pickup points and uprights? Do you think that team Subaru is using band aids when they create custom light weight uprights and cross-members?

My point was that I think modified/different suspension arms are a better solution than an extended ball joint. It wasn't that the suspension geometry shouldn't be changed/fixed.

[7thgear]

suspension arms will push the bottom of the upright out, creating static negative camber, with a minimal affect on roll center. Especially if the arms are at or above parallel already

lowering the ball-joint attachment location relative to the upright and shock will have a greater effect on roll center, maintain static camber, and not force the strut to angle too much.

these are different tools to achieve different things.

for a lowered car, custom uprights/balljoint extenders will provide greater overall improvement than simply extending the control arm

[Ryephile]

Originally Posted by 7thgear

They are not band aids.

The car is designed to be driven on the street and therefore is designed the way it is designed. Which by the way is pretty fucking awesome.

They are band aids. If Toyota/Subaru didn't design the car with so much wheel gap that it looks laughably hideous, most of us wouldn't be so bent on kicking the stilts out. Now, because they screwed up the aesthetic, we have to bother with band aids like dropped spindles and relocated pivot points to retain the handling quality with corrected non-lift-kit stance.

There's no need to get pissy and jump down Dave-ROR's throat; he's a good person and meant to say relocated pivot points. This was obvious to me within the context of his entire post instead of focusing on one word. Going off about WRC race cars has zero relevance to this affordable production car that nobody has driven yet.

[7thgear]

Originally Posted by Ryephile

They are band aids. If Toyota/Subaru didn't design the car with so much wheel gap that it looks laughably hideous, most of us wouldn't be so bent on kicking the stilts out. Now, because they screwed up the aesthetic, we have to bother with band aids like dropped spindles and relocated pivot points to retain the handling quality with corrected non-lift-kit stance.

i have no problem with the wheel gap, the wheel gap is necessary for the wheel to travel up and down going over bumps and cracks.

check out this sucker



turns pretty well though :/



i don't know about "laughly hideous" since ALL cars come the same way.

[Ryephile]

Originally Posted by 7thgear

i have no problem with the wheel gap, the wheel gap is necessary for the wheel to travel up and down going over bumps and cracks.

So you've never taken off your tire and noticed how much more clearance there is within the wheel well than the fender arch? The fender arch is an aesthetic facade, not some abstract mental limit.

Here's a very quick example of how the fender arch can be wholly irrelevant to actual tire and suspension movement:


RYE_1392.jpg by Ryephile, on Flickr

As such, wheel gap is at the discretion of the designers and engineers.

[Ryephile]

...or the ride height of my daily driven Golf TDI. At his photographed ride height, there is zero wheel gap, however the suspension still has 2" of compression travel and no rubbing whatsoever. This is because the car has wheel wells, like every modern car. YMMV, Chrysler's have very shallow wheel wells. FR-S/BRZ wheel well clearance TBD, of course.