Haynes Front Suspension Improvements

[AshG]

After fitting my new engine i now have a fair bit more power to find the limits of the chassis (something i couldn't ever do with a 1.6 pinto). The suspension has been setup and the car drives very well through all manner of situations from high speed straights to long sweeping bends but there seems to be a little issue with tight cornering when pushing on a bit especially hair pin type bends.

I have noticed that in tight corners my front wheel that is on the outside of the corner (longer distance to travel) will squeel under load in the corner.

Now i spoke to martin keenan about this at stoneleigh and he admitted that the front end could be improved, since he designed the roadster back in 2006-7 he has got a lot better at using his cad packages and admitted that if he were to design the car again it would be with custom uprights at the front to get the geometry correct.

the thing that really spurred me on to investigate this further was that i spoke to tilly at stoneleigh and his roadster (blade engined) also does the same thing.

So is anyone up for having a go at investigating this further and seeing if we can come up with a solution to improve the setup?

[MarkB]

The solution has been sorted me old fruit gump

[AshG]

lets see it then? Was kind of hoping it could be a group effort

[MikeB]

Sounds interesting Ash.
its sounds like a ackerman angle/toe setting issue or scrub radius due to incorrect kingpin inclination. Did martin say what desirable geometry was?

Share all if there's a solution though, I'm a long way off driving mine though.

[MarkB]

When the boffin that knows the right words to use is available I will get him to explain but my word giddyness is about right even if sounds gobbledeegoook

[AshG]

well speaking to tilly if i can remember correctly he reckons its the roll centre that is too high causing positive and negative camber changes on tight cornering.

[MarkB]

Originally Posted by AshG

well speaking to tilly if i can remember correctly he reckons its the roll centre that is too high causing positive and negative camber changes on tight cornering.

Goes mad positive in mental mode but it does it both ends Ash that's why it's not so noticeable when you are bumbling along.

[Tilly819]

hi all

almost ash, i did a bit of anylisis on the suspension on the roadster a few months back i will have to dig out my results when i get home, IIRC it was more to do with roll center movement and this had some effects that i cannot remember without my results, i do seem to remember that the camber curve was not too great and the outher wheel does like to push out to positve camber under heavy load i did remidie this on mine by running a large amount of statc negative camber but found not suprisingly that i was locking up the front wheels under heavy braking.

Il did out my results when i get home and maybe post a CAD drawing if i still have them.

Tilly

[Tilly819]

Originally Posted by MarkB

Goes mad positive in mental mode.

AGREED

I seem to recall quite abit of scrub during suspension travel also IIRC

tilly

[MarkB]

Originally Posted by Tilly819

AGREED

I seem to recall quite abit of scrub during suspension travel also IIRC

tilly

Like I said best I wait for the boffin who knows the right words as I have my own words for stuff and will only confuse folk...but yeah you will be running off the rims when you push the car hard.