RR98ITR

There is obviously some money to be made in offering services to improve the performance of these goofballs:

Scott, who has moved on to more sophisticated problems of a more primitive nature...

Kaan

iTrader: (3)

they are trying hard to keep that "leg" down it seems... the leg isnt nearly as high as previous generations... but i dont think they are going to get past physics.

edit: bait taken for entertainment purposes... its going to be a slow day at work

RR98ITR

How hard can they be trying? It would be so easy to hold it all the way down and load it.

Scott, "who thinks we can safely throw physics out the window...I mean we've got So Much technology!"

Kaan

iTrader: (3)

mount wing higher, add more rear droop?

Xian

But who's to say that those pics were taken at WOT... maybe there was a throttle lift involved moving weight to the nose...

Edit:
m0Ar dr00p won't help with a big rear bar.

Kaan

iTrader: (3)

bigger rims and tires? 33s might not pick up

Xian

Spinnerz are the answer.

RR98ITR

That would just be a band aid on the inside rear lockup problem, and not address "the real problem".

Scott, who has to nod respectfully to Christian on that one...

Xian

The gyroscopic action of the delpeted uranium spinnerz would resist inside wheel lift and, when paired with an e-Diff inside the spinner/wheel, completely eliminate rear lockup...

RR98ITR

Wait a minute! That's right...really heavy wheels ARE much harder to lift!

The e-diff must also do energy recovery, converting the detriments of increased unsprung and rotating weight into the benefits of moar power on demand. And I'm Always Demandin'.

Scott, who is closer Than Evar to just giving in to technology...

Xian

No, no, no.. the e-Diff is designed to emit sparks in driver selectable colors. Red=angry racing, Yellow= backing off, Brown=just **** myself, etc.

Remember, you've gotta keep it exciting and engaging for the audience...

johnjw

^lol what bernie in touring kaaa

eastbay92cx

Pinnacle of Honda engineering (with air):

TunerN00b

Honest question, since e-diffs have already been brought up.

Does a "properly" (quotes because we all know that term can't truly be defined) setup Prelude Type-SH lift the inside rear?

Though, apparently at least some cars with an e-diff still lift a tire.

RR98ITR

Imagine the inside front lifted, but not spinning, thanks to electronic or other driver aids. Does what you know about tire load sensitivity suggest that you could get more out of the front of the car if the inside front was loaded as much as was practical? The answer is yes.

Scott, who has been vexed by suspension for so long...now I'm vexed by not having suspension...HaHa! Same crap different channel (to quote a famous Japanese tuner)...

Xian

Maybe I'm missing a subtlety in the question or maybe I need more coffee but... why would the type of diff (magic or mechanical) have a significant impact on whether lifting the inside rear is good or bad?

Lifting the inside rear has been beaten to death and always more or less ends in a stale mate of everyone agreeing that a bunch of lift is bad (see the FoST pic above), too much weight on the inside rear is bad (coulda been on the inside front), and that we want the rear just at the lift-off stage in steady state cornering... but I don't have a ton on my calendar today so we can take another swing at the topic.

RR98ITR

It only ends in stalemate with stale mates. Within the boundaries of common sense a stiff car with a low roll angle Can't lift very much, whereas a soft car with a high roll angle Can. There is a continuum between. And the bound on how stiff or soft you go? Conditions. How rough the track. How stiff the tires.

Scott, who doesn't beat to death...I, uh, beat to life...

Xian

Stiff... soft... high... low... how low can you go while retaining enough travel for the stiffest spring that will still keep the tire on the ground over the bumpiest part of the track?

Now that you've got the rate and height dialed in, let's talk about dampers. You've got at least triples, right? But what about that regressive curve Penske offers now... awwwwww fuckitall. I'm gonna go be a hard parker where my only concern is having enough clearance to get into the parking lot.

RR98ITR

Funny you should mention those Penske dampers Christian. Erik Zapletal just recently made a comment about them on the FSAE board that was really interesting:

Taken from: http://www.fsae.com/forums/showthrea...gh-Speed-Input

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Getting back to your conventionally suspended car and regressive dampers, the Penske link has.

"Synopsis:
The objective of the regressive valve is to produce a compression or rebound damping characteristic that allows increased low or mid-speed damping force for driver feel, while providing more suitable lower levels of high speed damping for bump absorption. ...
...
Summary:
In test after test, the regressive valve has allowed suspension tuners to unlock hidden performance in many different types of racing. By increasing low speed damping support, and dramatically reducing suspension spring rates without loss of driver feel, regressive valve users have boosted driver confidence and increased grip levels..." (My emphasis.)

As I have ranted about at great length elsewhere, conventional suspensions have STUPID SPRINGS. The springs know nought about the H/P/R-modes of the car-body, nor about the Twist-mode of all four wheels, nor about WA tramp. There is very little adjustability of the springs possible, other than broad but crude changes that boil down to "softer or stiffer".

For example, as hinted at by Penske above, stiffening the corner-springs helps control car-body-H/P/R, which is good for "driver feel". But that makes bump absorbancy worse. Conversely, softening the corner-springs is great for bump absorbancy, but makes the car wallow around like a drunken hippo, which is bad for "driver feel". And trying to stiffen the springing only in the Roll-mode, say, by adding stiffer ARBs, also stiffens the Twist-mode, which is again bad for bump absorbancy, and messes with LLTD from any "twist-in-the-road".

So the Penske solution is to add the "regressive damper" crutch. This allows the car to have softer springs all round, which is a fair starting point for bump absorbancy (although "actively lifting" the wheels would be better, as noted above). The problem of the car "wallowing like a drunken hippo" is then partly fixed by adding the relatively stiff "low-speed damping" crutch.

But, as noted, ANY DAMPING IS BAD. So at higher speeds the regressive dampers "blow-off" so that their force is actually LESS THAN whatever it was at the lower H/P/R-control speeds. In a sense, the crutches are temporarily thrown away. Well, just over the bumpy sections of track.

(Interesting is that the regressive-damping curves are quite similar to those of old-style friction-dampers. These have a highish force while stuck in the "static-friction" zone, with this force then reducing to a relatively constant (ie. velocity independent) "sliding-friction" force over bumpy sections of track. However, the slope of the static-friction zone is much steeper than with hydraulic dampers, which is generally bad, especially for the Twist-mode (less of a problem in the other modes...). Anyway, Penske's dampers seem to be a very expensive version of those older dampers. Such is progress.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Wow. Thanks Erik.

Scott, who actually "invented" the regressive damper in a post years ago before Penske introduced this shock...I called it super-duper digressive. It was just a joke and it made me giggle...and then later when I saw the Penske shock I was like "Whoa!"

Xian

Pretty pimp stuff, huh? Jason Rhoades mentioned them in relation to his Camaro build sometime in the last year or 2. I read enough to make me realize that I knew this >< much about damping tech compared to the legitimately Smart Guys. Still, as luck would have it, I managed to end up with some MCS triples up front on my EF (now the ITR) and I'll admit that I've fallen in love with the adjustability. Fiddling with the high/low compression makes the car phenomenal at seemingly opposite ends of the spectrum handling dynamics. Want sharp turn in but soft over bumps? OK, no problem.

My $0.02 is that this sort of damping adjustability is more important for street cars and cone dodgers than it is for a "pure" track car. Most tracks really aren't that bumpy (excepting places like Sebring), don't really have "transitions", and turn-in "feel" isn't quite as important given the distances/speeds we're talking about (without even looking at the benefits that race craft serve above and beyond mechanical differences between competitors). For instance, being 4" off the ideal apex at the track isn't a HUGE deal... being 4" off a cone at an autoX means you just seriously screwed up an element.

<---- Friction Damper curves. What was old is new again? :lol: