RR98ITR

Claude,

A question - "I will try again"...means you want him to make sense to you? Is this something you'll keep trying till it does? Maybe the effort is ill advised.

Scott, who has two recent issues of Circle Track he has "tried" to read wherein Bolles, "I think", says his old new idea has been superceded by his new new idea...let me know how it ends Claude...

RR98ITR

I too am reading...Tony Rudd's autobiography. Love this:

"I tried again...still with independent rear suspension. It was an answer to our traction problems, and I was sorry it was abandoned, but as I could not solve the jacking problem, I could not argue. Tony Brooks politely declined to drive for us in 1957 and wisely joined Vanwall. Roy Salvadori said: "Maybe, but you will have to make it handle better before I will sign." We were getting very confused. RM invited Alec Issigonis and Major Alex Moulton to advise us. They recommended rearranging the front struts and rear springs to eliminate their influence on roll stiffness, so that all roll resistance came from the roll bars."

Scott, who struggles to imagine the "wisdom" by which an Englishman chooses Vanwall over BRM...but I can imagine wanting to drive..."Wisdom's got nothing to do with it"...

descartesfool

Twisted is how it's going. Not my chassis, just my brain, from that book. Old Bob, how could he even be an engineer? I know many of them, but none can hold a candle to Old Bob when it comes to making the simplest idea into the most obtuse of concepts. After reading what I've read of it, might as well be trying to tune a camel into not lifting it's inside leg;-)

Realtime is racing tomorrow and Sunday. Who will lift the highest, front end of the Stangs or rear of the Hundas?? I want to be ready.

RR98ITR

Here's Scott and Claude watching a race together:

Scott: "There - he just lifted the inside rear"
Claude: "No he didn't - I didn't see it"
Scott: "Ok, next lap look real close"
Scott: "There - he did it again"
Claude: "Nope - he didn't lift"
Scott: "HE DID TOO!"
Claude: "You're just seeing what you want to"
Scott: "YOU'RE just Not seeing what You don't want to"
Claude: "Bob Bolles says........"
Scott: <Hands over ears> "LaLaLaLaLaLaLaLaLaLaLa......"

Scott, who awaits the photographic evidence...Claude: "There's something wrong with my camera, That did Not happen!"

Egezzy

iTrader: (2)

haha. yeah it is bad when the camel toe touch the ground. labia droop is never a good sign.

MBellRacing

Lol. Gross.

914Racer

HHHMMMMM

Egezzy

iTrader: (2)

hmmm..the curb seems pretty flat. maybe he was jumping the turtle shell shea holbrook shot at him!

dirty19

iTrader: (1)

What you dont see in the pic is that the car hit a ramp before the shot was taken and lifted it on two wheels.
Car Acrobatic Team!
The driver was Snake Oiler's nephew Greasy Lizard.

96dxB16

Yes, that is the best FF race kaa in the WORLD!

descartesfool

Suffering from chassis twist?

Egezzy

iTrader: (2)

depends on how she likes it. normally occurs for an overly split frame..is what i have heard.

914Racer

The BTCC/WTCC drivers use the curbs to kick the car around. It seems to be a pretty common technique.

90efhatch

A random pic I had

914Racer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvcv3gtYFp4

This is an interesting video. The car is completely flat through the turns, except where it bounds over the curbing.

descartesfool

So I watched two WC races at Mosport this weekend, plus qualifying. It was a great weekend with almost no fans in attendance. Never seen anything remotely close to such a thin crowd. It's like the interest in racing has dropped off a cliff. Met a couple of my track buddies there, and we were all just scratching our heads at the lack of any fans. There was more race drivers and crew than fans. More RV's in the paddock than fan's cars.

The only FWD cars in the middle GTS class were the two RealTime cars of Cunningham and Essayan. No one else is bothering to come to the party in a FWD car. Other than that, about 6 or 7 Mustangs in GTS, a couple of new Camaros and one lone Cayman. I watched the TSX's at corner entry and corner exit, and they never lifted. The cars in Touring Class lifted a bit, if they rode on curbs and the like, but barely at all. A few ran the corner exit phase on 3 wheels, with the slowest cars in the field being the ones that lifted the most. Those were the two VW entries that were bought from the team that ran them last year.

I spoke very briefly in the paddock to one of the guys prepping the Realtime cars just as they were about to go out for the second race, and asked him about setup. He basically just said that they worked hard to pick the right springs and adjust the bars to get the balance just so, and that even alignment played a big role in their setup strategy, including toe settings. When I asked him about balance at the rear, he said that they could run the car very differently than the newer Honda products which he felt had gone backwards in terms of both rear and front suspension design, and that he much preferred the old Integras to the new Hondas in terms of suspension design. He also said that they had been developing their multi-link suspension design on the rear of the TSX for over 5 years, which is what allowed the car to handle so well. Didn't really have time for specifics, as they had to put the tires back on and get them out for the race.

But well balanced or not, nothing was enough to make them remotely competitive against the new Mustang Boss 302s running Dynamic Suspension 3 way dampers and such. It was Mustangs 1,2,3,4 and 5, with Cunningham's TSX in 6th, then another Mustang, and then the TSX of Essayan. All cars were much faster than before, with the Mustangs on the Pirelli slicks running in the low 1:28's. Cunningham in the 1:29's, and the Touring cars in the 1:34's. The 302s qualified at 1:26.5 withe Cunningham's FWD TSX a full 2 seconds slower at 1:28.5 . Front running GT Corvettes were in the low 1:20's, having qualified in the sub 1:20's. I timed Sofronas in his GT3 at 1:20.4 or so for two in a row in qualifying. That is very, very quick at Mosport.

And as for the pictorial "evidence", well you can judge for yourself. The fastest of the FWD cars, Cunningham's #1 just past the apex of turn 1, and about the slowest of the FWD cars, a green VW, at the exact same point on the track. And the 2nd fastest FWD car, the #34 of Essayan, just a few feet before the point in the other two photos. Outside suspensions are all at max compression. I looked and I looked, and RealTime's cars simply have all four tires planted. They might have lifted barely somewhere on the track, but without seeing the datalogs from their suspension pots, I couldn't tell you where.

RR98ITR

Hey Claude - Thanks for the speedy report. So, as a student of Bob Bolles then, would you say the RTR TSX's were running a more "balanced" setup?

Scott, who doesn't expect shots after the apex to produce the clearance I'm interested in, but interesting still that at that point the VW was still up - were they driving in a "later on the gas" type style?

vinuneuro

If you want to see a bunch of very highly developed fwd cars watch BTCC. In the front bumber oboard shots, one can clearly see the rear wheels of the cars ahead. I haven't seen the Honda Racing cars pick up a wheel so far (they're the fastest at the moment), and even the other fast cars either don't lift the inside rear off the track or just barely so (enough to lock up and smoke a little).

RR98ITR

To be serious, just for a split second, we should note that a stiff car will tend to "exhibit" less to the naked eye...

Scott, who does appreciate BTCC cars and videos...but cannot accept that they are anywhere near as highly developed as the RTR cars - such an idea is ludicrous and inconceivable...

TunerN00b

So, we're now comparing tire lift between a double wishbone / multi-link equipped car to a strut based car?

descartesfool

Of course we are. Realtime runs the fastest FWD cars in North America as far as I know. They have never run a car without front A-arms that I have seen, and why would they? They want to be the fastest. So best to learn from the fastest I say. How many FWD cars could almost keep up to a bunch of race-prepped Mustang 302's? When they ran the ITR's in the beginning, they used to lift some, but as years went by, they seem to lift less and less, same as the BTCC and WCTC cars, at least from my seat. The new Civics running in the TC class did lift just a bit, particularly if they bounced of the curb at the apex, showing how stiff the rear is sprung. But when they stayed away from the curb, pretty close to all four wheels on the ground, but not quite.

I have watched their RTR cars run at Mosport for over 10 years, and as of late, I never see them lift. Pics I showed after the apex are of a long very fast right hand 90 degree corner where you are at constant max g's for a long time after the apex. ALMS LMP1 cars can take that corner flat out. I looked at the Realtime cars closely at various points in that corner, from pre-apex through to post apex, and all 4 tires stay on the ground at all times. If there is any lift, it is not visible to my eye. Wish I would have had a chance to speak for a while longer to the crew member at RTR about setup.

Here is a pic at the entry to the apex on the same corner, and at the apex as well.

RR98ITR

I'll just note that most of these pics are a "let down", save for the VW.

Scott, who loves rear quarter shots of the Porsche Cayman...

Egezzy

iTrader: (2)

wrong angle same spot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yl7d6jX8nns

MBellRacing

Most cars are on-throttle at that point so a high-powered FWD car like the RTR TSX will be compliant enough to keep the rear tires pretty planted, I'd suppose. I would have liked to see turn 5 entrance and see how many cars lift wheels into there. Since all the fans that go to WC challenge races can be seen in the background of this video, there was obviously nobody down there to film.

Egezzy

iTrader: (2)

yeah did you notice who posted that video?