On this particular vehicle there is a line of some sort. I've drawn in (green) on the picture below of the location.

I'm scratching my head on this one. It doesn't appear to be for tire pressures...I'm thinking maybe some kind of grounding?

 

electrical wire or what? could be the wire to control the shocks for those rally springs.

 

take off the line you draw so we can see it

 

this one


and this one


Looks the same, and if you look the bigger pic http://www.imagestation.com/picture/...b.jpg.orig.jpg

you cant see it, it's your pic taken on 2003? cuz the one i have is 2002

 

I've seen them, and I know what you're talking about.

I believe it's to adjust the tire pressure on the fly.

 

they take it off for certain stages. It's in the dunes that they really use it.

 

i can't see it, but rally computers use a pickup that goes to a wheel hub and counts how many times it spins. for all the rally computing. i can't tell with the giant green line there though.

 

yeah, but those senders are attached to a stationary object, (like a control arm), not a rotating piece.

Here are some pictures of other cars that have them:






[Modified by martini, 10:00 AM 1/17/2003]


[Modified by martini, 10:03 AM 1/17/2003]


[Modified by martini, 10:07 AM 1/17/2003]

 

yes...now i see.
i have no idea, based on pure width and tubing type it is carrying air or something similar though. i say it's for tire pressure on the fly.

 

that it's what they usually are, i don't think they go to a sensor, i think they are tire presure changers, cus if you think about it, they could place a speed sensor inside the well near the brake to get that measure, so my vote goes to air pressure line

 

I think those are just to keep the wheels from swinging down when they catch air. You don't want your shocks to fully extend in mid air, because then your dampening is all jacked up.

 

if that were the case, they would put them on all four tires, and would keep them there for the entire race.

Plus, why would you go through all the trouble of mounting them to a rotating pieces (the wheel) when you could just as easily mount it to, say, a lower control arm?

 

your talking about a limiting strap, those arent limiting straps.

 

great pictures martini

it makes sense for tire pressures...but they don't have them on every stage.

 

its not really rotating, just like on the hummers, they have adjustable pressure lines just like the ones in the rally cars,..

 

Damn,

Didn't any of you guys watch ever single Dakar rally episode this year like I did?

Those are for inflating and deflating the tires on the fly, during oh, about day 14-17, right in there they had a nice in-depth explanation. What is interesting is that a lot of the cars do it different ways... Some put the air through the hub bearing and up through a hole in one of the spokes, and some teams use the little tubes you're seeing there.

They only use those tube ones I think when it is a stage that will have quite a few dunes, which is where cars tend to get stuck and need to inflate or deflate the tires to help.

And yeah, you'd never need to put a sensor on the wheel for a rally computer... most speed sensors use basically a magnet that is attached to the rim, rotating part and a sensor that is on the car to pick up the rotations. I believe the honda speed sensors are optical, but same premise.

 

 

One more thing the reason the VW only hase them on two wheels is because it is a two wheel drive

 

I assume you saw the tech piece about this very subject, right Rotten? God, the coverage was awesome! Toby Moody is the man!

Anyway, the X5 had the air passage routed up through the wheel spoke. They said, since the wheels had such a high magnesium content, and it being such a pourous metal, that they had problems losing air through the wheel spoke.

 

Thank you! must have missed that one.