Ideal Suspension

[Young Gun]

I know this seems like a simple question for some of you, but I was thinking about it and if the focus of your build is for your car to achievce the absolutely best handling possible, what does that mean for components? What benefits does each subframe have? control arms? spindles? coil overs? Anything and everything, what setup would give you that ride we all dream about? If somebody wants to send me a site I can read to learn about all if that is fine.

And yes I did read the hardcore sticky (https://www.pro-touring.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7314)

I thought it could be interesting to see what everybody thinks/ the reasoning for it.

[79T/Aman]

What type of car are we talking about? and the next question is how much money you got?

[Young Gun]

Im posing a hypothetical question. And to make things interesting lets say no price limit?

[mjoc1]

Price no limit. Just go and buy a Bugatti. Everything we all dream about is in that car.

Mike

[seekins]

I hope to get this out of jake's front and rear setup in my 68'. Lots of great looking suspension out there, but i think jake's is going to be hard core and exactly what im looking for.

[JRouche]

The only way you can determine an ideal suspension is to know exactly what road that suspension is going to be used on.

When I hear ideal Im thinking you want the best performance? Comfort aside right? Cause the ideal suspension for a limo wont be ideal for a track car, and the track car suspension wont be ideal for a limo.

So we are talking about a track car? Maybe track and street roads? If its track and street there is NO such thing as ideal. There is compromise though. The Ideal compromise.

Always a compromise when you take a street car to the track or a track car to the streets.

If its a dedicated track car it might be so stiff that the less than smooth streets will literally bump you right off the road trying to pass that honda.

And the same when you take that compliant, bump jugernaugh of a street car to the track. It will be too soft and not allow you to take the transitions as fast as the stiff car.

So its a compromise if you have a dual purpose car. And you may think, well no kidding dude, thats what I meant. But I only want to clarify it cause really, there are alot of folks here that have purpose built track cars.

There is NO such thing as an ideal suspension unless the car is used on a track, a race course, that has a known surface and angle. And then even when those variables are known the race car builders are still looking for the ideal suspension.

So there is some useless info right.. LOL Yeah, its a question that cant be answered.

But... Look at some of the modern production car suspensions. The auto industry spends millions looking for the best compromise. Steal their hard work and research.

Look at some of the cars that do well on the street and track... Corvette comes to mind. Porsche does too. And the Viper does also. Look at the 24 hours of Le Mans race (my favorite race). See what cars are up there. Their suspensions are still pretty rough for the street. But they do have a certain amount of compliance, its a rough course usually. A de-tuned variant of any of those cars would be a contender IMO.. JR

[JohnUlaszek]

Pick a car, find a suspension expert, tell them to pick the optimal geometry for the wheelbase and track width of that car and cut the floor out and and start engineering in the geometry.

[79T/Aman]

hypothetical questions are easy, the best suspension is one that does not over load the tire as to make them loose their grip...now you know what the best suspension system is...and no I'm not being a smart A**

[-DA]

Ya, but the question is what kind of suspension set-up will allow you to optimize the grip of all four tires simultaneously. You've only got four so if you lift one of them you lose 25% of your cornering ability.

As for choosing a design, I've always understood it as you gotta have kinematic control of your suspension. As maximizing your grip is the name of the game and suspension lives in a dynamic environment, you need tunability and geometry design freedom. Otherwise, you're limiting yourself before you even turn the ignition.

If you have info about the tires like slip ratio and spring/damping rates then you can design and calculate exactly what position the tire needs to be in given it's vertical load to maximize it's lateral grip. Of course, there are many other characteristics to consider like anti-dive/anti-squat, roll gradients, spring rates, damper response, steering, physical dimensions, weight distribution and CG height all which mush into a big headache as you try to optimize the entire system for a 3500 lb / 30" CG height muscle car. But again, which suspension allows for this?

If you look at high performance cars you'll find many independent short-long arm style suspensions at all four corners. These allow for the most design freedom regarding each of the different aspects you want to control as to meet your requirements. They leave most every parameter independent of each other allowing you to design them to fit your car. From there on out it's just an application issue... as in, which parts are the lightest, do the job most efficiently and effectively, and allow for tuning in the package you need?

As you dig into other suspension designs you'll always find significant drawbacks and limitations to controlling your geometry (think live axle issues with camber control and whatnot).

-DA

[formula]

I would like.....THIS ONE! They can just drape a carbon fiber verion of my car's body over it. Done and done.

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