Help me understand...

[exwestracer]

Ben is right. The front is definitely down on both the UCA and the LCA. They are both down just a little bit; the front UCA is down 1/4" while the front LCA is down 1/8". I thought it was strange the anti-dive was setup this way, between both control arms rather than just setting the LCA level, front to rear and side to side, then lowering the rear of the UCA. This seems to make a pretty long side swing-arm length (to me anyway). Both arms canted the way they are also creates a higher side instant center which, if I understand correctly, creates the huge percentage of anti-dive, 47.3%. Herb Adams book mentions some street cars have as much as 30%, while this seems to have quite a bit more. The result of that would be the car stays level under hard braking, correct? If that's the case, to me that would be a good thing.

Ray, you mentioned the camber gain from 1" to 2" is a bit high, but since I'll only have a max compression of 2" I shouldn't be too concerned. Is that amount of camber gain going to make the car feel unstable, and if so, how can I reduce the amount of camber gain?



I may just have to spend the $250 and buy the software so I can play with some settings...

About the only way to slow the progression is to lengthen the UCA (which you said you can't do). Raising the UCA mount will slow the gain from start to finish, but you may not have enough gain at first.

If both arms are canted down toward the front (side view), and the upper is tilted more than the lower, then your IC for anti-dive is outside the wheelbase (ahead of the car), no? The anti-dive may work that way because the vehicle weight doesn't have the same leverage over the front suspension with the fulcrum that far ahead of the C/G. Interesting idea, and one I'm not familiar with. With the UCA at a higher angle, you should be losing (slight) caster on bump (and under braking), as Ben pointed out. Your simulation results don't show that, so something isn't making sense there...