Understanding vehicle dynamics through curiosity, not myths.
When it comes to suspension arms, you often hear people say that longer arms are better. But is that really true? Intuitively, it seems like longer arms should result in less change in the camber angle, so it’s easy to see why people think they’re better. Today, let’s take a look at the specific effects … Read more
When setting up rear-wheel-drive cars, I sometimes hear people say that they use bump stops at the rear to gain traction. I used to think, “If the rear hits the bump stops and that increases the rear suspension’s effective spring rate, wouldn’t that actually reduce rear tire grip?” I couldn’t really make sense of it. … Read more
Load transfer is important in circuit driving, right? Although its importance is widely recognized, both from a driving and mechanical perspective, I think relatively few people have actually calculated how the load on each individual wheel changes as a result of load transfer. Compared with something like calculating damper stroke at 1G, calculating the amount … Read more
One common explanation of the friction circle that you often hear goes something like this: “The friction circle isn’t a perfect circle, but is closer to an ellipse that is elongated in the vertical direction. In other words, tires can generate more force longitudinally than laterally.” I don’t even know what my reasoning was, but … Read more
You may have heard the term “short-stroke modification” come up from time to time when people talk about suspension. It seems to be commonly done to prevent the spring from becoming unseated after lowering the ride height, but what exactly does it involve? Today, I’m going to show you, with some diagrams, what happens to … Read more
The other day, I was reading an article about damper damping force and the spring characteristics of tires. I found it very interesting and informative. Here are a few of the key points: The article also included a discussion between people from manufacturers and tuners about how to deal with the latter issue. When I … Read more
When it comes to how springs work, I think most of you are probably familiar with the relationship between load, spring rate, and displacement, and may have even calculated it yourselves at some point. But figuring out how fast a spring moves is probably not something most people are familiar with. Because of that, you … Read more
The other day, I was watching a video explaining what happens to roll center when you lower a car, and something caught my attention. The basic argument is, “People say lowering the car messes up the roll center and all that, but in reality, you’re also running stiffer springs, so you don’t really need to … Read more
There is something I occasionally see written about tender springs that has always bothered me. “With a lower spring rate, the suspension has less force pushing the wheel outward, so less load remains on the tire.” Isn’t that actually the opposite of what happens? Rather, when the front and rear spring rates are different, the … Read more
Field of the Invention The present invention relates to the rear suspension of the NA/NB Mazda MX-5 Miata, and more particularly to a method for determining, with a reasonably practical level of accuracy, how much clearance remains before the upper control arm contacts the vehicle body. Background of the Invention A known method for checking … Read more