363 replies to this topic

[Spitfire Engineering]

Change it to chrome! Lol

you just wait, fitting one next week, you want to guess the colour?
having said that it has changed twice in a week!

What about £1 in and the winner collects?
Of course i shall not be voting

[chris_uk]

Pink

[rob999]

Yellow...or cf.

[techieboy]

or a combination

[JG]

Orange

[chris_uk]

I should really drive a vx with a cornering force setup, see what all the fuss is about.

[techieboy]

I should really drive a vx with a cornering force setup, see what all the fuss is about.

Suddenly all offers of "come and have a drive and see what you think" evaporate......

[SteveA]

I should really drive a vx with a cornering force setup, see what all the fuss is about.

More than willing to do a swap with you for a few laps on a track day Chris.

[Bumblebee]

Has the op decided which arb he's going for?

Edited by Bumblebee, 14 March 2013 - 01:28 PM.

[chris_uk]

I should really drive a vx with a cornering force setup, see what all the fuss is about.

More than willing to do a swap with you for a few laps on a track day Chris.

Aye sounds good.

[chris_uk]

I should really drive a vx with a cornering force setup, see what all the fuss is about.

Suddenly all offers of "come and have a drive and see what you think" evaporate...... :P/> :lol:/>

Cheers! Lol, tbh lots of members have trusted me with their cars.. Just none with a cf setup. Even 5oc trusted me with his black exige..

[Bumblebee]

Ive let Chris drive mine and it came back in one piece

[SimonR]

Interesting stuff, thanks Chris.
You have met Simon of course so the maths goes without saying as that is what he really does, usually at the top end. If I go out with him for the day I'm usually out of my depth by the time we hit the bypass.
The blade of course does not take the full load (or should not do) it just trims the rate of the entire assembly, but to match the curves of the two individual components and then in combination so they work in harmony takes quite a bit of maths.
There is no life to a blade, if it is correctly designed to the application and manufactured to spec it should never fail no matter how rough or to what range of movement the suspension is subjected to.
The real beauty for me is it takes 10 seconds to adjust and in increments almost unnoticeable so you can stop every circuit or even every 100m and tweak before everything gets cold.


I say cold, no doubt Simon will appear to tell us the tyre temperature drops as soon as you stop working it, so by the time you get back to the pits you have little useful information.

Pffff

I have every respect for Simon's work, clearly a very bright guy. My Maths is terrible so I take the other approach which is lots of track testing, essentially educated trial and error (which is still very hard to beat if the driver knows his onions). Taking the practical approach, I struggle to see how the blade setup would give a linear distortion and rate at high angularity. Would be interesting to model it and see the results, I might be completely wrong. The CF kit does look nicely made and i'm sure the lifespan is fantastic. Its the rear bar that I struggle with as I've tried them on a number of occasions and find they load up the tyre to aggressively and don't allow it to reach its full grip limit. Maybe it responds to different driving style?

Hi Chris

the blade deflection with angle is interesting and something we test for each new application. i thought you'd be interested in a graph showing ARB rate v blade angle of one of our twin blade bars (BMW E36 racing spec) so you can see that it isnt linear but does give a wide range of adjustment with very fine resolution.

the two lines represent one blade soft and the other going from soft to hard in 10 deg increments, then the other one hard etc - so this bar goes from 300-500 lb/in.

 blade deflection.JPG   36.68KB   1 downloads

these things can never just be designed, built and then forgotten - it is essential to go testing with data and driver feedback.

i hope thats interesting.

cheers

Simon

[Korkey]

Reply to Spitfire Engineering. Yes I have driven with all sorts of set ups on the chassis. But, lets cut to the chase. As has been kind of been suggested to by Scuffers. What we need here is a "datum" car. This can be any engine specification N/A or turbo. Would be best with standard components to the chassis but not compulsory. We then need a consistent capable driver. Post the lap times of the "datum" car and then repeat with the "add-on". I feel that this is the best that we could achieve in the real world. If no one would come forward with a car and driver, I would offer my car and driving for the test. I will not however be paying for the "add-on" or the labour. However I do not race anywhere as much as I use to and so a more active driver would be better than me. But the producers of such "add-ons" could then prove their merits or not. They can choose their car and driver of course. Their impartial honesty is a given. From the collected data we should be able to ascertain if there is any derived benefit from the "add-on" component. Also IF there is a benefit, a true reduction in lap times, then the costing of the cheapest through to the dearest can be scrutinised also. And of course the way in which it affects the road drivability of the car. This may seem like a real fap about, but unless someone does this it's all pub talk and bollocks. Regards. Korkey.

[Spitfire Engineering]

Reply to Spitfire Engineering.
Yes I have driven with all sorts of set ups on the chassis.
But, lets cut to the chase. As has been kind of been suggested to by Scuffers.

What we need here is a "datum" car.
This can be any engine specification N/A or turbo.
Would be best with standard components to the chassis but not compulsory.

We then need a consistent capable driver.
Post the lap times of the "datum" car and then repeat with the "add-on".

I feel that this is the best that we could achieve in the real world.
If no one would come forward with a car and driver,
I would offer my car and driving for the test. I will not however be paying for the "add-on" or the labour.
However I do not race anywhere as much as I use to and so a more active driver would be better than me.
But the producers of such "add-ons" could then prove their merits or not. They can choose their car and driver of course. Their impartial honesty is a given.

From the collected data we should be able to ascertain if there is any derived benefit from the "add-on" component.
Also IF there is a benefit, a true reduction in lap times, then the costing of the cheapest through to the dearest can be scrutinised also. And of course the way in which it affects the road drivability of the car.

This may seem like a real fap about, but unless someone does this it's all pub talk and bollocks.

Regards.
Korkey.

Sorry, clearly I am not making my comments clear.
It isn't an add on.
Is the "yes" above a reference to the fact you have driven a vehicle with the CF setup?

[2-20]

I'd like to see time comparaison on a portion of bumpy road. After all this is where the CF setup is supposed to be better if i understand correctly it's purpose.

[Korkey]

I have driven a VXturbo with what I was told was a CF package "add-on" ( anything which is not as the car left the factory) at Goodwood circuit. If I was quicker or not to other laps done at Goodwood I do not know as we did not time the runs that day. This however does not change the need for PROVEN data as against talk. Korkey.

[siztenboots]

option b> for the amount of money that a CF costs plus fitting and setup , spend that on engine mods / bigger turbo hybrid and you will be quicker.

[chris_uk]

id buy decent tyres first. id guarantee a standard na or tubby with semi slicks will be faster, than the same car with any mod for the same price.

Edited by chris_uk, 14 March 2013 - 06:39 PM.

[Spitfire Engineering]

I have driven a VXturbo with what I was told was a CF package "add-on" ( anything which is not as the car left the factory) at Goodwood circuit.
If I was quicker or not to other laps done at Goodwood I do not know as we did not time the runs that day.

This however does not change the need for PROVEN data as against talk.

Korkey.

OK, well not sure what you were told or what impression you got, as mentioned a few times in this thread it is a complete suspension setup including springs, re-valved dampers and ARB's.
As Simon mentioned, this setup and what all those with it fitted commented on, is for road and track use not out and out racing, (there is a setup for that if you wished) so I am not sure what proven data you would wish to see?

I can tell you that the first car we worked on, Paul Munnings' while being data logged before work started, I tool several minutes of video of the car on track and it was clear that for a large amount of time the car was airborne, as the drivetrain, brakes and steering are ineffective for those periods it was not suprising that this car was considerably quicker after the conversion, not because it was setup to be a race car but because the suspension was allowed to do it's job.

Why don't you just try it? plenty of offers above.