Hi, confused here as I have read 3 books now which all say/show something different in relation to the wishbone pick up points for the front
suspension.
Build Your Own Car For £250 seems to have the brackets horizontal.
Build Your Own Tiger Avon has the brackets angled up towards the front of the car
The Sports Cars & Kit Car Suspension & Brakes manual has them sloping downwards to the front of the car.
The latter is to achieve anti-dive and therefore better handling.
Having never done this before can anyone agree with any of the above and recommend a good route to go?
For a road car parallel, no anti dive/squat.
I have 5 deg anti dive in mine still building though. the wishbones follow the 3rd case so that when you brake the forward momentum of the car has a component (circa 8.5%) that is trying to lift the nose of the car. Why avon has it the other way defeats me.
It depends on which wishbone is angled. Anti-dive is caused by:
- upper wishbone sloping down towards rear of car
- lower wishbone sloping up towards rear of the car.
A roadcar generally has anti-dive (and anti-squat at the rear)
Or both top and bottom wishbone sloping up towards the rear of the car.
It is really best not to use anti-dive as it can have undesirable side effects and really not required on a light stiffly sprung car with a very low
Cg
A small amount of anti-squat on the rear is more often used as it tends to have less side effects.
[Edited on 3/5/10 by britishtrident]
my chassis (SHP say it has anti dive facility fitted) can have the wishbone sloping downwards to the front of the car for anti dive, or horizontal if you don't want anti dive working
In small, lightweight RWD cars where the CoM is back in the car, dive is often to your advantage. Hence soft springs and large ARBs work well.
Saying anti-dive gives better handling without any idea of the setup of the rest of the car is a bit dangerous really.
sorry phelpsa, what I was meaning was that the anti dive element should give a car better handling when under hard braking as the front wheels should
be in the best position for max grip - as far as I understand, a car that dives at the front under braking would change the camber and toe out of the
wheels and therefore not brake as effectively.
I'm only going off what I've read, and will welcome any further comments as I am still learning about this!!
quote:
Originally posted by thegodplato
sorry phelpsa, what I was meaning was that the anti dive element should give a car better handling when under hard braking as the front wheels should be in the best position for max grip - as far as I understand, a car that dives at the front under braking would change the camber and toe out of the wheels and therefore not brake as effectively.
I'm only going off what I've read, and will welcome any further comments as I am still learning about this!!
quote:
Originally posted by thegodplato
sorry phelpsa, what I was meaning was that the anti dive element should give a car better handling when under hard braking as the front wheels should be in the best position for max grip - as far as I understand, a car that dives at the front under braking would change the camber and toe out of the wheels and therefore not brake as effectively.
I'm only going off what I've read, and will welcome any further comments as I am still learning about this!!