Hasse
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| posted on 12/10/05 at 01:21 PM |
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Anti roll bar?
Hi,
I´ve been thinking of making a front anti roll bar, since my car seems to have a bit over stearing. My knowledge about these are however very limited,
so.. any suggestions on how to proceed?
Are you using anti roll bars?
Anybody knowing of how the ones on the Caterhams are designed? Dimmensions, material and so on.
Hasse
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gustavo_brum
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| posted on 12/10/05 at 02:36 PM |
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stiffening front springs and softening the rear might do and you won´t go through the trouble of welding brackets and such. Unless the front is
already too stiff. Increasing compression damping of the front shocks also simulates stiffer springs. This will make the front end slip more.
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britishtrident
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| posted on 12/10/05 at 03:56 PM |
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First question what spring rates are do you have ? Most Locost seem to be set up too stiff at the rear it may be that the best approach is to fit
softer the rear springs rather than stiffen the front by fitting an anti-roll bar. Whatever you do only change one end of the car at a time. On a
very light car provided the chassis is stiff enough and nothing is grossly wrong with the suspension geometry a small change in spring rate should
make a big difference in the balance of the car.
But if you want to fit a bar I would consider getting special bolts made up for the bottom of the front damper units that will take the anti-roll bar
links.
It is really not a good idea to stiffen the front dampers up to try to reduce oversteer, while it may reduce intial steering response making the
turn-in less sharp it won't alter the constant radius oversteer/understeer balance at all and especially on a very light car like a Locost
going a couple of clicks too hard on the damping can cause total and complete loss of control in the blink of an eye.
[Edited on 12/10/05 by britishtrident]
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JB
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| posted on 12/10/05 at 06:26 PM |
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Springs and bars
Ideally you should run the softest springs you can (front and rear) so you do not ground the chassis all of the time or hit the bump stops all of the
time. This will theoretically give you the most grip.
To balance the car add front bar until it is nuetrally balanced.
If you get it balanced but it still rolls too much, then up the spring rates all round by equal amounts, (to retain the balance).
I would avoid using a rear bar as it will sacrifice power on grip.
Making you own bars is tricky. An anti roll bar is effectively a torsion bar spring so should be made of a spring steel. You can get away with mild
steel if you do not approach the yeild of the steel, ie a long bar with long arms (so effectivly the bar doesnt actually twist much).
Dampers is another story.......
John
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ChrisGamlin
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| posted on 12/10/05 at 06:46 PM |
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Also check your front and rear ride heights, if its too high at the back then that will reduce grip at the back.
I recently dropped mine 1/2" at the back as an experiment and I can honestly say that it's the single biggest improvement Ive ever made to
improve rear end grip, and that includes upgrading to tarty dampers, putting in an LSD, trying different spring rates, and adding a front ARB
Chris
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britishtrident
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| posted on 12/10/05 at 08:22 PM |
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How soft you can go on the front is to large extent limmited by how well bump steer is sorted out on you car.
Unlike a coil spring with an anti-roll bar mild steel is generally OK as a material because the strain is usually works out just within the elastic
limmit of mild steel.
[Edited on 12/10/05 by britishtrident]
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Hasse
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| posted on 13/10/05 at 10:05 AM |
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Thanks for your replies!
My car is a very standard "book build" with a 1600X-flow. Dry weight is 540kg with almost 50/50 distribution front/rear when empty. The
dampers are "Nitrons" specified to 275 lbs front and 175 lbs rear.
Any opinions on the choosen springs?
/Hasse
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