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Re: Physics of having a front swaybar or not - Thanks
Dan,
Amazing response... Thanks for the detailed email... I've been on the list
for two months now and thanks to emails such as yours and many others it's
been like an intensive Scirocco 501 college course.
Thanks,
Armando
'89 1.6L MKII
>From: Dan Brideau <dan@hobbyetc.com>
>To: "Armando Pereira" <armando_pereira@hotmail.com>
>CC: scirocco-l@scirocco.org
>Subject: Re: Physics of having a front swaybar or not
>Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2000 22:39:21 -0500
>
>Armando,
>
>This is my understanding of how sway bars work:
>
>
>As a car moves through a turn, the car will want to lean, this is not the
>tough
>part to understand. As the car leans, the springs on the outside of the
>car
>will compress, and the springs on the inside will extend. This by its self
>is
>not a bad thing. A side effect of the cars lean is that the tires lean
>too.
>This is the bad part. If you can consider this in an extreme condition,
>the
>cars tires would be touching the ground on their edges. (more sophisticated
>suspension systems work to counter this, but we all have passenger cars.
>Space
>considerations prohibit the use of these set-ups in most cases.) Lets just
>assume more tire touching the ground is better. This lean in the tires is
>known as camber. (don't confuse this with caster, that is a different
>email)
>
>A sway bar is attached to a car in four places. Two points are on the
>frame of
>the car, and two points are attached very near the wheels. To illustrate
>how
>this works, if you were to jack the front of a car up, and remove the cars
>springs, you would see that lifting one front wheel will cause the opposite
>front wheel to also lift.
>
>By using a sway bar, a cars lean can be limited, while still allowing the
>cars
>wheels to move independently over bumps. As the car goes around a corner,
>the
>car will still want to lean, and the outside springs will want to compress
>and
>the inside wheels will still want to extend. The sway bar will help to
>keep
>the inside springs compressed. This is the key idea. Instead of the
>inside
>springs helping to lift the inside of the car, they will (in a very extreme
>case) compress. This will help to keep the car, and most importantly the
>tires, level with the ground. The stiffer the sway bar, the greater this
>effect will be.
>
>Here is the kink:
>Just like turning, starting and stopping the car will cause it to lean. If
>despite of the roll bars, the car still leans, the inside wheel can be
>lifted
>off the ground. When this happens, the inside tire can spin as the car
>accelerates. (again, we have passenger cars. front wheel drive is one of
>those
>things that doesn't really belong on race cars...) So you should be able
>to
>see there is a trade off. Everybody likes different things, so don't go
>crazy
>arguing what is better. Since sway bars come off with just a handful of
>bolts,
>it's easy to experiment.
>
>I'm no expert, but I've read a thing or three about suspensions. I've been
>autocrossing a few times and can say with complete confidence that the car
>is
>most often not the problem, but the driver. Make all the changes and spend
>all
>the money you want, if you hit even a single cone, your not gonna win.
>
>If anybody would like to see some diagrams with circles and arrows lemmee
>know...
>
>
>
>
>Don't forget to shake hands after your races,
>
>Dan Brideau
>http://www.hobbyetc.com/scirocco
>
>
>
> >OK I'm out of my league here but let's think about the forces involved...
> >
> >It seems swaybars would be more of an advantage for people running with
>wide
> >tires or tires with good grip.
> >
> >Would having only a rear sway bar mean that when making turns the weight
>of
> >the car moves more towards the front right or left wheel, improving
> >traction?
> >
> >How would not having swaybars affect the chamber angle? Wouldn't it be
> >effectively changing everytime you make a hard turn?
> >
> >Please correct me if I'm speaking rubish.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >>From: Shawn C Meze <skerocdriver@juno.com>
> >>To: ilium@bit-net.com
> >>CC: scirocco-l@scirocco.org
> >>Subject: Re: Prepping an 8v for AutoX
> >>Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2000 09:58:16 EST
> >>
> >>On Fri, 14 Jan 2000 08:43:41 -0800 "Flying Toaster Motorsports"
> >><ilium@bit-net.com> writes:
> >>
> >> >I don't know about that one. The 13th and 15th place finishers at
> >> >the 1999 National Championship were in an 8V Rocco with no
> >> >front bar.
> >>
> >>
> >>No disrespect intended at all, whatsoever, but, 13th and 15th place
> >>finishes are not exactly top finishers in my book. top 5 to me is the
>top
> >>finishers. I realize they might of recieved a trophy for their
>respective
> >>finish and it is an indication of the competition that ahows up at
> >>nationals but still, to me they're not top driver finishing spots.
> >>
> >>
> >> >I've been beat by this car plenty of times and it has
> >> >NFB. I've also watched this car beat Jinx Jordrdan's DSP CRX
> >> >straight up same day same course. Jinx is a multi time national
> >> >champion and this car is just about prepped to the max. I still
> >> >have nightmares about it. Only 5-6 VW's finsihed ahead of them,
> >> >so they must be doing something right.
> >>
> >>
> >>Just think of how much better they can do to with a big front bar! :)
> >>
> >>OK, fun aside, to reiterate what I said earlier, you can compensate for
> >>not having a front swaybar with stiffer springs. This is probably what
> >>they have done AND it kind ofworks for them. I dont know what else
> >>they've done to their cars but it makes me wonder what they could of
>done
> >>with a swaybar installed?
> >>
> >>
> >>Shawn Meze
> >>86' Jetta GLi 82' Scirocco GTi 81' "Project Scirocco FSP"
> >>The Fastest, Quickest, Cleanest and
> >>best looking Scirocco in all of San Diego!
> >>http://www.Geocities.com/MotorCity/Speedway/1308/index.htm
> >>
> >>________________________________________________________________
> >>YOU'RE PAYING TOO MUCH FOR THE INTERNET!
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> >>Try it today - there's no risk! For your FREE software, visit:
> >>http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.
> >>
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> >>
> >
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