double wishbone vs. struts

whats your opinion on it? do you think there is enough of a difference in your opinion that it matters? well most engineers would say that the double wishbone setup is better for performance, but you think struts do a good a enough job that there isnt much of difference? like the 91-95 mr2s have struts all around, and people say it handles really good, the wrx sti has struts all around, also a good handling car. bmw cars usually only use struts on the front, so does the evo, porsche, and the 240sx, which are all known for handling. do you think there are advantages for using multilink rear/struts on front, instead of struts all around? honda integras use double wishbone all around, and they beat rwd cars that are faster. the fd3s rx-7 has double wishbone all around, and they re always winning on the track against cars in its class. the s2000, corvette z06, and the 350z also has double wishbone all around, and they re known for good handling. i want to know everyones opinion on this.

i think ultimatelly the double wishbone setup is superior but that doesn't mean that the strut/multilink setup is bad

for example i would put any posrche or evo with struts/multilink against any double wishbone integra any time

yea true, so would i, but the integra is front wheel drive, although its quick on the track, its not rwd, or awd like the evo, and porsche, plus its a lot slower than both of them. what if you had to go with a rwd car with double whishbone all around? a car thats actually in the same class.

also, what about struts front/multilink rear vs. struts all around?

yea true, so would i, but the integra is front wheel drive, although its quick on the track, its not rwd, or awd like the evo, and porsche, plus its a lot slower than both of them. what if you had to go with a rwd car with double whishbone all around? a car thats actually in the same class.

also, what about struts front/multilink rear vs. struts all around?


as i said i do consider the wishbone setup better but i just wanted to point out that the strut/multilink can be setup for great handling

and about your second question...not many cars have struts all around type setup...at least i don't think so....i think the new USDM STi has it...and it handles pretty good but not as good as the evo with struts/multilink

here are some cars with struts all around, the mazdaspeed protege, dodge srt-4, celica all track, and some of the earlier celicas.

here are some cars with struts all around, the mazdaspeed protege, dodge srt-4, celica all track, and some of the earlier celicas.


oh cool did not know that they had struts all around....since they are pretty good handling cars(especially the mazdaspeed) seem like this setup has pretty good potential too

The USDM STi is a 4-strut car. Double wishbone is a better design, but strut suspensions make it easier (and thus less expensive) to assemble the cars, which is why it shows up more often. C4 and C5 Corvettes adn Miatas both are double wishbone cars F&R, to add a few more common examples to that list.

all the gen mr2s basically has struts all around, or chapman struts for the rear. if you look at my first post, i have some cars listed in there with certain type suspension setups.

Apples vs oranges?

Double wishbone is a type of suspension, strut is a type of damper - AFAIK, of course.

Struts are a type of damper, but in a strut suspension the damper serves as a load bearing suspension locating point, and in a doulbe wishbone suspension, they do not. Basically, if you take a strut out of a car, the rest of the suspension has an extra degree of freedom and will move in a direction it won't when the strut is in. In a double wishbone suspension, if you remove the shock absorber, the suspension will still be restricted to move as it would if the shock was in the car. There are several different types of strut suspension (McPherson and Chapman struts being the most popular), and shock suspension, which can range from the VW Bug swing axle to the torsion bar suspension to the double wishbone suspension.

Struts are a type of damper, but in a strut suspension the damper serves as a load bearing suspension locating point, and in a doulbe wishbone suspension, they do not. Basically, if you take a strut out of a car, the rest of the suspension has an extra degree of freedom and will move in a direction it won't when the strut is in. In a double wishbone suspension, if you remove the shock absorber, the suspension will still be restricted to move as it would if the shock was in the car. There are several different types of strut suspension (McPherson and Chapman struts being the most popular), and shock suspension, which can range from the VW Bug swing axle to the torsion bar suspension to the double wishbone suspension.


what kfoote said :)

In the case of racingcars circle track cars tend to use double wishbones but rallycars tend to use struts with single wishbones.

I like coilovers myself.

shocks, and struts are types of dampers, the shock only does damping, while struts do damping, and serves as the upper arm, so its called a strut type suspension. the bottom of the strut is bolted to the hub without a joint, while shocks have a joint at the bottom. double wishbone has upper, and lower arm holding the hub, and the shocks doing the damping. struts only has a lower arm holding the hub, the strut doing both holding of the hub, and damping. struts eliminates the upper arm. there are different types of double wishbone suspension, just like there are different types of strut type suspensions, one example of a double wishbone suspension would be hondas 5 link rear suspension, known to be one of the most effective designs in the world.

The McPherson Strut Suspension design consists of a strut with integrated spring and damper unit with a lateral control arm. The original MacStrut layout used the anti-roll bar to assist in longitudinal control.

It's named after the inventor Earl McPherson and was developed in the 1940s.

In theory, the McStrut does not have the same level of achievable camber and toe control through its travel as unequal length double arm wishbone suspension

...and it potentially has issues with momentary stiction on the strut in compression. Also the strut needs to be relatively long - Colin Chapman of Lotus experimented with short struts but couldn't get them to work satisfactorily. This may be part of the reason Honda looked at wishbones esp with the low cowl heights that Honda had in the 80s and 90s.

However, McStruts are cheap, pretty light, easy to make and can be tuned to do a reasonable job. Having said that Porsche used swing arms in its early cars which are devilish things and the 'Vette uses a tranverse leaf spring...

replicant, nice post, about the only thing I can add is that the McPherson Strut suspension is also significantly easier and quicker to assemble on an assembly line than most other types of suspension, resulting in lower manufacturing costs.

I'll also throw in that many Porsches use torsion bar suspensions (and the same ones at that, the rear torsion bars from a 944 are a direct bolt in to the 356), which are another animal entirely.