Suspension Tech Help

[Nayr747]

Anyone know a good suspension tech Faq? Something that explains all the workings and parts in detail. Like for starters, I'm confused about all the different names and purposes of some stuff. What's the diff between dampers, shocks, struts, etc. And what is the specific purpose of springs and shocks. I mean I've heard an explanation but I just dont get it. And what's the deal with coil-overs? Are they srings? Are they shocks? On RRE, they dont even have coil-overs. Are they just basically adjustible height springs? On a lot of the cars I've seen in the SCC Challenges, they just list coil-overs, so they must do something, right?

[JoeWagon]

I don't know if one exists. The suspension section of dsmtuners will show good brands/setups, but I'm not even sure if any posts are going to explain the whole shebang. You might try, though. Even though it's more general, you might try to read some automotive info on like howstuffworks.com on suspension.

Some of the quickly answered stuff is this. Coil-overs are just springs around shocks. There are sleeve type coilover setups where you buy them separately and put them together. Pretty common. You can also pick up coil overs as one piece, like some of the extremely high end JIC FLT-A2's. They are usually better than the mix and match. Some coilovers are adjustable, and some are not.

More basic, springs hold the car off of the wheels. It's mostly for comfort, where as a Ferrari F50 may have stiff suspension that makes it feel like you have no travel at all. Shocks are to stop the springs from bouncing around. A good shock should let a spring bounce 1.5 times before it stops. That's what they say anyway.

[Nayr747]

Hey thanks for the info. I'll check out how stuff works. What about the dampers/shocks/struts difference? Anyone got a short answer?

[kjewer1]

There is a page either in the vfaq or on the dsm.org site called the 2g turning harder page. Explains a bunch of the terms and concepts. Might help a little...

[JoeWagon]

Oh yeah I remember that one, Jumptronix 2g turn faster. Right here: http://www.jumptronix.com/2g_go_fast...turnfaster.htm

[kjewer1]

Hmm, thats a different one. I Was thinking of the ones here, but they dont seem to be working.

http://www.dsm.org/whatsnew.epl

Oh well... Another good source of info, gone down the shitter. Maybe its jsut being updated or something..

HA! Found it on the vfaqs. Thought it might be there.

http://www.vfaq.com/mods/macross/2GTurn.html
http://www.mckeone.net/steering.html

Plenty of other pages there that explain how to do various suspension mods, should all be good reading if you're looking for an overview of the terms and how these things work. www.vfaq.com, suspension section. Enjoy.