Stiffer Anti Rollbar

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Re: Stiffer Anti Rollbar

Postby RayD » Tue 23.09.2008, 20:33

Kuching wrote:... I’ll spare you my theories on vehicle dynamics


Don't do that Simon,

The thread started with a lack of understanding. It's all helpful. :D

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Re: Stiffer Anti Rollbar

Postby bobbrown » Tue 23.09.2008, 23:45

Kuching wrote:I’ve just caught up with this thread and it sounds like its getting quite interesting – especially for me as I have a bit of previous with such matters, and as Brian was ‘kind’ enough mention me, I probably ought to reply.

I often hear misconceptions about anti-roll bars and how they work but I’ll spare you my theories on vehicle dynamics because ultimately the spec is defined by what works on the track, regardless of what the maths tells you.

Having stuck my head under the back end of the car and it looks to me like it would be fairly simple to produce a stiffer version. Adjustable blades would be nice but would probably cost in excess of £1000 a set, so may not be practical. I’m thinking of a range of interchangeable tubular centre sections mounted onto fabricated arms. The arms could have 2 or 3 alternative hole positions at the upright end to change the effective lever-arm length (similar to what Brian suggested) and act as a fine adjustment. Once this has been tested and we have a better idea of the optimum stiffness, the design could be simplified with perhaps no need for interchangeable tubes.

I'll knock up a scheme when I get chance and post it on the thread.


Your thoughts are not that different to mine but there is the factor of cost which any of this work will entail.
The anti roll bars would be easier if they did not have the drop links as this requires a brackets welded to the bar and one assumes heat treatment after the welding has been done.
My idea of just clamping a bar along side the existing bar was just to get the rate required as plain bars bent to the correct shape should not cost a fortune to make, Then once the figure has been established a roll bar could be made.
As for you suggestion of adjustable blades is quite a nice one as you could make it so the blade could be turned to give a variation in rate,seen this done on rally cars, megane sprngs to mind, moving it to change from gravel to tarmac if memory serves.

I have the springs and shocks at Eibach at present awaiting them comming back to me with an option for increased spring rates utilising racing springs as this keeps the cost down.

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Re: Stiffer Anti Rollbar

Postby bobbrown » Wed 24.09.2008, 00:31

I have ben looking in to how to get around the issue of the welded on brackets and think I have a solution
arb-sc-14.jpg

upside down in our case, bar goes through the hole and the drop link bolts through the other part.
This fits over the roll bar and is locked by a grub screw, if this did not do around the bends then I'm sure some thing else of a similar nature could be made up.
All done to cut the cost of welding to a roll bar which would then need to be heat treated
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Re: Stiffer Anti Rollbar

Postby Kuching » Wed 24.09.2008, 19:17

Well, seeing as I was asked, here are some of my thoughts on suspension theory. I don’t claim to be an authority on the subject so I’m quite prepared to be shot down by anyone with greater knowledge than myself.

One of the main misconceptions is that stiffer springs necessarily make a car handle better. In fact, from a fundamental point of view, the reverse is true. In theory, if you had unlimited vertical wheel travel (ignoring un-sprung inertia), you could create a ‘perfect’ suspension system. The aim, therefore, should be to set up the car with the softest springs that you can get away with for the conditions and therefore allow the greatest possible amount of wheel travel before the chassis hits the ground. The downside of this is that as you go softer on the springs, the ride height of the chassis must be raised to compensate, which of course raises the centre of gravity and in turn increases the load transfer when cornering, braking or accelerating.

There are a couple of exceptions to this, for example; where a car relies on under-body aerodynamics - such as an F1 car - it is likely that the optimal aero efficiency is found only in a very narrow band of ride height and therefore the engineer will aim to reduce the vertical travel to stay within that band as far as possible. Another exception is a vehicle with relatively poor suspension geometry, such as a McPherson strut with a short TCA. In this case the wheel attitude becomes compromised with large displacements, defeating any gains made from the increased travel.

Lets just think a minute about why load transfer is important, after all (in steady-state at least), the sum of the loads on the four contact patches is the same however much of the load is transferred to the outside wheels. The reason is tyre performance; as the load on the tyre increases, the potential grip will increase relatively, but this is not a linear relationship so the sum of the grip of the four contact patches actually reduces as the load transfer increases. This is why we aim to have the centre of gravity as low as possible.

So what part does an anti-roll bar play in this? Well firstly we should be clear about what function the ARB is performing. Body roll isn’t necessarily a bad thing, in fact it would be quite easy with double wishbone suspension to create geometry that produces zero or negative body roll even without ARB’s, but some degree of roll is useful to give the driver feedback on the behaviour of the car. Nor does it have much effect on the load transfer – this is essentially a product of lateral acceleration and CofG height. What it does do is changes the effective spring rate that the wheel ‘sees’ as the chassis goes into roll by allowing it to ‘borrow’ some stiffness from the inside corner. The advantage of this is that we can now run relatively soft springs to react heave (normal vertical displacement), but effectively increase the spring rate when cornering, allowing us to reduce the ride height without grounding the chassis.

Sorry if this sounds like a lecture (especially to those who know better), but sometimes its better to think things through from first principles rather than just meddling.
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Re: Stiffer Anti Rollbar

Postby RayD » Wed 24.09.2008, 20:07

Thank you for that Simon,

Taking Nige’s picture as an example, while it might be an illusion it looks as if the rear inside wheel has gone up almost in unison with the outside rear, and already borrowed the available amount of help from the inner spring.

If it had an ARB of say twice the strength, I imagine the picture would look the same but with the inner wheel further from the ground.

Is it certain that the car would handle better if the rear ARB was stiffer than it is now, and in what way...I wonder.

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Re: Stiffer Anti Rollbar

Postby bobbrown » Wed 24.09.2008, 20:30

This could get very complex as the whole subject is very complex and subjective.

Suspension tuning, as that is what we are really talking about here, as I would expect Lotus to have got it right for a road car.
For a track car this becomes a slightly different animal as it then depends on how much of a track car you want and how much of the road characteristics you are willing to sacrifice.
Lets not also forget that the car is setup for anyone to drive independant of their skills.

"One of the main misconceptions is that stiffer springs necessarily make a car handle better" that depends on where you are starting from, if the car is already too soft going softer will make things worse, if it is to stiff then softer springs will improve handling.
Springs are there to control the movement of the wheels relative to the chassis and keep the tyre in contact with the road surface (easy so far). Increasing the spring stiffness front and rear will reduce body roll and make handling more responsive but if taken too far can cause the car to lose traction over bumpy surfaces. The converse is also true if you soften the springs then you get better grip over the bumps but increase roll and reduce responsiveness.
If you take the differences between a rally car (gravel) and a race car (tarmac), rally cars have softer suspension than race cars and also rally cars have more suspension travel than race cars.
Springs rates can be used to change the balance of the car so say increasing the front and reducing the rear can reduce oversteer and the converse is true.
So a road car is softer than a track car due to the simple fact that roads are not the same as a track.

Now on to what this topic was about anti roll bars.
ARB's are there to resist body roll in a turn, much like a spring but do nothing in a straight line or under straight line braking or acceleration.increasing the rate of the ARB can give more responsive handling and again bumps etc must be taken into account.

All of this boils down to the fact that I'm not an expert on suspension but have the scars to prove that the only way forward is to let the experts work it all out, hence the converation I am having with Eibach and Bilstien.

You could do it the hard and often expensive way and try different settings to see which works best but it takes a long time to get it right.

Here's a quick reference guide to solutions for some common tuning problems pulled off the internet.
The solutions to each problem are listed in order of priority, the ones listed first are usually the first ones to try.

Oversteer General
* Stiffen front stabiliser bar or soften rear stabiliser.
* Stiffen front springs or soften rear springs.
* Decrease front downforce or increase rear downforce.
* Install hard tyres front, soft tyres rear.

Oversteer Entering/exiting turns
* Stiffen front dampers or soften rear dampers.
Oversteer at high speeds
* Decrease front downforce or increase rear downforce.

Understeer General
* Soften front stabiliser bar or stiffen rear stabiliser.
* Soften front springs or stiffen rear springs.
* Increase front downforce or decrease rear downforce.
* Install soft tyres front, hard tyres rear.

Understeer entering/exiting turns
* Soften front dampers or stiffen rear dampers.
Understeer at high speeds
* Increase front downforce or decrease rear downforce.
Handling sluggish and unresponsive
* Stiffen springs all around.
* Stiffen dampers all around.
* Stiffen stabilisers all around.

Handling too harsh and sensitive
* Soften springs all around.
* Soften dampers all around.
* Soften stabilisers all around.

Bottoming
* Increase ride height
* Stiffen springs all around

Low grip
* Install softer tyres.
* Increase downforce all around.
* Lower ride height
* Soften springs all around.
* Soften dampers all around.
* Soften stabilisers all around.

Loss of grip on bumps
* Soften springs all around.
* Soften dampers all around.
* Soften stabilisers all around.

High tyre wear
* Install harder tyres.
* Eliminate excessive understeer or oversteer.
* Adjust camber.
* Soften springs.
* Soften dampers.
* Soften stabilisers.
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Re: Stiffer Anti Rollbar

Postby Nige » Wed 24.09.2008, 21:22

Great to have Kuching's input here as he has more than a little previous :lol: . The debate is both fascinating and informative and I hope is furthering our collective understanding (certainly furthering mine). What I want for my car is to move the superb road use suspension setup a little way towards something that is more suited to occasional track use, but without wholly compromising my enjoyment of driving the car on the road. I am greatly interested in anything that will assist in achieving that objective.

I seem to recall that one of the great Chapman innovations was to reverse conventional wisdom of fitting ever stiffer springs to racing cars by fitting relatively soft long travel suspension with particular attention paid to damping and wheel control in order to maintain the optimum contact patch under the widest possible range of conditions.
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Re: Stiffer Anti Rollbar

Postby Kuching » Thu 25.09.2008, 09:45

RayD wrote:
Taking Nige’s picture as an example, while it might be an illusion it looks as if the rear inside wheel has gone up almost in unison with the outside rear, and already borrowed the available amount of help from the inner spring.

That’s a very valid point Ray, and is a useful example to apply the theory to. Once the inside rear wheel has lifted off the track it no longer plays any part in the handling of the car. What we have instead is just the outside wheel supported by a mechanism of 3 springs – two coil springs and a torsion bar. The fact that some of the springs are on the opposite side of the car is now an irrelevance as, theoretically, if the whole of this mechanism was packaged adjacent to the wheel, it would make no difference to the dynamics. The point I’m trying to make here is that, on a three-wheeled car, the concept of changing the roll stiffness by adjusting the RARB is misleading. All we are really doing is changing the vertical spring rate that the outside wheel sees.

This brings us to another misconception – that by having differing roll stiffness between the front and rear axle, the degree of body roll will be different front to rear. In fact (ignoring the fraction of a degree of chassis twist) the roll angle must be identical. What actually happens is that this skews the roll axis diagonally across the car, inducing a combination of roll and pitch change. This can have an effect on initial turn-in, causing a momentary reaction on the contact patch as the pitch change is induced, but through the rest of the corner it won’t help. Conversely, by stiffening the RARB, we would probably simply see the effect of jacking the back end higher, raising the CofG, and reducing the lateral grip.

This all suggests that having the inside rear wheel just not quite lifting off the ground is probably just about where we want to be. Referring back to Nige’s picture, this appears to be exactly how it is set up (are we surprised?). So if the roll stiffness is already spot-on, where is the advantage to be found? Well, the answer is the amount of daylight we can see underneath the car. Going back to my original statement that the spring rate should be as soft as possible before the chassis hits the ground, there is clearly some room to play with here. By lowering the ride-height we put the inside wheel back on the track, now giving us scope to stiffen the roll bar whilst also reducing the load transfer and consequently getting the tyres to work more efficiently. It’s a win-win situation!

I would suggest the conclusion therefore is that there little to achieve by playing with the rear roll bar in isolation. What we need is adjustable spring platforms so that the ride-height can be changed in combination with roll stiffness. Then we stand a chance of seeing off those pesky Elises!
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Re: Stiffer Anti Rollbar

Postby bobbrown » Thu 25.09.2008, 16:21

Kuching wrote:
I would suggest the conclusion therefore is that there little to achieve by playing with the rear roll bar in isolation. What we need is adjustable spring platforms so that the ride-height can be changed in combination with roll stiffness. Then we stand a chance of seeing off those pesky Elises!


Just lowering the car on the spring platforms is not that straight forward as you throw the whole geometry out (caster and camber) plus you reduce the preload on the springs and can if taken too far have the springs come out of their carriers and damage the shock.

In my view springs and shock length would be the place to start to get the car lower but with all these things one thing at a time.
Lowering the car but retaining the spring rate and the shocks bump and rebound is one step, increasing the spring rate is another. If you change a lot of things you have no idea what did what.
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Re: Stiffer Anti Rollbar

Postby Nige » Thu 25.09.2008, 17:02

I think a light is beginning to glimmer inside my head on this thanks to these last few posts (and some time reading some books on suspension theory and design). I'm looking for a logical series of steps and understand totally the folly of doing everything at once and then not knowing what particular aspect or combination has messed it all up.

As I now see it, there is little point in fitting a stiffer rear ARB in isolation, as the roll stiffness of the car is probably at it's optimum in conjunction with everything else. However, if we lower the car we reduce the C of G and thus reduce load transfer. Lowering the car however is not a simple matter of threaded spring platforms as we must consider the spring length, the preload on the spring the total suspension travel we will have and the impact of the lowering on other geometry factors such as camber and caster, within these constraints we still want the softest springs we can (without grounding the chassis) and appropriate levels of damping in both bump and rebound. Once we have achieved this to our satisfaction it seems that we are then able to introduce more roll stiffness into the car with stiffer ARBs.
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Re: Stiffer Anti Rollbar

Postby Specky » Thu 25.09.2008, 21:51

These threads are very intrsesting ,but I keep getting confused...

It's nothing to do with any inaccuracys. (if there is any)... It just goes over my head... :oops:

I know this maybe be the incorrect thread, but wouldn't stiffer bushes be the way forward to start with...

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Re: Stiffer Anti Rollbar

Postby bobbrown » Thu 25.09.2008, 23:26

Nige

It is one of the reasons I am working with Eibach and Bilstien, they have the standard front and rear suspension and know what I am looking to achieve. e.g. Lower the car with springs and shocks suitable to full out and out track day cars and ones for the occasional trackday so there should be two solutions in theory or it may be there can not really be much to be achieved for a car that is only used on track on the odd occasion (cost).
Anti roll bars should in be used to fine tune the setup.
Let not forget all the other settings than can be tweaked like corner weights, do not supose many people with adjustable coil overs have even done this never mind getting the caster and camber checked.
You seem to have got the drift of one thing at a time but as spring rates and shock bounce and rebound are so closley associated it seem to me to be that they need to be done together.
Eibach asked for some of the suspension geometry as this effect the way in which the springs work, like the amount of spring movement relative to wheel movement
The form with some of the information they require is shown here.
eibach.jpg
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Re: Stiffer Anti Rollbar

Postby bobbrown » Thu 25.09.2008, 23:49

Specky wrote:I know this maybe be the incorrect thread, but wouldn't stiffer bushes be the way forward to start with...


There are problems with stiffer bushes, one is knowing what is stiffer than standard as the "shore hardness" value of the current bushing is unknown or at least I do not know it.
Also the current bushes are of a bonded type and as far as I am aware the "poly bushes" are not.
I suppose if you were not worried about road noise you would "rose joint" the ends as is done in a lot of race and rally cars.
Also we are talking about wish bone suspension so the amount of movement fore and aft under braking or acceleration is limited when compared to a McPherson strut layout.
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Re: Stiffer Anti Rollbar

Postby Nige » Fri 26.09.2008, 09:20

bobbrown wrote:but as spring rates and shock bounce and rebound are so closley associated it seem to me to be that they need to be done together.


Agreed entirely, my understanding of one step at a time should not be taken too literally! I do see the need to ensure that whatever springs are fitted are appropriately damped.
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Re: Stiffer Anti Rollbar

Postby dapinky » Fri 26.09.2008, 11:24

bobbrown wrote:There are problems with stiffer bushes, one is knowing what is stiffer than standard as the "shore hardness" value of the current bushing is unknown or at least I do not know it..........

......Also the current bushes are of a bonded type and as far as I am aware the "poly bushes" are not.


I took an upper and lower front suspension arm to Chris Witor (Supaflex poly bushes) and he said the shore rating was about 70 :?

Now, I know little about the technicalities of rubber degradation over time, but would expect them to soften a bit with age (or would some compounds actually harden?). I have no new/unused ones to test.

The type of bushes in use have very little rubber (I know it probably isn't 'rubber', but lets keep it simple!) due to their design incorporating steel tubing.

As such, i would have thought a polybush with a shore rating of 80 would be a good start ( harder material than the rubber, but less than the steel).

I had a set made up and are in use on Angies car for evaluation.

Since then she has noticed no real difference to anything on the daily drive to work, or the odd trip to Asda.

On the 'big drive' to Hethel, she said it felt the same, and on a blat across some twisty roads the car didn't fall over.

The suspension on hers is lowered by 1" with the protech shocks, corner weights are as accurate as my bathroom scales setup will allow, Camber and Caster are setup since the rear wishbone change, running Yokohama 008 tyres.

This is as far as I can go at the moment.......she won't let me track the car, which is why i had to buy my own!

When following her in my car (totally standard suspension) the extra 1" height and softer damper settings makes it a more 'comfortable' road car, but there is more roll in the corners, but it still hasn't let go!

In an ideal world, i'd take both cars to a track and see where the limits are, using the same wheels/tyres on each to eliminate other variables, but it ain't going to happen. :(
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Re: Stiffer Anti Rollbar

Postby bobbrown » Fri 26.09.2008, 13:49

So how did Chris Witor come to the figure of 70 for the shore hardness, raised his thumb in the air or did he actually measure it?
Does the poly bushes retain the same amount of material between inner and outer steel parts? e.g does it have the same amount of material in the bush,
The fact that there is no perceptable differance on the road I doubt this will be much of a step forward, you also have to take into account the rubber bushes are of a moulded (bonded) type.
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Re: Stiffer Anti Rollbar

Postby dapinky » Fri 26.09.2008, 14:29

bobbrown wrote:So how did Chris Witor come to the figure of 70 for the shore hardness, raised his thumb in the air or did he actually measure it?
Does the poly bushes retain the same amount of material between inner and outer steel parts? e.g does it have the same amount of material in the bush,
The fact that there is no perceptable differance on the road I doubt this will be much of a step forward, you also have to take into account the rubber bushes are of a moulded (bonded) type.


Bob,

Please don't shoot the messenger - I can only say it as it is for me.

Chris Witor is considered to be something of an expert in his field, so I ain't gonna question his ability - he did measure the bushes with a bit of kit i didn't understand :?

He reckoned that an 80 shore would be as good a place to start as any, as there is more poly and less steel.

The bushes are not bonded, so rotational 'damping' may be an issue which i don't care too much about.

We had all this conversation on here when Gareth was sorting out the rear wishbones, and I'm gratefull to the help i received from Ray D at that time with inputs on the 'rotational' damping of the rear wishbone bushes (due to them being a non-bonded design).

The conclusion at that time was to try it and see - - that's what i've been trying to do, whilst going that one step further and doing something at the front as well.

Unfortunately, I don't have the time, budget, facilities or inclination to devote to a total development system, so will have to leave that to others.

When i did have those things available to me, I worked with Chris Witor to develop a system for Triumphs for road, track and rally events - the results were good enough for me :roll:
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Re: Stiffer Anti Rollbar

Postby bobbrown » Fri 26.09.2008, 15:20

"Please don't shoot the messenger"

That was not my intention!
I aways try to look subjectivley at these things and it is in the interests of Chris Witor to say these will be an improvement and I'm not saying they may not be.
Your own road tests have shown there are no real improvement over the standard bushes, as for track use as you point out you have not been able to prove this one way or the other.
I can easily see how poly bushes do give improvements over rubber on some cars, particularly older ones and ones with compliant bushes.
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Re: Stiffer Anti Rollbar

Postby dapinky » Fri 26.09.2008, 16:32

bobbrown wrote: it is in the interests of Chris Witor to say these will be an improvement .......

.......Your own road tests have shown there are no real improvement over the standard bushes, as for track use as you point out you have not been able to prove this one way or the other.


On your first point, I disagree totally. I spend 3 whole afternoons with Chris at his workshops - during that time, he could have been making a few quid, but he wasn't.
He made up the bushes for me on the lathe, and then we fitted the whole lot up on the car - he wouldn't take any money off me, as he considered it to be part of his 'development' theory.
He is fully aware that whatever the results, there would still only be a very limited set of sales at the end of it (which is probably why Lotus didn't want to play), so he isn't expecting to retire on a few sets sold to elan drivers.
He also bunged me a set of rear bushes for Gareth, all to be 'In his interests'??

On the second point, it is unclear if there is any improvement - Angie wouldn't know the difference between Understeer, and overhead valve, and i don't use the car very much.
I will be fitting a set of poly bushes to mine when i get round to it, albeit that i have rubber bushes at the back and i ain't changing them for the sake of it, 'cos they are still quite new.

Clearly, you are far better informed on this subject than I am, or possibly than most on LEC, but I don't think that my opinion (or anyone elses) is any less valid because of that - after all, a car which you like the handling characteristics on my not suit everyone - not everyone has the same desire to go as fast as posssible just to shake their fillings out, and at the end of the day, the biggest advantage in most cars is the nut behind the wheel.
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Re: Stiffer Anti Rollbar

Postby bobbrown » Fri 26.09.2008, 16:55

When you do not know the full story it is difficult judge but I did say "I'm not saying they may not be."
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