Static Suspension
Strongs Of Center (Part 1)
One of the most complex subjects in tuning,
suspension is a vital part of any car from stanced show stoppers to time attack
monsters, luckily we’re here to tell you all about it…
What is suspension and why do we need it?
Your suspension makes up a huge amount of the parts underneath the
body, in fact, every single part that somehow connects your wheels to your car
counts as suspension; and that’s a hell of a lot of parts. Without suspension,
aside from having nothing to bolt your car’s wheels to, there would be no way
for your wheels to move independently of the chassis, but why we need that to
happen is a little more complex. First up, you could remove a car’s shocks and
springs and replace them with a solid bar, meaning no movement at all, but the
car would not only become about the most uncomfortable thing ever to drive
normally, but it would actually handle like absolute crap even on the flattest
surface. While low and stiff is considered good for handling, even the stiffest
suspension moves far more than you might think, and trust us, some people have
tried running solid suspension on cars, even in F1; and it really never works.
You might think “well go-karts have no suspension, and they handle awesomely”,
but even that’s not actually true. Go-kart chassis’ are designed to have a lot
of flex in them, so the chassis itself works as the suspension; a rock solid
go-kart would handle just as crap as a car with solid bars instead of shocks
and springs. Even the lightest cars weigh hugely more than the heaviest
go-karts, so even if you designed a car to use the chassis as suspension like a
Kart, for a car chassis to have enough flex in it to work as suspension, it
would be so floppy the car would be totally undrivable; basically, for a car to
handle, you NEED correctly working suspension.
Go-kart chassis’ are
designed to have a lot of flex in them.
From a comfort point of view, the need for suspension is much more
obvious, but thinking the softer the better isn’t true here either. If it’s too
soft it’d be so wallowy it would make the car bob and rock over even the
smallest bump or tiniest throttle, brake, or steering movement, so you’d
probably feel sick by the time you got to the end of your street!.
Coil Springs.
These are the main suspension component that stops your car’s
chassis from just sitting on top of the wheels. Aside from doing that, they have
two other main jobs; to cushion the car over bumps or pot holes, and to help
the wheels keep in contact with the ground when one or more wheels hits a rough
spot. How they do both jobs is simply by doing what a spring does best –
compressing or expanding, allowing the wheel that hits the bump or dip to move
up and down in the wheel arch, while (ideally) leaving the body and the rest of
the wheels moving along as smoothly as possible.
To cushion the car over
bumps or pot holes.
The two main variables with springs (aside from being the correct
diameter to fit your car,) is length, and stiffness – often known as spring
rate. You don’t need us to tell you that a shorter spring will lower your car,
but go too low (unless you got shortened shocks too), and you’ll end up
bottoming out the shocks, which is really bad for handling. Spring rate is the
main (but not only) factor in how hard your suspension is. Springs for specific
applications tend to be already rated at a suitable stiffness for that car, but
they’re not always to everyone’s tastes, and depending what you’re using the
car for, stiffer or softer ones may be needed.
The two main variables
with springs.
