Help me choose a suspension setup

[JJ427R]

Anyone interest my wife posted a question related to this on the Track Mustangs Online Facebook page to get opinion of drivers on there....
https://www.facebook.com/groups/trackmustangsonline/

 

[Norm Peterson]

Anyone interest my wife posted a question related to this on the Track Mustangs Online Facebook page to get opinion of drivers on there....
https://www.facebook.com/groups/trackmustangsonline/

I'd be interested if it was posted to the TMO forums directly. I refuse to do anything through FB. For reasons that have nothing to do with this or any other forum that I belong to.


Norm

 

[JJ427R]

I'd be interested if it was posted to the TMO forums directly. I refuse to do anything through FB. For reasons that have nothing to do with this or any other forum that I belong to.


Norm

I'm not on facebook myself either, but the wife though it would be an idea so I'm letting her run with it. She's had several good comments so far but nothing from anyone who has installed them yet. One comment she got was "It does not matter what others think about them, if it gives you more confidence and better lap times, that is all that matters"

 

[JJ427R]

Also look up the term: confirmation bias

Speaking of bias, why do you have so much bias and hate against something you say you have not even tried on your car, and yet you come up with such negative comments on people who have tried them, to try to justify your opinion. Is it really because you did not come up with the idea and your competitors did? There has to be something more to this.....

A couple of us are completely willing to start a go fund me page, to purchase these items for you and pay you for your time to test on your car, and then give us your "unbiased" data. As a competitor and one who appears to rely on data I would think you would jump at this chance? All you have to do is agree and we'll get the ball rolling (or would that be get the car rolling) for you.

 

[Norm Peterson]

One comment she got was "It does not matter what others think about them, if it gives you more confidence and better lap times, that is all that matters"

Doesn't matter to me whether you listen to that FB person instead of me, so long as you listen with a willingness to learn.


Norm

 

[JJ427R]

Doesn't matter to me whether you listen to that FB person instead of me, so long as you listen with a willingness to learn.


Norm

I think my post above to Terry Fair shows I'm more than ready and willing. Will you kick in a few bucks as well???

 

[Norm Peterson]

I've already spent quite a lot in terms of time, measuring, and analysis . . . and it's been like beating my head against a brick wall the whole time.


PM coming


Norm

 

[JJ427R]

I've already spent quite a lot in terms of time, measuring, and analysis . . . and it's been like beating my head against a brick wall the whole time.


PM coming


Norm

I completely understand that Norm as you've stated it numerous times, but you also to this point have not tried these on your car. Just as you need to see data, only opinion that matters to me at this point is from those who have actually installed it. Also it is only a couple hundred bucks for us to get some real answers and not just "confirmation bias" as Fair calls it. You don't seem very confident in your analysis not wanting to kick in a few bucks. Your only beating your head not knowing the true answers.

 

[Pentalab]

I've already spent quite a lot in terms of time, measuring, and analysis . . . and it's been like beating my head against a brick wall the whole time.


PM coming


Norm

Yeah, but you never actually installed em, then tested em.... nor has Vorshlag racing. (BMR welded in full length SFC's...or the welded in KB version that jj427R uses). Your detailed analysis sez they won't and can't work...or have minimal effect.

They have a sign up at NASA that sez......'one test is worth a 1000 opinions'. It's still up. Been there since 1959.

IMO, Vorshlag would be the ideal candidate for testing. Heck, I would donate to this worthy cause... in the interest of science of course. Let's prove it one way or another.

 

[JJ427R]

Appears Fair has no inclination to do this as he already responded with the following on facebook:
There is zero data out there to back up any of the hopeless claims people make about these elaborate chassis braces and other magical doo-dads. But keep hope alive! People like this keep some companies going for many years past their last useful product was developed. Me, on the other hand...

then he put a picture of a character that says "Destroy all hope"
What's he been smokin'

Gave him the opportunity to do testing, get paid for it, and give us data, and he comes back with that, guess that says enough about him right there.

 

[modernbeat]

What testing do you want done? We've already checked the stiffness of the tub. It's stiff enough that we can't find meaningful movement without any bracing. Adding bracing won't reduce that zero to half of zero.

 

[JJ427R]

What testing would you do other than install them, get it on track, and try it? With an unbiased driver/drivers who are willing to give an unbiased opinion.

I've installed these and I'm paraplegic and I could/can feel a huge difference in the car immediately. My wife who does not drive on track also felt a huge difference the very first time she got in the car and drove it on the street, as it made the car much stiffer. I also stated one of my instructor friends at BIR stated similar as well when he drove it, and he has driven many mustangs.

Yes these cars may be stiff enough, but they will get stiffer with these and it will make a difference on track, I'll stick to my opinion to my dying day on that one. Everyone else on here who has installed them say they work as well, but you guys who have never even tried em keep saying these do nothing, and for Terry to say we all have confirmation bias is quite insulting. Aren't we all in this for the same thing, to make our cars faster?

Terry Fair also stated there is no data to prove these do anything, yet nobody has shown us any data they don't either, just your opinions, same as us who have tried them and expressed our opinions, big difference here is we don't insult you guys about it, until we get the snyde comments.

Don' t get me wrong here, I completely respect your/Vorshlag opinion as you guys have been doing this much longer than myself, but what I don't understand is you and others who have not tried them being so negative and spiteful in some of your comments about them.

As someone on facebook said, "it does not matter what others think, if it boosts your confidence and makes you faster on track, that is all that really matters". At this point I'm very good with that statement and I appreciate your time on this.

 

[Norm Peterson]

Yeah, but you never actually installed em, then tested em.... nor has Vorshlag racing. (BMR welded in full length SFC's...or the welded in KB version that jj427R uses). Your detailed analysis sez they won't and can't work...or have minimal effect.

Go back to post #120 and read about the measurements that I took. No, they're not with any added bracing, but the chassis twist is so small that there just isn't a whole lot to be gained.

Notice that I didn't say that there was absolutely no gain to be potentially had at all. Just that it's tiny when you relate it to actual chassis twist. Negligible, for our purposes here.


Guys, please pound it through your skulls that structural analysis was something I spent a college education learning about and about 40 years in industry getting paid to understand well enough to do for the safety of those who would be around - or potentially inside of - those things. Those were structures of far more importance and complexity than these braces. I'm afraid that there's just no way I can condense 45 years of structural experience into part of some individual forum topic.

But the short version goes something like "if the OE chassis structure has already eliminated all but a very small amount of chassis twist (all but about 1/20th of a degree by the measurements I made earlier), there just isn't much improvement left to be gained. No matter how much additional stiffness you throw at it. Even if you could recover all of that small amount, how much objective benefit is going to result from front wheel cambers that would be only 1/20th of a degree different? Follow the logic here, even if the math itself would be too much.

They have a sign up at NASA that sez......'one test is worth a 1000 opinions'.

So tell me, how would you propose to separate any objective gains from gains due to improved driver confidence? I've never questioned the latter (that's been jj and perhaps you).


Norm

 

[Flusher]

If you wanted to do real testing on the effectiveness of chassis braces:

Support the chassis on three jack stands, located at three of the four corners. the jack stands should be not be supporting the chassis under any moving suspension component.

The jack stands should be bolted securely to the floor. Secure the chassis solid to the jack stands/floor, similar to if the chassis were in an auto body frame machine. I think it would be best to secure the chassis through its suspension/spring mounting points.

Fix a lever arm to the chassis, located at the end of the chassis supported by only one jack stand, perpendicular to the chassis centerline.

Fix weights to the end of the lever arm to apply a torque force along the chassis centerline.

Measure degrees of deflection per unit of torque applied to the chassis.

Cheers

 

[JJ427R]

Go back to post #120 and read about the measurements that I took. No, they're not with any added bracing, but the chassis twist is so small that there just isn't a whole lot to be gained.

Never denied that, just said that I noticed a huge change, regardless how stiff it already is. As much as you want us to respect your years of experience and analysis, you need to respect our comments on what we say we felt in change after these were installed.

So tell me, how would you propose to separate any objective gains from gains due to improved driver confidence? I've never questioned the latter (that's been jj and perhaps you).

How would you propose we do it? We gave our opinions, but yet we are told those opinions aren't what we are feeling or placebo effect or whatever.
We offered to have a comprehensive test done and pay for it. And it doesn't have to be Vorshlag, I'd just as soon have an independent racer try it and give an unbiased opinion. I'm even up to letting you do it Norm, but I'm not sure at this point you could even do it objectively.

You have to realize I have nothing to gain by sharing the info I have. I'm not a business making money on this, nor am I racer trying to get every ounce of time out of my car. I'm only an HPDE guy giving my honest opinion on what I feel these items did for me, same as you giving yours. People can do with it what they want.

 

[Pentalab]

What testing do you want done? We've already checked the stiffness of the tub. It's stiff enough that we can't find meaningful movement without any bracing. Adding bracing won't reduce that zero to half of zero.

How exactly, did you check the stiffness of the tub?? What's the procedure ?

 

[Norm Peterson]

If you wanted to do real testing on the effectiveness of chassis braces:

Support the chassis on three jack stands, located at three of the four corners. the jack stands should be not be supporting the chassis under any moving suspension component.

The jack stands should be bolted securely to the floor. Secure the chassis solid to the jack stands/floor, similar to if the chassis were in an auto body frame machine. I think it would be best to secure the chassis through its suspension/spring mounting points.

Fix a lever arm to the chassis, located at the end of the chassis supported by only one jack stand, perpendicular to the chassis centerline.

Fix weights to the end of the lever arm to apply a torque force along the chassis centerline.

Measure degrees of deflection per unit of torque applied to the chassis.

Cheers

Please go back to post #120 through about #125 and spend a little time trying to understand what's being presenting. What you'll find is measurement of chassis twist based on applied deflection rather than on applied load. It's just a different approach to lift one corner by known amounts; the end result is still degrees of twist.

When you can lift one rear tire completely clear of the ground and measure chassis twist at well under a tenth of a degree, that should be telling you all you need to know. What more evidence is needed to understand that there just isn't much chassis twist left to eliminate by further stiffening. No matter how much stiffness you add, not even if you could make the chassis twice as stiff as OE (something that all of these additional braces put together couldn't even dream about providing).


Norm

 

[Norm Peterson]

How exactly, did you check the stiffness of the tub?? What's the procedure ?

Other entities have done that for us, and there is a database on some site or other that provides the stiffness numbers that I posted before.

But the approach described by Flusher would be one way (it's shown in Herb Adams' Chassis Engineering softcover book on pages 89 and 96, and yes, I have reference material like that literally at my fingertips).


Norm

 

[JJ427R]

What testing do you want done? We've already checked the stiffness of the tub. It's stiff enough that we can't find meaningful movement without any bracing. Adding bracing won't reduce that zero to half of zero.

Last thing I will say on this is, a matrix brace is only a couple hundred bucks, would be even cheaper for you guys as I'm sure you could/would build your own for much less, weld it in and put it on track. Would probably be about the cheapest test of any equipment you've done on a car, and wouldn't you be surprised if everything I've been saying about them is true (which it is). I'm not loosing anything here by you not trying nor do I have anything to gain if you do, other than maybe "I told you so".
Have a great day!

 

[Norm Peterson]

Never denied that, just said that I noticed a huge change, regardless how stiff it already is.

Everything that I have posted can either be verified without coming back to me or recreated. You can either take my word for it, with the understanding that what you've been getting has been to the same ethical standards that I was bound to adhere to in my profession.

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As much as you want us to respect your years of experience and analysis, you need to respect our comments on what we say we felt in change after these were installed.

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In trying to explain the structural side of this stuff, you've been consistently disregarding the value of analytical thought and disrespecting engineering as a profession. No way am I going to take that lightly, when you're arguments come from a position of ignorance with respect to structural engineering.​

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I'm afraid you'd have to commit a fair amount of time to understanding structural stiffness before you'd have any hope of being able to relate the change in stiffness to any change in vehicle behavior. The short story is that the chassis does not experience stiffness changes in the same subjective manner as the human driver does. It can't "like" improved stiffness the same way that you or I might, even though "like" is sometimes used colloquially to describe chassis improvement.​

How would you propose we do it? We gave our opinions, but yet we are told those opinions aren't what we are feeling or placebo effect or whatever.
We offered to have a comprehensive test done and pay for it. And it doesn't have to be Vorshlag, I'd just as soon have an independent racer try it and give an unbiased opinion. I'm even up to letting you do it Norm, but I'm not sure at this point you could even do it objectively.

Read Jason's post #191. Apparently Vorshlag has done their own stiffness testing and also found that there is no low hanging fruit in the chassis stiffness department. Not as far as handling and suspension tuning are concerned, anyway.

You have to realize I have nothing to gain by sharing the info I have. I'm not a business making money on this, nor am I racer trying to get every ounce of time out of my car. I'm only an HPDE guy giving my honest opinion on what I feel these items did for me, same as you giving yours. People can do with it what they want.

It's not what you felt that's the issue here. I have no problem with your observations. It's strictly about determining what this added stiffening did to cause you to notice a difference in the first place

I can make a decent analytical stab at what any additional stiffening could have done structurally, but I can't assess the subjective side analytically - and I strongly doubt that anyone can. You don't have the knowledge to approach this from either direction.


Norm