Ok Gerald had nearly lapped everyone but flopped it on the last turn. Dave had pulled everyone off the course so Gerald got the W!
Only close? That's what Gerald told me in a text message two hours ago. I cheated and asked him.
Only close? That's what Gerald told me in a text message two hours ago. I cheated and asked him.
2 hour delay for a text response seems too quick for Gerald
He actually responded in 20-30 minutes when I told him I needed the info to foil Blaine.2 hour delay for a text response seems too quick for Gerald
Ran out of talent today! Bittersweet win today at Glen Helen . I was the last 4600 on the course and did a nice roll. Lost enough tranny fluid so I could not complete my 12th lap. Dallas was right there to pull me back to the pits. Thanks Dallas!
He actually responded in 20-30 minutes when I told him I needed the info to foil Blaine.
Yep. 20 years ago I built my own inverted T thinking that my past experience with 70s F150s and the problems they have with the Haltenberger only to quickly find out I created more problems than I fixed. And no matter how many times I tell people my experience makes little difference.
One of these day I will try to take you up on this.If you manage to get down to SoCal in the next month, I have a TJ here you could take for a test drive. I suspect that if you were able to accomplish that, it would easily change your mind to where you would start qualifying that part with at least something along the lines of most but not all.
Can not hate on something unless you leave out some of the facts.
This is the part that makes these discussions painful. When someone you know to be knowledgeable in these type of things, has tried say swapping things around (say springs) in a very careful, controlled manner .. and then comes back and reports his findings, it simply just gets glossed over. Instead of asking "why" or "why not", it just gets soundly ignored. It is amazing how frequently that happens.
If you need more motivation than getting to drive one of Blaine's jeeps .. SoCal is really nice in February when you are a little tired of the winter and the soul longs for some nice warm sunlight. I went to SD (brother's birthday) and it was so darned nice. We went on a hike by the beach wearing shorts and a tshirt. Then I came back home and it snowed the next day here. I really asked myself why I returned
Only close? That's what Gerald told me in a text message two hours ago. I cheated and asked him.
What I found hilarious was he won the race while laying on his side after hitting a rock off course in the last turn. Due to his lead on the rest of the rigs in his class, none were close enough to pass him when the race ended at the time mark.
I had a long winded answer typed out but the truth is it just comes down to acceptable ranges.
That and I've posted a zillion times that the calculators are a suggestion since they are a tool for static design. The only way to use one is to do whatever you think you want to make it say, build that, go test it. If you like what happens, keep it, if you don't, change it. I was doing that for years with a mid arm suspension before Savvy was born.
Another point I have made several times is when we got Ricky's back for the motor swap part of the build, I cut off the tops of the rear upper frame side mounts and moved the bolt holes up an inch because we had figured out by then it made enough of a difference to do so. That is a lot of work to do for little gain.
That would not be fun to have to do under the rig
I used a calculator when I build my current suspension (triangulated four link, 3 link front) and took this exact approach. At the time I did not know much about suspension geometry - I still know only enough to be dangerous - but the calculator did help me locate and position my links. Since I basically built my setup from scratch, I would have had no clue otherwise. I do understand the impact of an estimated CG, but the calculator helped me with a great starting point.
For me, the real benefit of the calculator was that it helped me understand how making changes to link locations and arm lengths impacted anti-squat, roll center, etc. It was also a great mechanism for me to get feedback on link locations as I was designing the suspension from those on the forums who know better than I.
In the end, I’m happy with how it works - and for me it works pretty well. I don’t think that would be the case if I had not used the calculator.
I strongly suspect that if you were to build another one for a buddy, you'd walk over, grab a handful of arm lengths off of your rig, set his axles in place at ride height and grow some tabs and mounts to the ends of the arms. And, you'd never give a second thought to what the calculator says it is supposed to do.
Maybe - but it certainly doesn’t work that way the first time.
(And on this forum - I certainly would not tell anyone the length of those arms….
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It really kinda does. The rig is going to tell you what you can and can't do. If the calculator tells you to hang the end of the rear arm down 6" below the frame, you know that's stupid so you are going to go back and make changes to the numbers to get something not so stupid. You know that putting the arms right in front of the axle tube fucks with where the uppers need to go, so you drop them so to make it better and get your uptravel civilized so you don't shove the uppers through the tub floor. You know if you tighten up the vertical separation at the frame too much, the geometry is going to suffer so you do a body lift and move them up some without going through the floor. The blueprint and the constraints of the platform are right in front of you, they tell you most of what you can and can't do.
I want an arm length that stays out of trouble and is long enough to do the job. The longer a link is for a lower, the stronger it has to be. I don't want to deal with that.(And on this forum - I certainly would not tell anyone the length of those arms….
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