Mustang Front Suspension Engineering Explained
12-07-2015, 01:51 PM
#1
MustangForums Editor
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Join Date: Jul 2011
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Mustang Front Suspension Engineering Explained
If you have been curious about each type of Mustang suspension and their advantages and disadvantages, you’re in luck.
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01-06-2016, 09:04 AM
#2
6th Gear Member
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: state of confusion
Posts: 7,635
Another nice video. Thanks, Editor.
I was itching for Filip to discuss the MacPherson strut front view geometry in terms comparable to the SLA suspension. Obviously it has a real, physical, lower arm. It also has a fictitious, virtual upper arm that's perpendicular to and fixed to the strut shaft at the upper strut mount (it is not pivoted there), and its "inner pivot" is located way out at infinity along that perpendicular construction line. Where the LCA construction line and the virtual upper arm construction line cross is directly comparable to where the construction lines for the LCA and UCA in a SLA suspension cross - it's the point about which that side's suspension is rotating when the suspension is in that position. It's a useful concept.
The tall "spindle" (knuckle, really) mentioned apparently reduces loads at the chassis attachment points, and the decent-handling 4th gen Camaro/Firebirds were where I saw this approach first. But you pay for that spindle height by the tall knuckle design not offering as much camber recovery as the suspension compresses and perhaps a little more in deflection within the knuckle itself (which is OE-acceptable because it tends to be understeerish in nature). If knuckle height is the only difference between two identical cars that you'd have to set the static camber a little further negative in the tall design than in a short design.
Norm
I was itching for Filip to discuss the MacPherson strut front view geometry in terms comparable to the SLA suspension. Obviously it has a real, physical, lower arm. It also has a fictitious, virtual upper arm that's perpendicular to and fixed to the strut shaft at the upper strut mount (it is not pivoted there), and its "inner pivot" is located way out at infinity along that perpendicular construction line. Where the LCA construction line and the virtual upper arm construction line cross is directly comparable to where the construction lines for the LCA and UCA in a SLA suspension cross - it's the point about which that side's suspension is rotating when the suspension is in that position. It's a useful concept.
The tall "spindle" (knuckle, really) mentioned apparently reduces loads at the chassis attachment points, and the decent-handling 4th gen Camaro/Firebirds were where I saw this approach first. But you pay for that spindle height by the tall knuckle design not offering as much camber recovery as the suspension compresses and perhaps a little more in deflection within the knuckle itself (which is OE-acceptable because it tends to be understeerish in nature). If knuckle height is the only difference between two identical cars that you'd have to set the static camber a little further negative in the tall design than in a short design.
Norm
