darkhorse46

Any opinions on the Maximum Motorsports PHB?

parchisi

I too would like to know peoples' opinion on the MM PHB.

Sam Strano

Let me preface this by saying I'm a MM dealer, as well as Steeda and UMI too.

I would not use an aluminum PHB. Having said that, PHB's are pretty simple devices and frankly it's hard to really mess one up provided the builder can actually weld and good parts are used.

UMI PHB's are, IMHO every bit as high quality as the others, and generally cost less (maybe being here in central PA and the lower overhead costs have something to do with that!). I would, and do recommend--and often use, UMI stuff to customers and on my own cars too.

F1Fan

Hi Sleeper_08,

I liked what the Watt's link did to the way the rear end of the Saleen PJ Edition car I test drove one day in the canyons around Mulholland Highway so much that I had to eat my hundreds of posted words and buy one. I was a Panhard fan for its light weight, simplicity and race track proven effectiveness against much more sophistcated multi-link IRS suspensions in the BMWs and Porsches the Mustangs were killing on the race track. But even the simplest S197 chassis Watt's links can work wonders for the way the rear end of the car behaves as was proven by my Saleen PJ test drive in the rough canyons off of Mulholland. The thing I like most about the Watt's link is the way turning left or right is now balanced in transition, the faster set and less side to side movement over real world freeway surfaces.

HTH!

F1Fan

Why don't you like the aluminum Panhard bar from MM? What material would you prefer the Panhard bar be made out of, the stiffest or something less rigid like mild steel used by UMI? Have you scaled the MM, Steeda and UMI bars? What do they scale at?

UMI Panhard bars are not any less money than either MM or Steeda PBs and at least on your website UMI has no double adjustable poly/poly Panhard bar in chrome-moly alloy steel which is the most popular configuration on the street.

Cheers!

Sam Strano

I really don't get you F1Fan (I'd still like to know exactly who you are). I think you like to argue just for the sake of arguing with me.

Why don't I "like" aluminum PHB's? Simple: Because I've bent aluminum PHB's in use on autox cars.

I don't know how you figure that they are the same price. A Steeda double poly bushed adjustable PHB is $159, a UMI double poly bushed PHB is $118.... and that's for an On-car adjustable one (read easier and quicker to setup). In fact a UMI dual Roto-joint PHB is $153.99 and that's less than the Steeda urethane PHB.

There is no reason to have a double adjustable PHB w/urethane. The adjustment is for length. The PHB doesn't care if that happens at one location or two. The reason the bigger bars with rod-ends or Roto's are "double adjustable" is because those parts screw in anyway, giving you "double adjustment".

UMI does offer CM in the higher, more race type bar as an option. Frankly it's not worth much vs. mild steel in tension or compression which is the mode the PHB operates. In fact CM is used in thinner wall to match the strength of mild, but with less weight. Just because a bar is CM doesn't mean it's automatically stiffer any more than have a V-8 means you have more power than a cylinder. What if that 4 banger is an Evo?

Bottom line, depends on wall thickness. And if you are running urethane bushings the deflection in those is much greater than the difference between a mild steel vs. CM PHB.

Norm Peterson

Bumpsteer, no. That's at the other end.

But either a PHB or a WL defines one of the points on the axle roll steer line. The other point is the intersection of the LCAs, which is 20-odd feet out behind the axle and something like 20" above the ground in the S197 case. The amount of roll steer is more sensitive to LCA inclination than it is to an equal amount of PHB/WL height adjustment, but that's not quite the same thing as saying the PHB/WL has no influence at all.

Sort of the flip side here is that LCA inclination has a very small effect on your rear roll center height. Not enough to matter in most cases, but since the roll center is where the roll steer line crosses the axle line, anything that affects its slope also moves the RC.

It may be convenient in many situations to consider that RCH is defined by the PHB or WL and that roll steer is an LCA inclination effect, as long as it is kept in mind that these are only approximations and not geometric absolutes.

Something to ponder . . . the rate of roll steer does not remain constant over suspension travel, and will change at slightly different rates for a PHB, an axle-pivoted WL, and a chassis-pivoted WL even if they start out with the same roll center heights with the car at rest.


Norm

Sleeper_08

Your experience is the same as mine except mine is on the track.

In Ontario if we get caught "Street Racing" they can impound your car for a week on the spot, suspend your licence for a week and can fine you up to $10,000. And you can imagine what that does to your insurance rates!

http://www.mto.gov.on.ca/english/about/bill203.shtml

F1Fan

Sam, I just wanted to know why you don't like aluminum Panhard bars. No agenda and I don't want to argue with you. I just want to understand what caused you to post such distaste for aluminum. I don't disagree with you on this and a lot of other things you've posted.

You may not see a reason to compare oranges to oranges but I do. The fact that you personally don't think a double adjustable poly bushed Panhard bar is necessary when you can get away with a less expensive tubular single adjustable makes no difference. They are in fact not the same thing and for purposes of comparison not a comparison of the same thing. The fact is it's less expensive to produce a plan mild steel Panhard bar with a single adjustable end than a double adjustable chrome-moly alloy steel Panhard bar. Knowing this it would seem to be more fair to compare like products which is why more frequently than not the way comparisons are done. I'm not saying your assement and reasons for using a single adjustable tubular LCA are wrong I think they are good reasons and perfectly valid. Just compare apples to apples so as to not confuse any more people.

Hmm good try but I didn't say they were automatically stiffer, have you put them on the scale? Poly bushings at some point will act as if they are solid when compressesed. That is the point at which stiffness differences can come through between different materials. If you are telling me the bars are designed to the same stiffness then the chrome-moly part will have to be lighter. Are you saying that weight is not important? I understand it's only half unsprung weight but you can't have it both ways. A couple of pounds here and a couple more there all add up. I know you know people will kill for a few pounds off their cars at the national level.

F1Fan

Sleeper,

I think that a smoother surface and more steady state cornering is why the S197's Panhard bar is less an issue than on a bumpy surface. It seems to me the differences are felt more easily where the suspension is busy moving closer to its extremes and the chassis is upset more of the time. But I agree with you and if I had it to do over I might look at the Steeda or Fayes2 Watt's links. I think I'd like to be able to play with the rear roll center height of the car which I cannot do with the simpler Saleen Watt's link. But I one thing I gotta say about the Saleen PJ Watt's link is that you never know it's there. I mean it is very simple, lightweight, dead quiet and smooth. So far I have not heard a peep out of the thing but I'm almost ready to put the car up on stands to do my semi-annual suspension teardown, cleaning, inspection and lube. I gotta get the M3 out of the garage first though. I'm still waiting on my TCKline Racing D/A coilovers to come back from the Koni West shop after a rebuild and a few million bucks in parts to finish trickling in before I can bolt it all back together then bolt it into the chassis. It's getting close though!

Well I think we have the same issue but folks don't really race per se any more. Back in the 60's and early 70's there was some real racing going on there and there were some epic police pursuits that happened too. Pretty crazy stuff but I just managed to miss the best of it as I was too young to drive at the time. I did get arrested for speeding once (clocked at 147mph on Muholland Highway) and they did impound my bike but things were different back in the 70's and I plead to two lesser charges and got my bike back for the towing charges. I only get out to race track once in a while for club events but not as often as I go to the canyons to clear my head.

Cheers!