daredevil95

Snakebite64

no thanks on 2 fronts 1) I rarely drive my toy 2) when I do occassionaly drive the toy I rarely travel more than 40mph on the way to cruise-ins/shows.

jahudso2

Yeah I don't see the magnetic selective shocks as being the stock equipment, but I think it would be a good option. I think it would improve ride quality most of all by being able to keep the dampers soft until it had to dampen out large perturbations from road conditions. The one issue I see is that ford would have to add a flexray bus in order to get the dampers to process data quick enough to be useful.

Norm Peterson

Hard to say. The OE dampers on these cars, particularly the rear shocks, have come in for quite a bit of criticism for being overly harsh even though they were better than decent otherwise. I was literally less than 100 yards from the dealer's driveway taking my just-delivered GT home when I noticed the rear ride harshness. For a MR setup, corporate memories of that commotion could just as well lead to the effective valving for normal MR ride being set too soft in over-reaction. Somebody in management would always be saying "Fix whatever you need to in the software, but don't you dare touch the straight-ahead-driving ride".


Just swapping in Koni sports is a major improvement, and it doesn't take much adjustment for the difference to be clearly felt - 1/4 turn being more than enough. And unlike a damper that can adjust "on the fly", you'll know what you're getting ahead of time.



As far as it being option-only? It always starts out that way.


Norm

foolio2k4

Yeah I know what you mean. Rear can be a bit harsh over dips and bumps. Part of it I would say is due to the Live axle. It makes bumps harsher than an IRS would.

Swapping in Konis would be a world of difference for our cars. However, since we are talking about the MR, there is no better alternative unless someone is going to race spec shocks/springs. I have never heard of anyone with a Z or V swapping out their MR unless they were racing it.

I have never even heard of anyone bad mouthing the MR. All the journos applaud it.

the 458 italia, 599GTB, R8 feature the MR. No one changes those out.

Norm Peterson

I think the same can be said with respect to OE purely hydraulic shocks and struts on any other car, at least as far as the average buyer is concerned. Run the OE dampers until they're either dead or beyond dead, and replace them with whatever is inexpensive and can be done with minimal interruption in the normal day to day life.

And that pretty much by definition people who belong to sites such as this one and get involved in the technical sections are not typical car owners.

I'm not trying to say that the MR's aren't any good, just that somebody else's definition of "good" is not guaranteed to match up with my definition, or yours, or anybody else's given that we're the ones who would seriously consider swapping out the OE shocks and struts before the first oil change came due.



[Devil's advocate] . . . I wish I knew how that should be interpreted. If I had to drive a hundred or more different cars a year, every year, my preferences might well be different for the "day job cars" than it would be for my weekend autocross or track day toy. With all the things that affect how easy it is to get comfortable driving any new car, everything from how well the seats fit/support to shifter location and action to ride quality, it could get really easy to let your "day job cars" to give up a little of what you'd expect from your weekend car. There's simply no point in tweaking short -term day job cars toward being dual-purpose cars. . . .

I'm not going to suggest that any overt editorial pressures might exist, but . . . magazines do not survive on subscription and OTC sales alone.
[/D.A.]


Who knows, maybe some outfit will come up with something that I'd be completely happy with. I'd still want to know in a lot more detail what it did and how it did it - specifically because of the added complexity. Not in less detail with the implication being that I should trust it and its tuning implicitly.


Norm

jahudso2

One addition that I would like to see that is probably more beneficial than MR shocks is active anti-roll bars. BMW has been using these for a few years now, and they are absolutely fantastic. It uses the power steering pump to pressurize the system, and then a valvebody to pass fluid in different directions across a viscous coupling in the middle of the sway bar. This coupling can apply a ton of torque in either direction to the front and rear sway bars. The benefit here is that when driving in a straight line, no fluid is passed through the bar, and so it is the equivalent of running no sway bars (aka soft, cushy ride). As soon as you go into a hard turn, it applies torque to the sway bar to keep the body from rolling. The net effect is zero body roll even during the most aggressive cornering (even on their SUVs).

Norm Peterson

No argument with respect to the ride quality point, as you are removing some wheel rate in that configuration. In straight ahead driving on reasonably even pavement there isn't much need for more roll stiffness than what is provided by the springs (as long as they aren't too soft).


This one is more complicated. Steady state is one thing; what happens during transients is another. Granted, the average owner of a flagship BMW isn't likely to ever run it at a slalom-intensive autocross or intentionally at transient lateral acceleration rates of over, say, 1g/sec, but a Mustang owner might.

Predictability = quick/fast because you know what's happening without having to wait until the transient portion of the maneuver is over to find out if it really took a set when and where you were hoping it would.

Linearity = predictability, and by definition, active suspension components are going to have nonlinear behavior even in the ranges where linearity is important. Dunno, maybe this doesn't matter at all to the driver who's only pointing the car accurately enough to stay on the black stuff.

Zero roll is not unanimously considered a good thing, as the absence of roll can convey the impression that the tire behavior is remaining linear when it clearly might not be. I firmly believe that a car should not be telling that sort of lies to its driver.


Active sta-bars and MR technology would probably be a much better fit for a new generation T-bird, since that nameplate's mission has always been to be at least a couple of steps more luxurious than the Mustang's.


Norm

J.greene

how does it work?

daredevil95

http://www.theautochannel.com/news/2...10/140166.html