Calculating Ideal Spring and Roll Bar Rates Part 2

In case you missed Part 1 – Calculating Ideal Spring and Roll Bar Rates – How To Adjust And Tune – Suspension Secrets Accounting for Tyres So far in the process we have ignored the effects of tyres for calculating our spring rates. One aspect of the tyre to consider is the grip generated due […]

Calculating Ideal Spring and Roll Bar Rates

The ride and roll rates of your car determine a change in wheel load to a change in body position, be that in bump or roll. Roll rates determine the change in tyre normal force side to side for a given applied torque to the chassis or a given amount of chassis roll. Ride rates […]

Roll Centre and Roll Moment

The roll centre positions of your front and rear suspension geometry are key features affecting the lateral load transfer rates of your front and rear axles.

Lateral and Longitudinal Load Transfer

Two main types of load transfer exist; lateral load transfer and longitudinal load transfer. In this article we will cover the basic equations for both to provide an understanding of what each is and how it works dynamically.

How To Calculate Centre of Gravity Position

Finding your centre of gravity position (referred to as COG as well in this post) is very important when you want to start understanding how your car handles and why it handles the way it does.

Wheel Rate and Chassis Roll Stiffness

Wheel Rate Wheel rate is effectively the spring rate when measured at the wheel as opposed to at the spring. It is important to understand the wheel rate of a vehicle for calculating the spring rates and understanding the car dynamically. Coil Spring Wheel Rate In order to calculate wheel rate we need to know […]

How to Calculate Installation Ratio

What is an Installation Ratio? An installation ratio is the ratio between how much the spring and damper moves in relation to how far the wheel and tyre move. In general, the wheel and tyre will move a further distance than the spring and damper. The installation ratio is vital to understand in your suspension […]

How To Calculate Spring Rates

Coil Springs Coil springs are the most common application of spring within motorsport. For reason why and some more information on coil springs make sure you check out our article “coil springs”. There are two main ways to calculate spring rate. One is through calculations based upon looking at and measuring the spring. The other […]

How To Align Your Car

This section covers how to align your car track-side or in your garage and takes you through the procedure and the order of what to adjust.

How To Corner Weight Your Car

Within many motorsport categories, corner weighting a car before an event is crucial due to the large affect it can have on the lap times and capabilities of the car. It can significantly increase lap times and make the car feel much more predictable for the driver.

Dampers Set Up

How to Measure The most accurate way to measure a damper is to use a damper dyno. This is a machine that fixes one end to a load cell (force measurer) and the other end to a crank shaft. The crank shaft has a fixed displacement and rotates in a circular motion.  As the crankshaft […]

Anti-Roll Bars

How to Measure Unlike coil springs, anti-roll bars very rarely have the spring rate marked on them. This means that the rate either needs to be calculated or measured. If you are designing your own anti-roll bar or have a relatively simple shape roll bar then it is often more accurate to calculate the bars […]

Caster

How to Measure The first stage of adjusting and tuning your caster angle is to first measure and understand what your vehicle currently has. There are two main ways to measure your caster angle: Turning plates and a digital or bubble camber/caster gauge Measuring the location of the upper and lower wishbone mounting points or […]

Camber

How to Measure Before you can begin to adjust and tune camber you must first be able to measure it and measure how effective a camber change would be to alter the grip. Ways to measure camber are: Spirit Level Camber Gauge Digital Camber Gauge 4 Wheel Laser Alignment Tyre Temperature Probe There are two […]

Toe

This section covers toe on a racing car. It describes and explains how to measure, adjust and alter toe to suit the driver and the style of circuit. The section covering the different effects of toe is separated into 3 categories; front wheel drive, rear wheel drive and four wheel drive. A lot of the […]