The freshest news from the Motorsport world!
We are proud to announce that Suspension Secrets is now the title sponsor of the Vision Motorsport Engineering Novice Racing Driver Competition. It is very rare within Motorsport for an opportunity to come along that allows someone with potential, but without the funding, to compete …
We caught up with Paul O’Connell recently, a driver in Ireland taking the racing scene by storm in his awesome Red Bull liveried Dallara World Series Nissan V6 single seater race car. Being a long time Suspension Secrets follower he was keen to share some …
You’ve probably seen the World Time Attack Audi R8 from team R8 1:1 in Finland on social media by now. It has become quite a hit due to its huge aero and the incredible suspension system that has been designed into it. We had to find out more so organised an interview with the team manager of Team R8 1:1; Mikko Ahola.
If you have taken your car to a circuit you will be very familiar with understeer and oversteer. The two enemies of good lap times even if one of them is quite fun! Understeer is when the front of your car washes out towards the outside of the corner giving a lack of steering feel and pushing the car wide. Oversteer is when the back of the car swings out to the outside of the circuit, rotating the car and making it slide to the outside of the corner.
Who is Lindsay Rice? Lindsay Rice is a dedicated and passionate 26 year old race car driver, from Mississauga Ontario in Canada. She currently races in the US and Canada in GT racing. We decided to have a chat with her and ask some questions …
When we left Bobby he had created a custom front suspension system, stripped the car back to its bare bones and lowered the car on some new BC Racing coilovers. Now, a few weeks further down the line, Bobby has been busy with the rear …
The geometry at the rear of a motorbike is slightly less complex than that of cars due to one main linkage connecting the rear wheel to the chassis in the form of the rear swing arm. The main aspect of rear geometry that affects the handling, response and feedback of the bike is anti-squat geometry. Squat is the amount that the rear suspension compresses vertically under acceleration conditions.
We had a chat with the guys at BAC Mono who, if you don’t already know, create an single seater supercar called the BAC Mono. It is renowned for its handling capabilities and the pure driving pleasure that it delivers due to the lightweight and …
Interior Strip Down The first stage of most race car builds when starting with a road car is to strip out all of the unnecessary weight. Bobby’s build was no different as he took to the interior of the Mitsubishi Eclipse, pulling out everything in …
Due to motorbikes having 2 wheels instead of 4, they have significantly less geometry to think about. However, the geometry that they do have is adjustable and affects the handling of the bike in a big way. The geometry categories are split into front geometry …
Throughout this series of posts we are following an avid enthusiast and Suspension Secrets reader, Bobby Gould, as he builds his first ever time attack car using nothing but his own two hands and online resources to create a competitive race car. A lot of …
Monitoring your tyres when out on a track day or when racing is one of the most effective things you can do to make your car as grippy and as fast as possible with minimal effort. Your tyres are the final point of contact between your car and the ground. Therefore, they transmit a lot of information from your suspension set up and also store a lot of useful information that can be measured to help fine tune your geometry to make the tyre work more efficiently with the ground to make your car go faster with ease.
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 to the normal force being applied through the tyre. This is the grip …
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 …
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.
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.
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 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 …
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. …
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 …
