Re: Panhard rod

[bearbvd@domain.elided (Greg Hermann)]

>At 02:22 PM 4/8/99 -0600, Tom Mandera wrote:
>>Sounds good.. but the big question is - do the books cater to JUST flat
>>trackers or is there anything about long-travel twisty suspensions?  My
>>racer doesn't need twist but it needs travel (soaking up the impact of a
>>750lbs engine).  My off-road rigs want twist *and* travel.
>
>the better books will allow you to infer basic principles; i'm not a big
>fan of overly stiff suspensions myself, even on race cars. they mostly are
>something you use when you are stuck with bad geometry for rules and/or
>budget reasons.
>
>cheers,
>  richard

Yeah--the SCORE Class 8 race trucks are up to about 18" of wheel travel at
each corner at this point, with lots of VERY softly valved shocks--so as to
have a way to dissipate all the heat generated by damping action. And they
need to have reasonable geometry, they do NOT run slowly, or only in a
straight line!!

Rock crawlers are getting even more interesting than that in terms of wheel
travel, but they are not so concerned with geometry.

If you want to meet a production CAR that went very fast, and had a LOT of
wheel travel (out of necessity), (about 8 inches at each corner) take a
look at an Argentine critter called a Torino some time--Kaiser built them
in Cordoba. They ran a twelve port head on a Jeep 230 cid SOHC , hemi head
Tornado (Continental block) with 3 Weber 45 mm DCOE's, and a ZF licensed 5
speed. (315 HP, IIRC) ,Rambler American unibody shell with PF outer skin!!

Regards, Greg