Quote:
Originally Posted by Blake Foster
You are talking about Keith from Custom Works, I should probably clarify and add to the info you posted. We have been looking at the torque arm that came out of the car, and have pretty much determined the cause. Keith runs Afco double adjustable shocks. the valving on them (according to Afco is a Drag Race set up) is SUPER soft and he was experiencing brake wheel hop (we never see this and even Ron Sutton who I asked for a non bias opinion said flat out "no way you should be getting any brake hop from a torque arm unless the shocks are too soft or too firm). due to the shock not being able to control the rear suspension. This in turn transferred into the torque arm and the metal was deformed and stressed to a point that it tore. we have NEVER seen this in all the time we have been building the torque arm 6 years now, you know how my Nova gets Driven.... and there have been no issues. we have addressed the issue by supplying a different set of shocks for Keith to try and I am positive he will not have the problem again.
In Talking to Keith I don't think he "HATES DRIVING THE CAR" he said to me that he likes the way it drives it is just different than his old leaf spring set up.
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Yep...there is always another side to it. Its frustrating for any of us manufacturer or consumer] to become a victim of an unusual combination. As a manufacturer, who would have thought that the customer would be using a soft drag racing style valving on a autocross/road course? As a consumer, who would have thought it mattered?
I think both designs have a lot of merit and would work nicely in any car they were optimized for. This is more than just a politically correct statement. If there was a CLEAR advantage to one over the other, one of us would have changed over to it by now.
In EVERY engineering project, one must start by deciding the priority of the performance criteria, knowing that as the project goes along you may have to re-evaluate those priorities. In no particular order, weight, fitment, manufacturability, price point, tunability [and the customers ability to tune] and ultimate performance all go into this mix. Every manufacturer has their own [valid] idea of the correct priority.
Although I am familiar with the torque arm design concept, I do not pretend to be well versed on it because I have not spent years living with it. I have however raced against cars using this design. The self serving part of me wants to tout that we have always run right with those cars. The reality is that those cars have always run right with us too
So, which is better?
Carry on...