1.2G lateral... air-ride claims valid??

[Blown353]

Originally Posted by Steve1968LS2

Again, peak and average are two totally different things. This is why it's important to know how date is gathered and put together when a claim is made.

I know. I believe Keith's 1.17 was sustained, the logging was done on a Racepak G2X and at Brainerd. Hopefully he will see this and chime in.

Not knocking Bret's setups at all, they certainly do produce results. A good driver and well sorted out chassis helps a lot too.

[Stuart Adams]

I guess I'm an idiot, someone chime in and set me straight. With the car on air ride, when you lower the car it removes air that to me would seem to ride more sloshy and not handle as well as with more air and higher. Is it more the other suspension setup pieces that contributes to the handling numbers or is it the air.

[ProdigyCustoms]

There are nominal air pressures, and lowering the car by lowering air pressure DOES NOT (necessarily) improve handling

[Stuart Adams]

So is what your saying the amount of air, higher or lower, does not usually contribute to the improvement or non improvement in the handling.

[Payton King]

expert on the subject. You select an air spring that will give you pounds of compression you are looking for at the ride height you want. By nature an air spring is progressive, more compression the higher the rate. What makes the air spring so cool is when you are not thrashing around the track or street you can air them down and get the cool low look, air them back up and drive off. You do not drive it to the track then lower it 3 inches to drive fast...


There is also benefit in a little tunning at the track. Adding or subtracting air to dial in the handling characteristics...kind of like putting wedge in a Cup car on the fly. When ART had Boris Said drive one of their cars he bumped up the pressure in the rear to get the car better suited to his driving style.

[Blown353]

You can also vary the damping rate and spring rate of just the bladder by changing material thickness/composition, geometry/folds, etc. The spring rate of an air spring is NOT just a simple function of air pressure. It is one variable in the equation but it is far from the only one. There is a lot more going on in an air spring than most people think, and to really sort one out you have to have a good working relationship with the bladder manufacturers, know what you want and what you want it to do, and then go do some data gathering & testing.

There is a "nominal" height & pressure range for each given air spring configuration, so given the corner weight of the vehicle and desired ride height you have to choose the proper spring for the application such that when at its intended operating pressure range it is at the right overall length for the intended ride height in that vehicle.

[Payton King]

I for one and liking the idea of the air spring

[Ummgawa]

Originally Posted by Stuart Adams

So is what your saying the amount of air, higher or lower, does not usually contribute to the improvement or non improvement in the handling.

Other than lowering the COG which usually helps to some serious degree.

I know that when I am lower to the ground I handle better (in a UPS truck kinda way)

[Steve1968LS2]

Originally Posted by Blown353

I know. I believe Keith's 1.17 was sustained, the logging was done on a Racepak G2X and at Brainerd. Hopefully he will see this and chime in.

Not knocking Bret's setups at all, they certainly do produce results. A good driver and well sorted out chassis helps a lot too.

Sustained is still not the same as the bi-directional averaged score we do in testing.

Yea, the ART cars are VERY well sorted out.. they do lots and lots of driving events and that certainly helps.

[Blown353]

Originally Posted by Steve1968LS2

Sustained is still not the same as the bi-directional averaged score we do in testing.

Yea, the ART cars are VERY well sorted out.. they do lots and lots of driving events and that certainly helps.

That 1.2G claim seems to come from the RTH autocross, and the log shows the 1.2G area to be a rather large constant radius left hander (or right, I'm not sure of the direction of travel.) Not sure if it's banked or unbanked. Hopefully they'll chime in.

Look at the G2X log here.
http://www.ridetech.com/streetchallenge/trackdata.asp

I know we're not talking bidirectional skidpad data, and steady state skidpad data is only one datapoint in the overall performance of a vehicle anyways.

The fact that the airride setups are complete packages are most certainly a huge part of the reason they do so well. A poorly thought out piece-mealed together suspension, even if all good individual components, can turn poor numbers if the combo isn't matched or tuned.