Sunbeam ( Tiger ) ackerman
Sunbeam ( Tiger ) ackerman
(OP)
Over on a Studebaker group the conversation has shifted to the importance/necessity of ackerman in the steering.
My "contribution" was that Carrol Smith said it doesn't matter much.
Some Stude owners apparently are/were Tiger owners, and one said that due to Carrol Shelby's manufacturing expediencies (for the Tiger prototype Shelby gruffly told them "...to just bend the d*mn steering arms") the ackerman was real bad, and as a result Tiger owners ever since have suffered failures of the suspension's lower fulcrum pins. he provided pictures of some fancy replacement pivots he had made. Snooping around the internet some Tiger owners are fitting 245/50 tires which I expect the engineers at Roots probably never counted on.
Anyway, I'd think bad ackerman would at worst drag the tires sideways, which would be no worse than a maximum cornering effort at 0.7 gs or whatever the tire friction would allow. And, in order to accumulate thousands of cycles to provoke fatigue MULTiple steering applications or an endless succession of corners and straights would have to be navigated.
Are the forces from bad ackerman really high enough to shorten suspension life?
My "contribution" was that Carrol Smith said it doesn't matter much.
Some Stude owners apparently are/were Tiger owners, and one said that due to Carrol Shelby's manufacturing expediencies (for the Tiger prototype Shelby gruffly told them "...to just bend the d*mn steering arms") the ackerman was real bad, and as a result Tiger owners ever since have suffered failures of the suspension's lower fulcrum pins. he provided pictures of some fancy replacement pivots he had made. Snooping around the internet some Tiger owners are fitting 245/50 tires which I expect the engineers at Roots probably never counted on.
Anyway, I'd think bad ackerman would at worst drag the tires sideways, which would be no worse than a maximum cornering effort at 0.7 gs or whatever the tire friction would allow. And, in order to accumulate thousands of cycles to provoke fatigue MULTiple steering applications or an endless succession of corners and straights would have to be navigated.
Are the forces from bad ackerman really high enough to shorten suspension life?





RE: Sunbeam ( Tiger ) ackerman
I'd suspect that suspension failures now are more likely associated with old age than with nonideal geometry.
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
RE: Sunbeam ( Tiger ) ackerman
Ackermann % is being calculated out of the difference angle between the inside and outside wheel angle over steering angle and basic vehicle parameters. In all of these calculations the point of departure is a static toe of 0°. Now do try to calculate Ackermann % with a static toe angle of -0,25° or 0,25° and have a look at your Ackerman %. You will be terrified
Cheers,
dynatune, www.dynatune-xl.com