I did indeed use it on the Van Diemen and the Lister. There are a number of benefits, but on the front of the Van Diemen (and presumably the Radical) it allowed the good motion ratio of a pushrod linkage with the chassis simplicity of a simple double A-arm/coilover layout. Didn't realise it was...
It only halves the spring rate of the link, not the total anti-roll bar stiffness. Then the tyre stiffness has to be factored in, which makes the step change not so frightening. A similar characteristic, but halving the total roll stiffness, is available with the monoshock arrangement as used on...
Lola's Champcar uses a split ARB link with one part having a piston and the other a canister carrying two coil springs, one either side of the piston. The springs can be pre-loaded against each other, so that when the force in the link exceeds the preload, the spring rate of the link halves...
see also US patent application 2003/0071430 A1, filed recently, and looking like two SLA systems in series, one as normal and the other rotated through 90deg.
Andy
Yes - the description in R-E differs from the patent in that the articulation due to lateral force, which is what keeps the tyre normal to the road, happens at the outboard end. What defeats me is how they control the system's normal and lateral reaction forces in every circumstance, and...
1) does anyone have a feeling for camber / metre of jounce travel for race cars?
Around 0.2deg/25mm - 16deg/m - for Formla cars like F3, F3000, LMP
2) Is an angled upper arm OK?
Yes - and normal, though it looks to me that some current F1 cars have the upper arm angled the other way -...
I've just found a copy of "Automobile Suspensions" by Colin Campbell in my office. It was published in 1981, and it's got a section on the Trebron double roll centre suspension, which at that time its inventor, a Canadian called Norbert Hamy, had been working on for more than a decade...
My experience is from wind tunnel testing of small single-seaters and Le Mans cars: I've never had F1-style budgets to do in-depth analysis of the why's and how's. Empirically, strakes (my term for the fins/vanes) have a major effect on the efficiency of a diffuser, whether on the front of an...
