When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Thanks. No FSB contact. Dallas suggested the uprights increase the roll stiffness sufficient to be ok going back to the stock FSB. Seems to be the case for me and now I've recovered quite a bit of single bump compliance in the front. That said, before the uprights I really liked the bigger FSB upgrade to balance out the car. I'd slowly been adding more front rate and it'd kept increasing overall grip.
Current set-up is:
Front: Ohlins RT, 550#, Circo camber plates, stock FSB w/ Cusco bracket set -1 softer than stock, Whitelin RCK, bump steer bushings, offset Duroballs, RS helical diff
17x9.5 +38 RPF1 w/ 20mm spacer, 255/40 Maxxis RC-1
25.75" ground to fender, -3deg, 0 toe
Rear: Ohlins RT 10k, Whiteline 24mm RSB set full stiff, Energy trailing link bushings, WL toe link buchings, restacked stock diff, super beefy receiver hitch / chassis stiffener
17x9.5 +38 RPF1, 255/40 Maxxis RC-1
25.50" ground to fender, -2deg, 0.08" toe-in
Interesting. Thanks for the feedback. Always nice to see how certain setups work for people. Cool hitch setup, not sure how much bracing that far back on the car helps.
One of the guys in my group got the preliminary drawings done for the control arms. They're based off the Wisefab stuff, the final designs will definitely look different.
From a design perspective, there are two things I would certainly look into especially if you are submitting these for a senior engineering project. First is getting threads out of bending. Even though its a big rod end with the moment created by the wheel and strut forces way out, its still bad practice having threads in bending and rod ends in anything but a two force member. That model would also require removing the inner bolt for camber adjustment.
I think possibly a two piece part connected with like a vernier bolt arrangement would cool. Could get some fine length adjustment and utilize the OEM adjustment. I know people want some ease of adjustment, but really how hard is adjusting the factory parts?
2nd parts is the cross ribbing on the trailing arm. There certainly is an optimum ribbing pattern and it wont be what wisefab did. It might be an over the top project, but if you look back at picture of my control arms, the shape of ribbing was just design. That was based on loading and supporting high stress areas. Fusion360 also has a cool design optimization program that will help to figure out where material isn't doing anything and where high loads are to help core things out.
Since there is a lot of knowledge on moving and stationary parts underneath our cars, is it possible that my sub-frame moved to the passenger side and caused my camber number to be much higher on that side. I had no accidents with my car (it is 2010 SE, btw) , but my wife did scrape things a bit last year getting over the curb, which could be the cause. If not her, than car had something going on while at the dealership for ACD pump replacement...
My plan is to loosen all four bolts (I think that is the right number) and try to pry it back to the driver side. They were touched last time front sway bar was installed.
But, could this even be happening or I should look for causes for uneven camber numbers elsewhere?
Btw, current camber numbers are 2.6 and 1.9 with OEM struts.
Absolutely. Everytime I loosen my subframe for trans of swaybar change I have to bias my subframe to the driver side. You cant just pry it over though, it wont really move. I lower eveything to just a few threads holding and while prying towards drivers side I fully tighten the passenger side. This tilts up that side and when you tighten the driver side it will swing up pushing that way. I can measure more than 1/2 deg difference when I follow this. And I just happen to know my car needs to be biased fully to the driver side. YMMV.
From a design perspective, there are two things I would certainly look into especially if you are submitting these for a senior engineering project. First is getting threads out of bending. Even though its a big rod end with the moment created by the wheel and strut forces way out, its still bad practice having threads in bending and rod ends in anything but a two force member. That model would also require removing the inner bolt for camber adjustment.
I think possibly a two piece part connected with like a vernier bolt arrangement would cool. Could get some fine length adjustment and utilize the OEM adjustment. I know people want some ease of adjustment, but really how hard is adjusting the factory parts?
2nd parts is the cross ribbing on the trailing arm. There certainly is an optimum ribbing pattern and it wont be what wisefab did. It might be an over the top project, but if you look back at picture of my control arms, the shape of ribbing was just design. That was based on loading and supporting high stress areas. Fusion360 also has a cool design optimization program that will help to figure out where material isn't doing anything and where high loads are to help core things out.
Everything was just drawn for the team to get a sense of what parts go where and what kind of parts companies already offer.
In regards to removing threads from bending in the camber arm, I definitely think it'd be a good idea to not have threads there but I also don't know how much adjustment is available in the factory adjuster. Also, I'm not quite sure what you mean by a vernier bolt?
In regards to the ribbing on the arms, we don't plan to copy Wisefab's design. I will have to look into that function on Fusion as that's a design aspect I've been unsure about the most.
I observed quite a bit of motion when loosening the front lower bolt on the front control arms too. Seems in all the tolerances there is a good bit of adjustment.
I'm very interested in recommendations for at-home alignment tools. A bit of searching has narrowed to these two:
Regarding slip plates, it seems the best solution would simply be two plates with grease between rather than a riveted arrangement where the center of rotation is defined. Thoughts?
I had to come up with my own way back when I was a poor college student, and now 14 years later Ive been doing the same but more polished method with jack stands, fishing line, a level, and a measuring tape with 1/16th marks. Id say by now I have to have done 100 alignments on DSMs and Evos and theyre always fun! In fact I get to do mine again next week
I decided to delete the radio on my car for this season, so I used a double-din relocation kit and fabricated a CF plate and spacers to hold a pair of gauges to start. Ultimately this allows me to easily add/move gauges, switches, indicators into the double din space. Below for pics.
Everything was just drawn for the team to get a sense of what parts go where and what kind of parts companies already offer.
In regards to the ribbing on the arms, we don't plan to copy Wisefab's design. I will have to look into that function on Fusion as that's a design aspect I've been unsure about the most.
My advice is make the suspension arms you design as simple as possible. Its graduate level work to take a large part and optimize for weight reduction while maintaining a good safety factor to prevent failure. Remember that is a dynamic application so start with a static assumption and then design a part with a larger than necessary safety factor.
A simple part has fewer features. It easier to keep track of which feature to optimize. Ideally, you can take the part that is optimized through FEA and gradually add more features till it becomes what you had in mind. That will take a while though. A way to minimize the time spent on design is to mimic strong and proven profiles. I beam and H beam would be good choices.
My advice is make the suspension arms you design as simple as possible. Its graduate level work to take a large part and optimize for weight reduction while maintaining a good safety factor to prevent failure. Remember that is a dynamic application so start with a static assumption and then design a part with a larger than necessary safety factor.
A simple part has fewer features. It easier to keep track of which feature to optimize. Ideally, you can take the part that is optimized through FEA and gradually add more features till it becomes what you had in mind. That will take a while though. A way to minimize the time spent on design is to mimic strong and proven profiles. I beam and H beam would be good choices.
I'm done with the trailing arm, Dallas was a huge help with helping me do FEA work. My degree doesn't cover FEA so I've just been having to teach myself for the most part, but I'm pretty good at setting up designs for fast changes, so I don't spend too much time making changes once I've laid the groundwork. Now I'm going through the FEA for the upper arm which is just about done, small refinements left to be made. The toe arm is pretty basic, nothing fancy. Working on making the camber arm today, thinking about putting in a few holes for the shock attachment to mess with motion ratio in the rear. Hopefully starting the knuckle later this week or early next week.
Overlaid on stock scan. Has about 1" more tire clearance.
The upper arm is going to be interesting. How wide apart are the inner mounts outside to outside? With the lateral arm flat, how high is the tallest section?
Mar 15, 2018, 07:31 AM
