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PostPosted: July 30, 2008, 12:46 pm 
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Lumbering Giant
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I found this via Google search, not sure how to access from the site's home page:

http://www.fromsteve.net/carstuff/suspe ... onCalc.htm

The parent website is Build a Faster Car.

To use, open the link in Excel and insert your own values. It can be saved on your hard drive in .xls format.

This spreadsheet allows you to tweak suspension settings and estimate outcomes in terms of roll couple distribution, load on each tire, and degrees of body roll. It is brilliant.

Chet, could you sticky this?

Edit: It might be a little presumptious to ask for a sticky, but the nearest thing to this that I know of costs some $$$.

Pete

Edit: The link is dead. I do, however, have a copy on my hard drive, so email me if you want me to send it to you.


Last edited by Pete B on September 7, 2014, 9:12 am, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: July 30, 2008, 1:39 pm 
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It's a straightforward torque balance of all major components, just a force x distance. I wrote one myself and provide it free to all book buyers :wink:

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PostPosted: July 30, 2008, 2:11 pm 
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ORLY, KB?

KB58 wrote:
It's a straightforward torque balance of all major components, just a force x distance. I wrote one myself and provide it free to all book buyers :wink:


Hahaha, like I said... ;)

Isn't it funny how every profession has its own tricks of the trade? To an engineer, this is child's play. A surgeon can slice off the organ of your choice without blinking. I can read bad handwriting upside-down across a desk. :D


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PostPosted: February 8, 2009, 9:25 am 
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I've found this one surfing on the net:
http://fsae.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/1256 ... 8510005141

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PostPosted: March 29, 2010, 7:06 am 
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Pete B wrote:

The parent website is Build a Faster Car.
e


Some of the articles there are woeful, take them with a grain of salt.


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PostPosted: September 14, 2010, 5:46 pm 
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Hi there,

I came upon this site in doing some suspension research. I was going to use a few resources, including Steve's, as a basis to piece together some theory and put it all into practice

I'm curious as to the articles that are woeful - is there still something useful that might still be pulled from them?

Thanks!


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PostPosted: April 14, 2011, 7:48 am 
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'Build a Faster Car' looks to have a lot of 'fluff', but on the plus side, it was the only place I found (on the web, but I'm not the best searcher) that gave me formulae for caster- and KPi-induced camber when I was doing suspension geometry design using a string computer. Of course, I could have bought a chassis dynamics text ...

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PostPosted: August 5, 2013, 3:23 pm 
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Both the "build a faster car" and the FSAE links to weight transfer spreadsheets are dead links (no spreadsheet to be found). Is there a current active link the one of these weight transfer spreadsheets?

I'm build a mid engine RWD (based loosely on the Lotus Europa) track car and looking for a starting point for spring rates and brake bias. Have never worked on a car with more mass in the rear so my past experience is really not helping too much.

Thank in advance for your time


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PostPosted: January 27, 2014, 2:55 am 
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A fellow racer linked me to this

which I believe is based from http://www.racing-car-technology.com.au/wgttransex.htm

i'm not sure it's the same as the original worksheet but it's probably just about the same end result.

I also believe there is an xls of 'The Locost Suspension Helper.xls' - if you can't find a copy I can dig up my copy and upload it - I don't recall it was quite as good as the weight transfer sheet above.

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PostPosted: September 7, 2014, 9:16 am 
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I've noticed that the link to the spreadsheet referenced in the original post is dead, so please feel free to e-mail me if you want a copy.

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Last edited by Pete B on September 7, 2014, 10:46 am, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: September 7, 2014, 9:26 am 
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Pete B wrote:
I've noticed that the link to this spreadsheet is dead, so please feel free to e-mail me if you want a copy.


Nice of you to offer. I just tried the "this" link from Tongboy's post and it worked. Nice article referenced too. I'm not sure if those are the things mentioned in the original post, though.

I'm curious about the 'The Locost Suspension Helper.xls' mentioned. Is it similar to the XLS I just downloaded?

Cheers,

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PostPosted: September 7, 2014, 10:45 am 
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I love the Racing Car Technology website and, honestly, I think I would be happy to pay Dale Thompson his AU$300 fee just to brainstorm with him.

The Locost Suspension Helper is the simplest of the three, and calculates preload, sag, and spring rates for a number of frequencies. I have a copy of it, too.

The spreadsheet (workbook actually) referenced in the original post does everything in the Race Car Technology sheet but is more modular and also explains the numbers better. Pieces you don't care about for the moment can be ignored. It can consider tire deflection and calculate the load on each contact patch under different assumptions. The Spring Rate Calculator section gives preload amounts, and will suggest a rear frequency given the wheelbase and a selected speed. The author really did a nice job.

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