Comment on our new ghetto coilover design and install

[spencurai]

my buddy james got a wild hair and decided to build some ghetto coilovers. he designed them and built what he could from some old rancho-5000s we had in the shop and some stock xj front coils. he left the install up to me and this is all i could come up with. it is not permanent because we are changing shops soon and this thing needs to coll out of there on its own wheels but obviously not its own power yet. let me know what you guys think of the physics involved in this installation. i know it does not do much for body roll but it should flex like a champ with some limiting straps and bump stops reff-ing the game?!?

 

[MattL]

welll i guess i will say it..

Where are the rest of the pics?

 

[demon jeep]

Well it kinda works for dodge, just a pain tp change the shock

 

[spencurai]

Originally posted by miatre
welll i guess i will say it..

Where are the rest of the pics?

what else do you need??

 

[Caleb]

I know your rig will be a trail only rig and is going to be WAY light but with the tops that close together wont you get major body roll???

EDIT: I jsut read the original post instead of just looking at the pictures and I now see you realize this too do you have any ideas as how you are going to correct this with your current setup???

 

[spencurai]

I honestly think the rear of this thing is going tubular or something close!! the whole frame flares out as it goes towards the rear and i dont need a wide ass-end on the thing. I also studied a lot on some 1/4 elliptic mounting strategies and i think i might move these coilovers up to the front and ellipticate the rear. for now it is on pause whilst we wait for a new shop......to be continued!!

we did flex it out when we towed it to its holding place and i am happy with the 3-link triangulated....it did well!!

 

[xjc]

spence???? what the hell are you doing. You ought to run your idea past your engineer bro just to make sure the design doesn't have too many major flaws. It'll work but the front will have to ba plenty stable.

I have to give you credit though, It is a cool design and its an ingenious use of the stuff laying around the shop. Give me a call if you need some help with the move.

 

[Too Far]

From an engineering standpoint I like to see the shocks and springs as close to vertical as possible and as far out as you can get them. The way your set up will work, but your shock valving and spring rates will have to be higher than they could be if you mounted the shocks and coils at the corners and straight up and down. Not to mention you will need a mutha anto roll bar to keep it from tilting to the side all the time.
I would think that with a totally custom buggy you could mount them in an almost ideal location because the body and such can be built around the suspension and not the other way around, as is the case with other more stock aplications.

 

[xjc]

From an engineering stand point, the force keeping your vehicle upright is a "moment" not refering to time, its a rotational force. In this case if you apply a force that tries to roll the body, your bu?? in the drive seat, or taking a corner etc.. you need some force to oppose it. the moment that resists the butt or corner moment is generated by the springs. The spring on the side beng forced down will apply a force against the body roll. The moment produced by the force of the spring is calculated by the distance between the springs times the resistance force of the spring. If the distance between the spings gets smaller, it gets harder for the springs to resist the body roll. You can get stiffer spings to an extent but you can only do so much. In the layout on the above sami has only a couple inches between the top of the springs. In that case the rear suspension has practically no resistance to twist. If the front was the same configuration, you could sit in the drive seat and the body would flop onto the drive side bump stops, (If such a thing has been installed)

Other effects include the fact that it could be ramped out to the bump stops and theoretically still have equal weight on each tire (no locker needed) cool effect but not practical. I have a scheem to make this work but no money$$$$

Dam# the little green devils

 

[spencurai]

Originally posted by xjc
Other effects include the fact that it could be ramped out to the bump stops and theoretically still have equal weight on each tire (no locker needed) cool effect but not practical. I have a scheem to make this work but no money$$$$

Dam# the little green devils

I dont care how much voodoo mumbo jumbo engineering degrees you have.....you will never be able to make a suspension that negates the need for a locker.......EVER!!! I hope you just left out the comma on that one!! as for the rest of your mumbo jumbo......it makes perfect sense. sway-bar has always been one of those good ideas in the back of the filing cabinet of ideas!! they are easy to do and really help out in such situations!!

 

[troutbum]

uhhh...what exactly are the springs accomplishing? the springs don't have near the rate you would need to be even sort of useful at that angle. Skip the coil over and run the spring as close to vertical as you can then place the shocks at an angle where you will actually get some dampening....The only reason I can think to run them at that extreme an angle is to limit the height of the lift, cool idea, less than practical.