Hi, I spent several years in the USA and a saying that was very popular there seems very relevant to this thread. ''An empty Drum Bang's the loudest'' If I had something to sell would I sell it here ? Well of course I would, of course I would welcome all the unrelated remarks and comments about this is not right and that's not correct, and how I should explain why something is like it is and not the way I know it should be, and how my price is incorrect, and how members would want to chip in the fact that they would never pay that for it and so on. I do not like everybody I meet in life and not everybody like's me. In my experince in life, the cynical berating of person stems from a fear of the unknown, and it then becomes easier for all the leemings to follow the lead. So when only all the empty drums are left here they can bang at each and say I told you so. By the way, just a short note for the ''empty drums'' I called Prodrive, spoke with a Guy who worked in the admin department who then had a ''Older'' gentleman first name of Kevin, call me back. Prodrive Archive on the E30 M3 does tell of some of the Front Steeing Tie Rods being mounted on the top of the kunckle as apposed in the underneath position as it was means of protecting the steering tie rod on full drop on uneven rally surfaces, without altering the feeling or handling of the Car. I believe that Stephen Grelley will also confirm this. I know, Prodrive are wrong. Regards, The Gorilla.
Andrew, I do not disagree with what you say here. In fact, I think your point is correct. The difficulty here, well...at least as I see it, is that there is poverty in communication. On the one hand we have an expectation (whether fair and reasonable or not) of right of reply....and on the other hand we have communications that are concise...to the extent that they are construed as both inappropriate and inadequate. Moreover, the latter is taken as insulting by some and therefore offensive and reprehensible. This is PART of the issue. The other contentions, as I understand, relate to personal jibes that Paul made towards John. This of course may have occassioned without a great deal of thought and is perhaps regretful ? In any event, it seems to me that the invitation has been made to Paul to open up a little and endeavour to embellish his communications somewhat. Now it is up to Paul as to whether he wishes to do so.
I simply related my experience re the positioning of the steering arm to show what I experienced, not as any criticism af anybody else. At the end of the day what is required is for the steering arm and the lower suspension arm to move through identical arcs through their usable travel. If they dont then you will get bump steer to a greater or lesser degree. This would be worse on a rally car whereby if it landed on one front wheel, and that wheel was pointing in a different direction to what the driver thought then he would have a major problem.It dosent matter where the steering arm is positioned providing the arcs at the end of the arms are identical. As I said it appears that the steering arms on the rally car are shorter and would therefore have to move through different angles to acheive the same arcs.
Ill put some more light on it this is a rally car not a track car so everything is totally different. There suspension set ups change vastly for all the different surfaces the car has to do over a season they don’t just change the rates etc and damper settings they change the whole suspension hardware. Now here is a perfect example say a rally like Greece with the set up of the other rally car which is probably in tarmac set up it wouldn’t last 2 secs firstly it doesn’t have anywhere near enough travel for something like that it needs to have huge travel and a raised ride height as well. Ontop of that I guarantee you the lower mounting point wont last 5 seconds before it’s knocked of by a boulder/rock. This set up is probably set up in the pic for a rough terrain.
Can one of the gurus please explain why it makes any difference with regards being: I guarantee you the lower mounting point wont last 5 seconds before it’s knocked of by a boulder/rock. As far as i can tell the wheel protects the joint from any direct impact. I can't see whether on top or below can be any difference in this regard...
Hey!! That's my old Gr-A car!!! Nice to see it lives on!!! I agree though, to knock that joint off, yoiu'd have to go thru the wheel first!
Hi, Dave 215DMX- I do not think reference was made to the joint, its the whole tie rod as it come across from the rack to the bottom of the strut. By being located at the top instead of the bottom it may make about 20-25mm more clearance, may be more along the tie rod, at the strut end. The tie rod is somewhat protected at the rack end due to a sump guard and other under-body protection, but is vastly exposed within the wheel turning area, where the arm or wishbone has to move up and down, more so on a Rally car at full drop, as it goes much lower. That sort of clearance underneath on a Rally car, is gold, especaily if it has no effect on the handling. As was said by Stephen Grelley he had run his Motul Car like this without noticing any real effects on handling. Very hard to complete a Rally or any event with a bent tie rod. Furthermore the Car in the Paul Newbold picture has ''Delage'' front strut knuckles which are an evolution of the original Prodrive parts I think. They were on the Ron Checca ex Biggazi Car if I remeber correctly. Regards, The Gorilla.
No it was my other car that had the steering arm mounted incorrectly. The fact that the Motul car didnt have this problem drew my attention to it. I am yet to run the Motul car. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks
Hello Danny, I just now read the responses to this thread. I have to say, Im surprised and a bit perturbed by your response here. Since Im the one who raised the question in the first place, it appears the remarks are directed at me. Lets not talk in parabels here. Who is the empty drum and who are the lemmings? What I see is a bunch of rhetoric and no actual explanation based on engineering facts. Dont tell me "he said this, and so and so said that". Is hear say the way we are going to establish the facts? I dont care who you called on the phone. Can you explain it to me yourself? Lets hear the facts. If we cant establish facts how about making an honest attempt at explaining the concepts involved? So far not one person here has been willing to engage in a discussion on this. What I think you are doing is siding on the side of Newbold without establishing the facts yourself. Isnt this the same guy you quoted on diff setup? If you tested more you wouldnt have to quote someone else and this wont be learned over the telephone. The problem with newbold was not that he might not be able to explain something, was that he first tried misdirection and then he just plain refused to answer. But he was willing to answer to stupid comments about the paint job. If I thought newbold was stupid, I would have said nothing. Since I did assume he was intelligent and knew exactly what was going on, that is why I pressed him for an answer on the suspension setup. I never said he was wrong, I asked for an explanation. It would have ended right there had he handled it properly. This is a forum. If your livlihood is threatened by not being able to admit you dont know something, then go somewhere else. I have a PHD in engineering and I admit to myself everyday how little I know. In fact most days of the week I think to myself what I dumbass I am because I didnt see something coming, because real engineering development still involves a lot of mistakes. Im not willing to compromise on this anymore and Im tired of having to explain it to people who want to apear otherwise. Guess what? thats usually when the "ive been doing this for 30 years" argument falls. Well, you can have 30 years experience, or you can have 1 years of experience repeated 30 times. Thats how I see it. I will say this, I was the only one to point out the suspension, and after all these posts NOBODY has given a satisfactory answer. And the statement that if mounted underneath the tie rod would only last 5 sec. is pure bullshit, because I can show plenty of rally car setups who all setup the other way and they are front runners in their respective classes. The comment that when the suspension is extremely stiff there is less bump steer is correct, per definition, since less suspension travel inherently means less possibility for bump steer. This was noted by Grelly who runs on circuits with his ex-DTM car. and in case youd like to answer a simple question, when is the suspension in full droop? what difference does that make when compared to the suspension in full compression? BTW, I may be at the Ring on 10-11 November or the following weekend. I intend to test the E92 M3 as well as run my car, is your car ready yet? you said you might make it out this year perhaps we meet up for a few beers. John
what clearance? look around at the rest of the peripheral items... This is another thing that is not noticed in theory but in practice is born out. You CAN have an incorrect setup and STILL drive the car fast! The driver is compensating. sorry, I dont think these are Delage. Perhaps they just resell them. Im not sure, but they look not unlike MS steering knuckles run in 91. but even if they were "special", this has no bearing on the location of the tie rod top or bottom mount. thats not even the issue! Ths issue is that normally you want things like track rods, radius rods, tie rods in plane. When you think about the "trapezoid" formed between all the pickup points, this determines how camber or toe may change with steering angle. Now add suspension travel to this and this further influences how these factors change with bump. The reason to put these links all in plane is to minimize changes to the "trapezoid" for different suspension travel, this gives consistency. So one setup may be superior to the other. That doenst mean you cant drive both setups and the driver "drives" around it. Myself and a few others have been waiting for about 6 months on a new set of titanium steering knuckles which are made on a 5 axis mill, these are not just "knocked out" by any old shop. John
ride height is a separate issue. suspension travel another. to allow enough suspension travel you have to use the right bearings wich allow enough angularity. Also you have to use conus that have the required travel and your mounts must accomodate that travel. It is true that the original MS suspension was not intended to allow large suspension travel as it was intended for circuit only with very stiff supension and not much droop. This would be a problem with too much droop since the bearings would block, and eventually become severely damaged. However, the suspensions we have have all different bearings which allow increased angularity. another friend of mine, Moufang, who runs a national level rally car and wins many of them, runs his own suspension setup with similar ideas implemented. The tie rod is mounted below the control arm. He also is running larger bearings. Just to name one example. John
Oh, lets just assume that is was possible to take out the tie rod. So now after youve mounted the tie rod on top, you still have the control arm mounted below... Guess what? The control arm gets taken out, the wheel flops down and you have no steering....result: off track excursion into the weeds. I still subscribe to the view all links should be in plane, gives the best suspension kinematics. Im waiting on a real engineering reason why this would not be optimal. John
grelley nailed it. paraphrased that means all links in the same plane. they rotate thru the same angle, therefore no relative change between any one link. that means the same consistent response in steering at ANY given suspension compression / droop. if there is a relative change, that means you get different steering response dependent upon suspension compression / droop. The driver could still live with this, he just simply drives around it. John
Just to make it perfectly clear, I am completely within my right as a member to ask any other member a few questions regarding a posting they have made. My questions have been about technical matters. This is how WE ALL LEARN. If none of us contribute, then none of us learn anything. There have been NO insults made from my side. No personal attacks. But there have been less than desirable comments made about me. If anyone gets their panties all twisted because of this, they dont understand what the word "forum" means. John
Hi, John- my reference to ''empty drums'' was based upon several situations. If you feel its applicable to you then so be it, but it was not aimed at anyone, I was pointing out, that if you want to sell something here then why is it, that so many feel inclined to pass remarks unrelated to the sale ? Remember a certain M3 Evo for sale and how that ''thread'' was requested to be ''cleaned'' up !! Then there was a thread for some 48mm TB's where Paul Newbold made an offer. Like him or loath him, all he did was make an offer. All that had to be said was,'' Thanks, but no thanks'' Then a feeding frenzy breaks out about a Car for sale with no engine, and and even greater debate about its tie rods. So what if their at the top, the bottom the middle or where ever the seller wants to have them, its their car and in my book if your paying then you have what ever the fuck you like, period. For the record here, Prodrive did run some cars with tie rod at the top, in order to reduce the amount of possible damage. Your comment on the bottom arm is lost on me, sorry, the bottom arm would take a fairly large impact and still be in tact and operate, but a tie rod would bend very easy on impact, more so in a more central location the area we are talking about. The remarks about knocking joints of, are chrulish in the least, and distorts what was said, we are talking about an exposed length of tie rod more in its own central location. The engineering theory and execution that the two arms should run in tandem I have no quibble with, but if the steering works just as well on a Rally not Race Car, with the tie rod on the top, and the chances of bending it or damaging it are reduced, then only an idiot would keep it at the bottom. Further your comment on the other ''peripheral items'' is out of context given the location and position of the tie rod arm on a E30 M3 Rally Car. Reason being that as the E30 M3 Rally Car has at least 100mm more drop on the front suspesion than a Race Car, when the car has lunged and is in the air, the front wheels at full drop will expose the tie rod as the lowest point and the weakest point on the front of the car's suspension. The majority of everthing else is protected by sump shield, the front wheels [Lol] front subframe etc for impact. We are not talking just Tarmac Rally's here. Lame excuse I know, but having been under the Vet and then Consultant Vet's knife, my project Car is still about 4-6 weeks away from completion still, so I will not be able to share a Beer or 2 or................ with you at the Ring early November, but look forward to when we do, which will hopefully be very soon. If I do get the all clear for some ''overseas'' fun then I have another little old M3 here that would hopefully enjoy a few laps of the Ring at the end of this year. Regards, The Gorilla.
Hi Danny, ok...I didnt think that comment was applicable to me, but it had appeared to me that it was directed at me at the time. OTOH, you've never done that before, so Im wrong for making assumptions. I appologize if I have offended you. Just to be perfectly clear, Im quite glad you post here and share your knowledge. I may not say this often, but I do smile when I see how you build up your car with a goal towards zero compromise and Im always very interested in every modification you make. You also do a good job of explaining your ideas and reasons for doing things. I look forward to more updates on your progress. In general, you have a valid point here. For this very reason, we are planning to introduce new software to allow making for sale ads (e.g. cars for sale) in a different style...it wont be forum oriented. Communication will still be allowed, but it will be directed toward the seller. We are aware that some people may make a sport out of ruining other peoples FS ads -- not interested in buying but making cheap shots. Yes, I remember. You requested that we not clean it up, but the seller wanted his thread "cleaned" so we did it. AFAIK, the seller is honest & genuine in all respects. From what I gathered he is used to a certain "minimum" standard, some basic respect, and atleast 1-2 people ruining his thread having zero knowledge of his car where making stupid comments. I think the seller did not want to have this BS associated with his name and it looked rather stupid. so this is where we have to make a call: do we delete it or not? there are ups & downs to doing so. There may be a proposal soon to resolve this all. This is not quite right. Newbold got a little flak because in his own thread he did not exactly appreciate anyone questioning his prices, but in the 48 mm TB thread he low balled. The english people are quite good at being sarcastic, to the point of being above the head of some citizens of certain nations, or are you going to deny that? Dont try to bullshit me, because I have a lot of UK friends yes. as for my part, it wasnt a feeding frenzy. My primary criticism was that the seller refused to comment on this aspect and he DID TRY MISDIRECTION, but he was capable of commenting on some insignificant bullshit about paint work! I became irritated. But you however, made an honest attempt to explain the technical side of this. You have explained your take on the positioning of the tie rods. Thats all I ever wanted to have a discussion on. But someone took it very personal, as if their competency was challenged. Ive stated this numerous times and Im going to repeat it again: this FORUM is for sharing knowledge. It is NOT A 1 WAY STREET. Yes, it does take some work to answer those pesky posts and possibly those pesky emails or PMs. But, all of us started somewhere from nothing. Arent we all glad that someone was willing to bring us up to speed? Now, the real issue at hand was someone who thought this was just some form of "focused EBAY", to take, but not give. For the record, there is no room for people on this forum who will not share. By share, I mean to the best of their ability. If you are honest, you know what that means. If you take us for a bunch of fools, which IMO is what newbold did, then you get the outcome we dont wish to have. I have little patience for fools who think they have one up on everyone else, and want to keep it all secret. you are correct. This wasnt the issue though. If you scroll back, you will see that we did not criticise the mounting location, we ASKED for the REASONS WHY. To this day, you are the only one to have made an honest attempt to explain it. Whether I agree or not is another matter, but you are EXPLAINING. Thats all we asked for. If you go back to the very first post, you will see that had an honest attempt been made to explain the reasoning, this would have eliminated all the following posts. This comes back to the idea of having the basic decency and respect for others on the forum not to feed them a line of bullshit and to try to come right to begin with. I have noted this. Thank you. Atleast on my suspension, the tie-rod and control arm are in the same plane. The tie rod sits only a few inches ahead of the control arm. Therefore, if a big boulder hits the tie rod, my guess is that it will also take out the control arm. You are right, the control arm is stronger than the tie rod, but wether this is sufficient is questionable IMO. I think that a hit at 100 mph is going to take out both the tie rod and the control arm, should such a hit occur. funny that you mention this, but a few weeks ago when I visited moufang he had had an off, he showed me the control arm, which is quite a bit beefier compared to the DTM arms, sheared into 2 pieces (in the center of the arms). Sure, every "off" has its own circumstances, and Im dont want to draw conclusions, but I will say, those beefy control arms were cut right in half. This was sort of my reasoning why move the tie rod up, because whatever hits the tie rod at this height, is going to hit the control arm too. but this is just all conjecture I guess, so we can argue this until the cows come home. I will say this is just my oppinion, and you have your oppion which I do concede also has valid points. well, if we really want to get to the bottom of this we could split this thread and do more research I suppose. I have no problem saying I was wrong, should I be wrong. By making such a big deal out of this I will know 1 thing: at the very least I have sensibilized people to this subject, and in that area I have succeeded. Yes, I did post a few pics of rally car suspension further above...with tie rods mounted below and I dont think they are idiots. But ok, we are not talking about only Tarmac here, this is surely something we can discuss. How about discussing tarmac rally and non-tarmac rally requirements? Im interested in this. Again, we can split this entire suspension setup thread from this FS post. Just out of curiosity, Im wondering when are the tie rods most endangered? is it really when the car is in the air and the suspension is in full droop? ok we will see. We are supposed to get snow this week, that may call off all the plans. I have one more possible weekend the following weekend around the 17 Nov. I think after that though, its over for this season. anyway, if there is one thing I wish people would understand and take away from this thread is the following: We want REAL participation. Its a forum, so we are dependent upon contributions from its members. Its a give and take. Just think about that last statement the next time you (or any of us) have a question. John
Hi, John- nothing meant or taken. Us Primates are very thick skinned and a good discussion or debate, sometimes a little heated, by people passionate about the subject matter, is always far more interesting and rewarding. As my late Hero Senna said, '' I'm not here just for the ride''. Regards, The Gorilla.
