How flexible do you think a stock, trailing arm is Options

[ChrisFoley]

Specifically I am looking for rotational stiffness (ie. twist) of the trailing arm due to the tire contact patch resisting sideways sliding of the car. I'm only interested in forces greater than 1G during cornering.
I already know what happens but go ahead and take a guess. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)
I'll post pictures of my test fixture shortly.

[ChrisFoley]

Put the level on the trailing arm, not the lever

I am confident that wouldn't change the test results Tim.
I have a good sense of structural integrity (for lack of a better term).
What happened was exactly what I predicted. Pretty much ALL of the movement occurred in the box section of the trailing arm. It was very easy to observe this during the test. The movement was not linear along the length of the box section either. Slightly less deflection was observed toward the front where it is wider.

The fixture did not deflect.
The structural tube/plate connection to the trailing arm did not deflect.
The pivot shaft housing did not deflect.
The tube and forging section of the trailing arm did not deflect.
Very minor movement of the outer pickup bracket was observed. This bracket was a reinforced stock unit. I also have stock and my custom brackets I can test.

The loads I imposed were well below the elastic limit of the materials of the trailing arm. It returned to the exact starting position after multiple repeated tests. I had no plans to test to the failure point but that is not a bad idea. Next would be to have two men lean on the bar. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smash.gif)