sheridan 914 body kits Options

[SGB]

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Hey Brett!
Although I didn't just "just crank the t-bars down", I'm pretty sure I could use some serious front end realignment. It is as low as it will go without hitting the bump stops often, and has a pretty big bump steer kit that was in when I last had it 4-wheel aligned many years ago. I know you told me before that you do oyur own alignments. Could I convince you to help me get my front end -better? It doesn't have any problems and tracks straight, but I'll bet it isn't even close to ideal. Whattayasay? Got enough time? I'll bring the beer or coffee or whatever!

[Brett W]

Next week I may have a little time.

[redshift]

Does anyone have a Sheridan body I can get a mold from?

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M

[Brett W]

I have a car that could be used for a mold to make our own more aero body work than the Sheridan kit.

[andys]

Lots of "negative" caster will not make a car hard to steer. I ran 6 degrees on my street car and have designed as much as 10 degrees into some race cars. It is good for camber gain in a strut situation. This "jacking" effect that you refers to really only occurs at large steering angles such as those incurred in a street car. Race cars don't use anywhere near as much steering angle. The KPI can be used to offset this in a street car. Since the factory set the strut at a 10 degree angle running, the drawbacks of large amounts of caster are offset by the KPI.

A large scrub radius is bad thing anyway you look at it. Any bump of cornering force exerts a twisting force on the steering that is proportional to the scrub radius. Cars with zero scrub radius can be driven without power steering becasue these twisting froces are gone. But zero scrub radius cars can feel very numb. The driver needs a little feedback to "feel" what the tires are doing so havinga minuimal amount of scrub radius is useful. In my cars I shoot for a minimal amount of scrub radius. In most applications the large amount of KPI that the factory built into our cars helps decrease the large scub radius because the wheels can't be crammed over the struts.

Brett,

I suppose we could go on for hours; it'd be fun, no doubt. So, just a couple of comments.

First, just to set the grounds for your opinion; by negative caster, I assume you mean that the tire contact patch (where the verticle centerline of the wheel meets the road surface) is trailing behind the king pin (or axis of the strut) as it intersects the road surface. Hmmm, is that confusing? How about: The king pin is rotated opposite the direction of tire rotation. I use "king pin" as it's easier to describe in few words, and is easier to visualize.

I know of no example where adding caster does not increase required steering input. Increaesd caster will always ceate an increase in weight jacking (and increased effort), and is especially accentuated when using wide tires. As such, it takes very little steering input to creat jacking in your wide tire example. That's what makes race setups so much more difficult that a narrow tire'd street application. I think we both realize that there's a balance between caster and KPI; some refer to it as a compromise, as one begets the other. There's no perfect solution.

A strut suspension usually dictates how little scrub radius you can run due to it's design (as opposed to say a double wishbone design). I agree that you can usually benefit from some scrub radius to provide the driver with some "feel." Some trends in suspensions have moved towards very little caster and KPI, and larger scrub radii, but the jury's still out, AFAIK. It does create a little more stability in the front end dynamic behavior at the cost of dartiness and straight line stability.

Thanks for the interesting discussion,

Andy