[TryHard]

tanshi wrote:

ours if it ever gets out of the planning stages will have 110 inch wheel base. and around 1.9 meters from WMS to WMS

Sounds good Tanshi

[5ierra]

tanshi wrote:

ours if it ever gets out of the planning stages will have 110 inch wheel base. and around 1.9 meters from WMS to WMS

Havent you got an SJ ute to finish first, and 6 other LJ's?

[got_bar_work]

1.9m wms
Wat diffs are they or is it full custom

[tanshi]

50% custom diffs

and yes i do have a ute to finish/start and 6 other LJs one of wihich will end up as this.

[Verm1n]

Unfortunately all the silly ideas I come up with.. I tend to actually attempt.. thus the wooden dash in my sierra.. I've also thought about a bench seat in my Lj :S crazy enough I think it would be different

[5ierra]

Seriously though, on the topic of the air shocks, has anyone got any ideas about the sway situation?

I'd love to hear gwagens opinion on this, you've always got plenty of usefulness about you

[Gwagensteve]

There seems to be some misunderstanding about air shocks.

I've read Billavista's huge tech article on setting up Airshocks on a recreational buggy, (27 pages, or something) and the big problem is that it seems to be extremely difficult to tune them. They have a very strange "spring rate" - it's kind of exponential, not linear like a spring, or linear with "steps" like a multi-rate like a coil over.

This is a significant problem - its easy to set up airshocks for a rock buggy with very limited compression travel and huge droop, because it's fine to have 11" of stuff all spring rate and 1" of high spring rate on rocks, but on trails you need maybe 3 or 4" of compression - and that's where it gets tough - it's hard to stop the shocks just topping out once they are unloaded - it's referred to as "pushing off"

They also have a tiny amount of oil and gas in them because of the diameter of the shaft. that means ml's of oil or a tiny change in gas pressure makes a big difference in performance. They also look to have less sophisticated valving as a shock absorber.

There's stories of air shock cars changing ride height by 3-4 inches as the car changes altitude, let alone changes as they heat & cool.

I understand that 2.5" airshocks are much better, but the real answer is ORI struts, which have gas on both sides of the piston, so they are much easier to tune, and have angle sensing that stiffens them up and stops them unloading.

Just some thoughts. I don't have personal experience with them, but I've watched plenty of cars running them in competition and I'm not convinced. I'll admit that this has been in rock crawling where they weren't tuned for speed, but their behaviour is odd and not at all like a conventional spring (or Citroen Hydropneumatic suspension, which is very supple. Airshocks have a fair amount of "sticktion" in them)

PS as for dry sumps - no, they won't let you run upside down - the oil will still end up in the head away from the pickup, and secondarily, depending on a little rubber belt down near the crack pulley to run your oiling. Phil Noble who runs (ran?) that crazy 49" tyred GU coil cab @ tuff truck, ran a dry sump, I assume to allow more clearance for his links, and threw the belt on the mud run - instant zero oil pressure on a motor under full power.

Great for a race car, but unless you could gear drive and enclose the drive to the scavenge pump, I don't think it's a good option.

Steve.

[Teracis]

Can you get an electric scavenge pump?

[Gwagensteve]

Maybe, but would you trust it?


Steve.

[Teracis]

As a sparky, yes.

As someone who can't afford to rebuild an engine because of a silly stuffup like this, no.


To be serious about it though, couldn't you have twin electric scavenge pumps and a fail safe or warning to let you know if/when oil flow stopped?

[JrZook]

Teracis wrote:

As a sparky, yes.

As someone who can't afford to rebuild an engine because of a silly stuffup like this, no.


To be serious about it though, couldn't you have twin electric scavenge pumps and a fail safe or warning to let you know if/when oil flow stopped?

Simple engine cut out switch connected to an oil pressure sender.

[Teracis]

JrZook wrote:

Teracis wrote:

As a sparky, yes.

As someone who can't afford to rebuild an engine because of a silly stuffup like this, no.


To be serious about it though, couldn't you have twin electric scavenge pumps and a fail safe or warning to let you know if/when oil flow stopped?

Simple engine cut out switch connected to an oil pressure sender.

Thought about this, but what if you were in a situation where it absolutely had to stay running for a little bit (I'm not sure what because it's going to seize pretty quickly anyway)

Also, it would need to be timed so it would let you start the engine. OR tied in so that the start circuit bridged it out.

[Fatzook]

tanshi wrote:

ours if it ever gets out of the planning stages will have 110 inch wheel base. and around 1.9 meters from WMS to WMS

So you are just copying Babie Barbie then?

[fordem]

5ierra wrote:

how do you justify more power off dry sump?
my mate is running one on his race car, and the actual new pump creates quite a bit more load and a little loss of power.

Its not a huge gain but basically the crankshaft doesnt have to sludge thorugh as much oil and can move more freely, thus giving a gain.

Its possible that the dry sump you mate is running is delivering more oil to the crank then previous and creating more load for it.

Lol crank should never be in contact with the oil in the sump unless its over full.

I'm just going by nearly every article about dry sump i've read. Below is an extract of one said article:

"The primary advantage of a dry sump system is its ability to make more power. With very little oil in the pan, the rotating assembly is not burdened with the weight of excess oil (a phenomenon commonly referred to as "windage"). And because there is no internal pump, the windage tray or screen which serves to isolate sump oil from the rotating assembly, is allowed to run the full length of the pan. Keeping the rotating assembly free of windage allows it to spin freely and make more power. In addition, the extra crankcase vacuum created by the dry sump pump helps to improve ring seal for additional power gain"

Notice it says there's not a huge gain?

Dry sumps don't really eliminate windage - windage will occur regardless of where the oil is stored - be it in a pan below the engine, or in a tank located elsewhere.

Assuming that your oil pan is properly designed and has a windage tray (the Suzuki G series engines do) and the oil level is correct - I doubt that you will see any significant power increase from a dry sump oiling system.

What you will see is improved oiling in "high-g" situations because the oil in the dry sump system cannot "slosh" away from the pump pickup - so unless you're execting to see track time, I would think this to be not worth the expense.

In most cases the oil that the crankshaft is in contact with is a - so to speak - mist of oil droplets thrown off by the bearings, and/or sprayed through that little hole in the con-rods that is meant to lubricate the cylinder walls.

Here's a good explanation of what windage is - the website belongs to a manufacturer of windage control products, not dry sumps, so he doesn't tell you what a dry sump is or will do for you.

Incidentally this company does make a crank scraper for the Suzuki engines dynotest on a G10 (1 litre, 3 cylinder) showed about a 3% increase in power - I do have one of them fitted to a G13 and the biggest improvement noted was an increase in oil pressure at operating temperature, which I suspect is more related to an reduction in oil temperature than anything else.

[Brett]

got_bar_work wrote:

In theory air shocks that are set up right is the best suspension ever
Look at the theory behind the citron suspension
It rides smoother than any other type of steel spring ever created and has perfect even ground pressure on each tire
Now the problem is to get that to work in a car with long travel and without the millions citron spent on r&d over the years
If there is a way to externally link all the shocks to one adjustable nitrogen tank so that each corner would have the same pressure acting on it
Only problem would be building a car with even weigh distribution

Pretty sure citron use a airbag set up not a airshock set up like coil overs.

From what I have read air shocks heat up and change the rate they work at. A air bag set up would be your best bet, you can adjust them up, down for big loads, cross link them and you can get ones that are softer lifted and stiffer when lowered. I had a set in my p38

[Brett]

You only need a dry sump if your angles are so big your oil pick up is starting to suck air.
How many times have you seen this happen and kill a engine? Ive only seen it happen once when my mate didnt shut down after a roll. More work than its worth in my book.

Most time people go to dry sumps if the g's are moving the oil away from the pick up and have big revs going on. Not for more power.

[Fatzook]

Is there any reason why you cannot just use coilovers? I would imagine that they are far superior to air shocks with regards to tunability

[5ierra]

Fatzook wrote:

Is there any reason why you cannot just use coilovers? I would imagine that they are far superior to air shocks with regards to tunability

I guess i was thinking something different, also the low ride hieght and huge droop.

I dont really know a great deal about coil overs...

Can i achieve the same thing with them?