Spittybug
01-26-2013, 08:07 PM
I was just screwing around under the car today looking for a way to relocate cooling hoses, but that's another post.
I took a piece of plastic conduit and melted it with a heat gun to get the approximate angles for mocking up a lower control arm brace. I know that other's have offered their versions, but it would seem to me that an "outrigger" of this type would be quite beneficial, and indeed mimics wishbone-style lower control arms. I only mocked up the rear as it is my belief that the sway bar works decently in the compression (forward LCA motion) direction, but yields too much in the extension (rearward LCA motion). If this is indeed not true, I think the shock mounting bolt could be used for a symmetrical setup.
The real version of this would have an extended length, high strength bolt with that passed through a steel bushing to replace the pivot bolt that holds the LCA. That steel bushing would be connected to an arced steel tube down to another steel bushing, through which a longer shock absorber bolt passes. (Using the sway bar as a mount point as shown would be tough since the sway bar's threaded end is only so long.)
Using these pivot points, the distance between them doesn't change as the car bounces up and down. I'm not a mechanical engineer (but I have stayed in a Holiday Inn Express on more than one occasion), but I believe that the force would be translated from the lower shock bolt, via the arc and to the pivot bolt/bushing. It wouldn't all be perpendicular force, some would be linear to the length of the bolt. In any case, the benefit would appear to be a reduction in the fore/aft motion of the LCA which I believe contributes to the higher speed "jitteryness" of our cars.
Why reinvent what others have already done? I believe that arcing the brace gives an advantage over closer-in brackets. The question is whether the longer pivot bolt (through a much thicker bushing) can absorb the forces without bending or otherwise damaging the frame. If there is that much force, imagine how much your LCA is moving!
After careful measuring, I can't believe these would be difficult to fabricate. Don't mind the dark paint patches in my pictures; I proactively coated edges of things with POR15 while I was under there previously touching up places where the epoxy was chipping.
I took a piece of plastic conduit and melted it with a heat gun to get the approximate angles for mocking up a lower control arm brace. I know that other's have offered their versions, but it would seem to me that an "outrigger" of this type would be quite beneficial, and indeed mimics wishbone-style lower control arms. I only mocked up the rear as it is my belief that the sway bar works decently in the compression (forward LCA motion) direction, but yields too much in the extension (rearward LCA motion). If this is indeed not true, I think the shock mounting bolt could be used for a symmetrical setup.
The real version of this would have an extended length, high strength bolt with that passed through a steel bushing to replace the pivot bolt that holds the LCA. That steel bushing would be connected to an arced steel tube down to another steel bushing, through which a longer shock absorber bolt passes. (Using the sway bar as a mount point as shown would be tough since the sway bar's threaded end is only so long.)
Using these pivot points, the distance between them doesn't change as the car bounces up and down. I'm not a mechanical engineer (but I have stayed in a Holiday Inn Express on more than one occasion), but I believe that the force would be translated from the lower shock bolt, via the arc and to the pivot bolt/bushing. It wouldn't all be perpendicular force, some would be linear to the length of the bolt. In any case, the benefit would appear to be a reduction in the fore/aft motion of the LCA which I believe contributes to the higher speed "jitteryness" of our cars.
Why reinvent what others have already done? I believe that arcing the brace gives an advantage over closer-in brackets. The question is whether the longer pivot bolt (through a much thicker bushing) can absorb the forces without bending or otherwise damaging the frame. If there is that much force, imagine how much your LCA is moving!
After careful measuring, I can't believe these would be difficult to fabricate. Don't mind the dark paint patches in my pictures; I proactively coated edges of things with POR15 while I was under there previously touching up places where the epoxy was chipping.