Johny, good questions. I wish I could say that I do have good data for my setup in the respect that you're asking, but I do not. As you should know, that kind of equipment is expensive and running a test of my setup versus others would be very hard to organize and fund. I would gladly set up some kind of donation thing and people could send me money to get all of this tested and I will run each set of dampers on the same car, on the same track, with all the same sensors and compare after all the tests are done. But I would need at least $100 from every member and the track time donated and the test setups donated. And that could get a little bit of data.
And the thing is, what I have developed isn't by the book, I mean, I haven't found instructions on how to determine valving and everything through some book. My understanding of suspension and dampers has been taken from a lot of source, yes a lot of reading, but a lot more physical testing than anything. So I have found out what works and what doesn't through real testing. I wish I could supplement that with a lot of data acq and if the good setups weren't so expensive and the cheaper setups were enough to get by on, I would definitely have it. But even with a cheaper setup, you're still spending more than anyone on here has ever spent on suspension just on a couple sensors.
All this testing and working with different drivers and different driving styles has allowed me to factor this into my setups. They are not just math. I wish, that would've made things a lot easier for me. The math will only get you so far, and then you would just have natural frequencies and critical damping coefficients, but there's a lot more than that they you would need. You need actual damping coefficients which would be chosen based on several different factors and then they would be different for high and low speed ideally. So after I get the math part done, it's time for the modeling. I'm usually just using a model that I put together, it's a 4 2dof quarter car models tied together. It's simulink/matlab based, I read in my data from the dyno and plug in the constants and then run the car through different scenarios to look at how everything responds.
I talked about all of this in one my article for Drift and RWD Sport Magazine, so feel free to take a look at it if you want.
http://www.theoryinpracticeengineering.com/drift_mag/Damper_tuning.pdf
That article also talks a little about my use of the driver. And while the driver is very important, I don't like tuning the car around the driver. I feel that it can hinder the performance of the car. The driver should be much more adaptive than any car will be and if the car is perfect, then why should it be changed because a driver doesn't want to work with it. Sometimes it is necessary to make changes for the driver, but in my opinion I think the driver should work harder to get more out of the car rather than adjust the car and get less out of it.
So I would say the answer to the question of the largest contributing factor to vehicle dynamics is not the driver, but the tires. But it's kind of a trick question because the tires wouldn't be asked to do anything without driver inputs, so it depends on how you're looking at the question.
This all reminds me of an editorial I read in Racecar Engineering, it was about the American versus European way of tuning a suspension. The American way is to adjust the suspension to keep the driver happy, while the Euro way is to setup the car and make the driver adjust to it. The Euro way is faster in the end. The car should be the limiting factor in how fast it can go, not the driver. So by making changes based on what the driver wants, the driver is actually limiting the cars performance and it's either time to get him to learn to drive better or replace him with someone that can.
Of course, this isn't for all driver's, some driver's do deserve changes in the suspension. But in most cases, changes to make the driver happy will not keep the tires as happy as they should be. And happy tires win races.
I have used driver's as tuning tools, so you could say that I made changes for the drivers. But my driver selection was very careful and the change wasn't made because the driver wanted it, the driver told me what the car was doing and I made the change based on his report. I also had driver's with different styles driving the same car with the same setup and they were both able to get the most out of the car.
Anyway, with all that said, I don't have much to compare to when looking at my setup versus a Megan setup. All I have to really compare are spring rates and they will tell you a lot, but they won't tell you much, if you know what I mean. I have posted dyno charts for my setup and listed the spring rates, so the reason I can't do a full comparison on Megans is because I don't have enough data. All of my opinions that you have read on Megans and other asian dampers is based on my experience with many different asian setups and the generalizations hold true for pretty much everything except for the real expensive stuff.
Also, you should know that comparing the amount of G's a setup can produce is more a function of spring rate and tire selection than dampers. Dampers will determine transient behavior and measured G's are usually a steady state thing unless we're comparing accelerometer data.
But I would love to do some kind of mass suspension test if I could get enough interest. People want data and answers, but they don't want to spend any money or time trying to get them. And as much I would like to personally test and compare every competing product out there, there is just not the time or the money to allow me to do so.
But if someone can get my dyno plots, there is a lot of information that can be taken out of them when applied to a certain case. So I can analyze and compare them with other setups. But until I get some data to disprove my past experience with these types of setups, my opinions won't change.
Tim
. But I am talking in the future and if Wiisass is into my project at all, this is all just testing the waters. I need to build reliable contacts for things i cant supply myself.
