build diary

January 18, 2006: Okay, I've managed to confuse myself.
I modelled the front suspension of the Miata in the spreadsheet and came up with camber curves even worse than my own. I double-checked that against some measured curves and while it's not 100% accurate (that front upright is a bugger to measure) it's close enough to confirm that maybe I don't want the suspension to keep the wheels from changing camber in roll. After all, the Miata setup works pretty well. Argh. I know that too much camber change wreaks havoc with the braking and acceleration behaviour. Maybe the key is just to keep the thing from flopping all over the place - the same tack that Heikki has been taking. So I decided to play with my pushrod design instead. Ahh, that's a lot more interesting to do. I think I've worked out how the math is meant to function. I need to spend some time in the garage with the real pieces to see if what I'm working out onscreen makes sense at all, but I'm getting somewhere.

I've seen comments that I'm really dissatisfied with the handling of this car. Those who don't believe in IRS suspensions (or indoor plumbing I guess) seem to take my car as an example of how it shouldn't be done. I don't know about that - I already know the car's competitive on the track with a Caterham and I do still hold the track record here in town as far as I know. So it's not all that bad. I just know it could be better.

Oh, some news. My new muffler has finally shipped.

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