Suspension Measurement By Laaaaasers

Most of the suspension/alignment measurement that people talk about relates to the angle of the wheel and how relates to the centerline of the car, laterally. Examples:

-Toe: the lateral distance between the front end and rear end of the wheel/tire, can be expressed as an angle

-Camber: the lateral distance between the top end and bottom end of the wheel/tire, can be expressed as an angle

-Caster: imputed from camber gain across a sweep of steering angle, which are both lateral measurements.

-Track Width & Thrust Angle: Lateral distance between the wheels, and the lateral difference between the front and rear track width, expressed as an angle.


What these measurements don’t consider:

-fore, aft change in suspension components across the vertical movement of suspension (compression from full droop travel)


So, to capture some of this, we plot the actual change of pickup points and references points of suspension with vertical lasers like this:



Rear Suspension Findings

 

I like where this is headed...

 

Preliminary Findings from Rear Suspension

These data from the test of the setup. there was not a grid setup to precisely divide X and Y by the centerline of the car, data was collected by eye and by 64th ruler.

This was collected off the rear suspension pickup points, from full droop to a point past ride height - but not full compression.


Distance between the outside lca to inside lca 17.5" -> 18.0625"
Lateral change, 0.5625"
Fore-Aft change, 0.3125" to the rear
http://i1318.photobucket.com/albums/t646/zenit125/Mobile Uploads/20160430_114651_zpskbcvddgs.jpg

Distance between spring sear and inside LCA pickup point 9.6875" -> 10.375"
Lateral change, 0.6875"
Fore-Aft change, 0.4375" to the rear
http://i1318.photobucket.com/albums/t646/zenit125/Mobile Uploads/20160430_114719_zpsvxeaby7u.jpg

Distance between camber arm pickup points 12.75"-> 12.625"
Lateral change, 0.125"
Fore-Aft change, 0.6875" to the rear
http://i1318.photobucket.com/albums/t646/zenit125/Mobile Uploads/20160430_114707_zpspalm0qnp.jpg

Toe Link 7.0625" -> 7.25"
Lateral Change, 0.1875"
Fore-Aft Change, 0.71875"
http://i1318.photobucket.com/albums/t646/zenit125/Mobile Uploads/20160430_114737_zps7ecbznr9.jpg

Shock *Approximation: couldn't accurately measure the upper pickup point
Lateral change: 0.5"
Fore-Aft change: 1" to the rear
http://i1318.photobucket.com/albums/t646/zenit125/Mobile Uploads/20160430_114728_zpsjravpxsz.jpg



No definite interpretation of this data, so far.

This is very preliminary data- I see some trends that I want to see replicated across multiple suspension compression observations and plotted against the actual centerline of the car.

 

Keep it up my man! Very good info!