gayanne wrote:Hey Waltermitty,thanks for those words,best way to explain bumpsteer is that two wheels are playing tuggle war against each other.One tyre wants to go one way the other goes opposite and causes the car to come unstable at high speeds.AS the car lifts at speed the steering becomes light which pushes the arms out causing toe out on both sides .When you slow down the car becomes stable.This is a very technical side of set up.JVLRacing
you have absolutely NO idea...............do you? Naughty boy Craig your homework for tonight is to read a book called How to make your car to handle.This will tell the attitude of the car not the holes in the road that make your car go bump! now, way ive explained it is whats happening with my car.WATER IN THE HOLE you shit sterer.JVL
Bumpsteer, as its name suggests, is a condition where the car deviates to some extent from the driver's intended path due to bumps - suspension movement. Similar compromised handling charateristics can also be caused by body roll on corners and when braking (many cars' suspensions tend to 'dive' at the front and lift at the back when the brakes are applied which can lead to unwanted steering behaviour)
A mis-match between suspension and steering geometry - due to careless design or inappropriate modification - is always the cause. Most cars suffer from it to some degree, although good designs keep it to a bare miniumum.
To keep this explanation reallly simple, LP and BJ Beetles are (technically, at least) most prone to it, due to the very simple design of the front suspension, with the suspension working in one 'plane' (along the centreline of the car) and the steering in another (across the car). When the wheels rise and fall due to road surface irregularities, or when diving under brakes, the wheels tend to steer themselves slightly, independent of steering input, due to the mis-match (for want of a better term) between the arcs of movement of the tierods and the arcs of the trailing arms.
In stock ride-height Beetles, the gemonetry is set-up so wheels tend to toe-in under brakes, which assists stability. Beetles that are lowered with no extra attention to steering/suspension geometry, tend to toe-out making them liable to 'dart around' under brakes. It's all made worse by the fact Beetles have a short- (drivers side) and long (passenger side) tie rod design. The two different lengths mean there are two different radius arcs described when the suspension moves, meaning the the wheels tend to toe in (or out) at different rates. All good fun!
To my knowledge, the very best suspension set up for eliminating bump steer is an upper and lower A-arm set up with rack and pinion steering and anti-dive characteristics built in. Far better than struts, or the old Beetle geometry - but it costs more to manufacture from an OE point of view. Having said that, careful modification within the architecture of a standard Beetle front end can reduce bumpsteer and roll-steer, and increase high-speed stability, giving very good handing both on-road an on-track.
Technically, none of this stuff is very hard - especially for a car intended for circuit work with limited suspension travel. Nissan (Fairlady) and Lotus (Elan), to name two, got this stuff right decades ago. High speed stability can be improved by increasing caster, but that's another subject matter altogether... Get the rack placement wrong, or the tie-rod/suspension arm relationship wrong, and you might as well be playing Meccanno with bits of tube...
Good effort writing VWCooL,its spot on but each car reacts differently.The way ive explained it is what is happening with my car.Your last paragraph mention about the steering which was my problem.What ive done is changed height of the steering tie rods.JVLRacing
gayanne I think you need to look at the toe in (both at static and at slight raised such as what happens under acceleration and high speed) castor angles, and possible aerodynamic lifting of the car. If you arent running an air dam at the front then chances are the front is lifting at speed, causing it to feel unstable.
I agree - the handling problems you are having, JVL, probably aren't related to bump steer. Not may bumps on a track... It's aerodynamics. You need to hunker the front down at speed - not have it lift! Maybe you have the centre of aerodynamic pressure in front of the centre of mass of the car, which will make it tend to dart sideways immediately it gets 'not square on' with its direction of travel due to minor surface irregularities etc. It's possible to get a BJ Beetle to track straight qnd be stable on-road, at upwards of 180km/h with mildly-modified factory geometry...
you must fix the problem not the result of it. find out if its aero or geo thats causing the bump steer. no ppoint in trying to fix the bump steer if its the car floating casuing the problem.
I have no sympathy for my car, only the wallet that pays for it!
Go hard or go home!!!!
No, I think Craig was being serious. It seems that gayenne:
a) has a problem with his car's handling and
b) Has a problem with the understanding of the problem, IYKWIM
I attempted to clarify what bump steer means - and that itshould have very little to do with straight-line stability - and also to point JVL in another direction, that of his car's aerodynamics, to possibly help him diagnose his car's evil handling.
After all, if many of us can get a $500 Beetle to handle on-road and on-track with a few well-spent dollars and tricks, surely gayenne can expect similar from a purpose-built track car?
Hey thanks for the help VWCool iam sure i will take this on board.The car does have an undertray ,runs 0 toe,+5 caster.There are no real accurate way to get bumpsteer right without a bumpsteer gauge soon to by one.Ive been using test program from abook toget accurate as possible.The aero ive spent big money on with smoke testing (a long story) i will check it again.At this moment i need to get the car to be reliable and that takes bum in seat time and more dollars. But i will check everything .JVLRacing
A bumpsteer gauge will tell you that you have bumpsteer - but you already know that (if, in fact, you have bumpsteer) but I don't think it will tell you how to fix it. You can see bumpsteer by hoisting the car... the wheels will toe out/in as the car is raised and the suspension droops. Fixing bumpsteer requires a good look/analysis at the geometry of the front end - the relationship between control arms/tierod pivots and their lengths etc etc etc
VWCOOL wrote:A bumpsteer gauge will tell you that you have bumpsteer - but you already know that (if, in fact, you have bumpsteer) but I don't think it will tell you how to fix it. You can see bumpsteer by hoisting the car... the wheels will toe out/in as the car is raised and the suspension droops. Fixing bumpsteer requires a good look/analysis at the geometry of the front end - the relationship between control arms/tierod pivots and their lengths etc etc etc
[Done all of that where car was toeing out when jacking and adjusted control arms and shim tierod arms lot better then before.JVLRacing
surprised you run 0 toe, even on a road car (RWD) you run a touch of toe-in to compensate for slack in materials, which brings it back to 0 when in motion.
JVL, the car is a credit to you. It's amazing you've designed the suspension from scratch. I'm sure it will take some time to get the bugs out.
All the hillclimb guys do is bind up there standard suspension so the thing handles like a go cart. That Torrens blokes car handled like crap at Oran Park.
So do all you guys have IRS with some sort of LSD?
Or is some one still running with an open box and swing axel (Like me 😀)
I'd be interested in a comparision in times between swingaxel and IRS
restocal wrote:JVL, the car is a credit to you. It's amazing you've designed the suspension from scratch. I'm sure it will take some time to get the bugs out.
All the hillclimb guys do is bind up there standard suspension so the thing handles like a go cart. That Torrens blokes car handled like crap at Oran Park.
HEHEHEHEHEHE....handled like crap and still did 54's with a standard gearbox and no LSD...................if you bind up your suspension you certainly won't WIN hillclimbs,,,,,,,,,,show's you have NO IDEA as well !
im using a ZF, how old do u hav to be? im happy with my time seeing as im only on street tires and i still hav abit of under steer only my second time on any race track and was my first at eastern soo im sure lap times will improve as i sort the setup of my car.