BAR front suspension

[Guest]

BAR were testing a front differential that would prevent the front wheels from locking up under braking.

- West

[Bharath]

From the pics that Reca posted it is quite clear that the BAR has a single keel. The cross - section where the nose attaches clearly shows a pointy part extending down. So I think it is a normal single keel, just a little more hidden. And maybe it starts a bit further back (not sure about this point).

Definitely good implementation of the single keel.

[Reca]

what I'm after here is isn't it possible to mount the lower wishbones to the nosecone? The car being just as it is now, just mounting the lower wishbones higher.

No

[Spencifer_Murphy]

Nice answer Reca...short and to the piont lol. I don't know enough on the subject, but why can't the suspension mounts me mounted directly to the monocoque? There must be a reason because I'm sure that teams must have tried it before. So how comes it doesn't work?

[Steven]

Well, I'm not a suspension engineer, but thinking about it...

Let's say the lower wishbones are attached to tohe lowest part of the monocoque. The higher wishbones are then attached as high as possible.
Now I think we get the mountings a little bit too close to each other, regarding the current height of the monocoques at that place.
I think you would get a very fragile front suspension. You will also get quite short wishbones, which is already a disadvantage from twin keels over a single keel design.

Any further reasons for this?

[Guest]

with the small diameter rims in f1 you run into stiffness problems very easy.To that point you would space the outer Suspension points (At the wheel) as far apart as possible with double wishbone suspension.Now we are close to the answer as if the chassis is elevated with the raised nose concept you would have to incline the lower wishbones to the car.
The firrst Problem is now:with suspension movement the inclined wishbones elongate more in plan view ...resulting in Track variation leading to scrub (sideways movement of the tyre )The other Problem is Rollcentre Hight the inclined lower wishbone pushes the Rollcentre well above the track and well above the CG height...

[Reca]

Nice answer Reca...short and to the piont lol.

“Brevity is the soul of wit” – William Shakespeare

The other Problem is Rollcentre Hight the inclined lower wishbone pushes the Rollcentre well above the track and well above the CG height...

That’s was the main reason I was thinking about. Thank you guest (marcush ?) also for the addition about the track variation, previously I didn’t think about it although it’s quite obvious.

[mep]

Let us come back to the main theme.
How does it work in detail is it like a differential, only mechanical?


How does it work if it's hydraulical?

[Reca]

Here a pic (again from Sawada site) of the “Ftt” in Monza. At a first sight there are no differences with the previous version but that means little because the “problem” was probably in the control system/logic :

http://www.crash.ne.jp/individ/sawada/g ... 081010.jpg

A little thing worth noticing is the little cover on the outer side of the brake rotor, it does explain something I’ve noticed last week during the testing, in one of the BARs, while braking, only a few vertical red lines were visible thru the front rim instead of the whole glowing rotor. Apparently finally also BAR adopted a cover to enhance air extraction, similar to the “donut” introduced by Ferrari and then copied by a few teams but this version (if it’s the same tested last week) doesn’t completely hide the rotor.

[Guest]

does it maybe works like a limited slipdiff. ?
and are the shafts made out of copper ?

[joseff]

Yes that's the original idea behind Benetton's system. In the end they found it made the car too long & heavy to be competitive. BAR made a smaller, software-controlled (presumably more effective) one that eventually got banned.

[Monstrobolaxa]

Yes that's the original idea behind Benetton's system. In the end they found it made the car too long & heavy to be competitive. BAR made a smaller, software-controlled (presumably more effective) one that eventually got banned.

About being long even without the wywtem it continued to be very long because Alex Wurz was the second driver, the monocoque was long in order that he could fit inside and the car was within the regulations. About being heavy I think it was around 30 some kg. (not sure just the nurmber I seem to remember).