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Table of Contents ~_Introduction: Preparation for 10/10ths Canyon Driving ~_ 5 - 50 - 500 Rule ~_ Vehicle Selection ~_ Chassis Archetypes ~_ Suspension ~_ The Horsepower Illusion ~_ Alignment ~_ Wheels ~_ Tyres ~_ Pressure, Temperature, Elevation ~_ Tyre ANOVA ~_ Wet Weather Tyre Pressure ~_ Validation ~_ Caps & Valve Stems ~_ Fluids ~_ Racing Mill Break-In ~_ Supercharger Oil ~_ Brakes ~_ Modifications ~_ Climate Control ~_ The Golden Rule of Vehicle Preperation, for 10/10ths Canyon Driving ~_ Miscellaneous Advisories
VEHICLE PREPARATION FOR 10/10ths CANYON DRIVING ~The type of driving you'll encounter during a mid 20th Century European style gran turismo is technical, arduous, and debilitating. Unlike a track event, there are no pits or paddocks where you can conveniently retreat when you feel like it. Deep in God's canyons, it's through it or around it. Get use to your cruise control: You won't use it in God's canyons. But, you'll appreciate it on the long drive home after a six hour stint, with us, 10/10ths, on one of our GTs.
On the race track, you can make mistakes. Not so in God's canyons. Canyon driving, there are no run off areas. You must be 10/10ths; perfect. On the race track, you can break down. Canyon driving, every component of your car must be 10/10ths; optimal, all the way through. Break a tie-rod end? You'll likely snap your femurs after going head-on into oncoming traffic. Canyon driving, the concept of 10/10ths is wholly enveloping, and all encompassing in its omnipresence. 9/10ths on one aspect, and your financial live as you know it is will be a foregone conclusion. Your car should be 10/10ths a well maintained vehicle. You should be 10/10ths well rested before one of our driving events; you should have 10/10ths insurance coverage... when you did your high performance driving school, you should have given 10/10ths of yourself in applying the principles they taught you. When we venture out into God's canyons, we do so... 10/10ths.
Perhaps now you have an inkling of what we mean, by 10/10ths?
A meticulously maintained sports car is imperative for the type of endurance driving we do. Conservatism is paramount. Keep in mind the following guidelines only serves to bring to a conscious level common knowledge. We're not breaking any new ground here:
Table Of Contents_|_The Golden Rule
5-50-500 Rule ~Don't use club events to sort your car; sort your car for club events. Arriving to an event in a vehicle which isn't sorted properly is an unfair imposition upon the group. Before an event, drive your car 5 miles, and fix what breaks. Then, drive it 50 miles; fix what breaks. Then 500; fix what breaks. Thereafter, you should be ready to rumble.
Rule of Thumb: Never shirk off your 5-50-500.
Table Of Contents_|_The Golden Rule
Vehicle Selection ~The number one question people ask, of us, by a significant margin: "What is the best car I could own for 10/10ths canyon driving?" In essence, what people ask begs validation: "Tell me I'm not a shit for brains who got succored out of his money buying an overweight, overpriced Volkswagon, with a Porsche logo on it."
For 10/10ths canyon driving, vehicle selection must correlate to skill level, not to your income, as follows:
There are five (5) unique, statistically significant means to which drivers naturally regress, with variations denoted, within each cohort (e.g., 5 unique standard normal curves), you choose what you drive, as follows:
Driver Segmentation: Skill Level Classification ~
¥ Level 0 Driver - The Common Motorist (e.g., a basic driver's license; common street racers; nonenthusiasts)
¥ Level 1 Driver - The Sunday Driver (e.g., enthusiasts; amateur TSD rally; advanced driving school certificate; Solo I & II; Pro Solo)
¥ Level 2 Driver - The Blue Collar Professional (e.g., chauffeur; heavy equipment operators; OTR professional drivers; tillermen; law enforcement officers)
¥ Level 3 Driver - Daily Canyon Commuters (e.g., drive narrow mountain roads, every single day)
¥ Level 4 Driver - The Skilled Amateur (e.g., licensed amature road racer; unskilled natural driver; do 10/10ths canyon driving, every single day )
¥ Level 5 Driver - Driving Ace (e.g., professional competition driver; test driver; development driver; stunt driver; high performance driving instructor; skilled natural driver)
General Note: Distance separation between cohorts is not linear, or equivalent. Sizable z-scores, nested within the skill level zero cohort do exist, and can overlap well through the lower left tail of the skill level one cohort. Variations within each cohort diminish, as skill level increases. Platokurtosis observed, at skill levels 0 through 2, mesokurtosis at skill level 3, leptokurtosis at levels 4 and 5, standard deviations diminish, and driver attributes become increasingly uniform, as skill level increases. Definition of a natural driver are those who, in their mean tendency regress, beyond their capacity to resist, to a value between maximum tyre adhesion and maximum torsional sideslip, with no discernable variation in their basic cardiopulminary rate. Signal indication of a natural driver is one who comes into his or her heel and toe without instruction, a consequence of environmental reasoning or transitive preference logic - Mulholland Raceway
Answer to the question, "What is the best car, for 10/10ths canyon driving," we respond by saying: KNOW WHO YOU ARE. If you have to ask us a question, like that? Then, you are hopelessly lost. Knowing who you are behind the wheel breaks down, like this:
¥ Level 0 Driver - The Common Motorist, given unlimited patience, unlimited seat time, will NEVER lap within 15 seconds of a level 5 driver, in a Champcar, on any circuit, under any circumstance.
¥ Level 1 Driver - The Sunday Driver, archetypical overconfident cone head, thinks he knows it all, suddenly finding himself in, at the deep end, if he doesn't embarass himself, stalling in the pit box, screwing up his gearbox, will shunt a Champcar in his first 5 laps, scare himself shitless, then the go home, pack it in, relegate himself a cozy comfy SUV to drive for the next 5 years, until he feels safe again.
¥ Level 2 Driver - The Blue Collar Professional, systematic, mindful not to make mistakes (e.g., too careful), will taper off, sustain, but never surpass, 15 seconds of a level 5 driver, in a Champcar, on a typical road course.
¥ Level 3 Driver - Daily Canyon Commuter will surprise himself, by tapering off to 10 seconds from a level 5 driver, in a Champcar, on a typical road course, given patience and seat time.
¥ Level 4 Driver - Skilled Amateur, hard core canyon driver, finding himself within 5 seconds of a level 5 driver, in a Champcar, on a typical road course, within 5 laps, stepping into the cockpit, cold, will walk away beside himself, in disappointment, not having found himself within one second of a level 5 driver.
¥ Level 5 Driver - A Driving Ace will ALWAYS find himself within 1 second of any other level 5 driver, given equal equipment.
You level 4 and level 5 drivers out there, we don't profess to think we could tell you what to do, what to drive, or how to slice and dice a canyon road. We know, you know your shit. You level 0 drivers, think about a low profile 200 HP, FWD VTEC Honda Civic, and perhaps do a nice suspension. You level 1 drivers, have a false sense of confidence. The most likely candidate to do yourself (and me) seriously bodily harm, buy anything with less than 300 horsepower, with behemoth, powerful brakes. You level 2 drivers, no stranger to heavy equipment, long duration maintaining high situational awareness, your weakness, that you've likely never had to handle up delicate, lightweight equipment, we're concerned you'll misconstrue how they feel to you, as foreign, flimsy or cheap, and you'll wind up reverting to something too heavy, which is far too indicative of things common to you, on a vocational basis...
... Don't do that.
You level 3 drivers out there, we know you place a premium, on concentration. You well know, for 10/10ths canyon driving, what you've got to do, and what you've got to have must be simple, lightweight, with brakes that will never (...NEVER) let you down. You know that.
What kind of car to dedicate, to 10/10ths canyon driving depends upon your skill level, and your circumstance (e.g., what if you're 6 ft 4 in, with short legs and long arms?). Regardless of your skill level, any vehicle over 2500 pounds, curb weight, is extraneous for canyon driving. Vehicles with a ladder-frame or body frame integral chassis are suitable for little more, than your daily driver. If you've chosen a backbone chassis archetype, or a semi-monocoque, for your dedicated canyon vehicles, then you'll have your work cut out, for you.
First order of business: learn basic chassis architecture. No way around it, you must be able to look at any vehicle and know, face value, exactly what it is you're looking at. If you built model cars as a boy, then you'd have learned this, long before you reached middle school:
Chassis Archetypes for Idiots, 101 Chassis Provenance & Pedigree Some Examples Ladder-Frame (BOF) The Chariot, The Horse Drawn Carriage, The Horseless Carriage Shelby's AC Cobra, early NASCAR, Lincoln Towne Car, vans, pick-up trucks, SUVs, Jeeps, limousines, Packard, Rolls Royce
Backbone Contemporary Civil Engineering The Delorean, TVR, the Corvette, Lotus Europa, Lotus Esprit, Lotus Elan
Body-Frame Integral Body On Frame RWD lite-duty passenger cars of the '60s, '70s & '80s; experimental platforms
Unibody-Subframe Hybrid Ancestory Vehicles hastily rushed to market, by cost-conscious high volume automakers (e.g., Camaros, Mustangs & Firebirds)
Space Frame World War I Aeronautics Lamborghini; Lotus Caterham; contemporary NASCAR; General Motor's ALMS spec C-6 Corvette; 1966 Ford GT-40
Monocoque World War II Aeronautics Lotus Exige, the Miata, the MR2, Steve Saleen's S7; IRL's spec Dallara; Champcar's spec Panoz, McLaren's MP4/22; AWD Subaru
- More on this topic... we'll discuss chassis architecture a little more in-depth, in the subsequent article, page down...
Our sports car market is as hopelessly screwed up, just as are the automakere which manufacture them. If we staged the Targa Florio, today? We haven't a clue which contemporary vehicle would win. But, one thing we do know. The winning entry, with statistical certainty, sure as hell wouldn't be a retrograde Shelby. It wouldn't be a modern day Ferrari. Nor, would it be a modern day Porsche. Porsche and Ferrari have evolved, such that their automobiles are no longer capable of competing in such arenas, however hypothetical a moden day Targio Florio may happen to be.
Any of today's sports cars would be hard-pressed to compete with machines engineered 30 years ago, an epoch in time when automobiles were designed to do just that: Pure performance, going 10/10ths, hammer and tongs, over the open road. As of this writing, every Porsche and Ferrari on the showroom floor, today, is at least 700 pounds overweight.
By our measure, Porsche's lightweight, open cockpit 908/3 (1970), Ferrari's 312 P/B (1972) , Alfa Romeo's 33TT3 (1972), and the Alfa Romeo T33/3 (1971), in any order you like, were the best vehicles ever made for hard-core, hard pavement, 10/10ths canyon driving.
The all conquering 312 P/B Ferrari, even today, is too tricky, too complex a vehicle for any privateer. Alfa's nimble, 8-cylinder 33TT3 is probably the best. It holds the track record at Targa Florio (Rolf Stommelen, 34 minutes, 13.1 seconds). But, we like the 908/3 for it's simplicity. We remember the 908/3 for its axiom to accomplish what the twichy, awkward Porsche 917 could never do... purpose built pure for performance, over the open road (OTR).
We mark Porsche's 908/3 significant, in time, as the signal dicotomy of divergence in the evolution of purpose built, closed-circuit road racing machines (e.g., Porsche's 917/934/958/962 evolution), from the extinction of purpose built, hard pavement, OTR road racing machines (e.g., automobiles descendent from the 908/3, the 33TT3, and 312 P/B which never came to be).
The vehicle which would otherwise win a hypothetical, modern day Targa Florio? It doesn't exist. Reason why, something happened. That vehicle archetype became extinct.
Evolution of 908/3, 33TT3, or 312 P/B derivatives never happened. This breed of automobile became extinct during the mid 1970s. The underpowered Lotus Elise with the Toyota engine is probably the closest thing to the real thing, today. But, it's not a true monocoque. Nor does it have a V-8, much less does it have a V-6. We think the Elise would show well, in a modern day Targa Florio. A capable driver in a 600 plus horsepower F-140 Ferrari would have a time of it, contending with the nimble, Toyota-powered Lotus Elise. But, we suspect both would get shellacked going head to head with a 35 year old 908/3.
The winning entry in a modern day Targa Florio, restricted to contemporay machines, wouldn't be a sports car. Nor would the winning entry be polited by a sports car driver. Nor would the winning entry be built by a sports car manufacturer. Winning entry would probably be a rally driver, in a Prodrive prepared AWD 4-door Subaru sedan.
Sports cars don't really exist today. The market produces faux sports cars. Uninformed, naive, status conscious buyers snap them up, for no good reason than the lack of available substitutes, as an involuntary function for their need for validation.
It's difficult to measure faux sports cars today. We lack officially sanctioned hard pavement, point to point OTR events for which to shake them out, and sufficiently measure them. The 57th Targa Florio, 1973, was the last competitive, over the road event for which to measure modern sports cars, and reconcile F.I.A.'s World Championship for Makes. F.I.A., universally recognized authority entrusted with the task of reconciling the World Championship for Makes, is so screwed up, they've wholly lost site of what it is they're supposed to be doing (e.g., centering automakers to their markets as a function of competition driving).
The World Constructor's Championship, wholly assimilated into the World Driver's Championship, violates their own assumptions. The model they're using to reconcile these championships is inherently defective. Two championships, together, amalgamated into Formula 1, induces multicollinearity, e.g., no matter how they cook the points systems, two "independent" championship variables, under one regression, explain each other, better than they do their own dependent variables (e.g, who the champion really is, isn't clear). Unless partitioned, both are utterly meaningless, with regard to the driver's championship.
Although it is still possible to eclipse the 312P/B and 908/3 within F.I.A. doctrine? It is hopelessly screwed up... beyond repair.
When we had Targa Florio, and Mille Miglia, we always knew. Those events served to center manufacturers to their markets. But then, Ford came along, with "a better idea."
Ford's glory days, back in the 1960s, they never won the Targa Florio. No Ford product ever acheved overall victory at the Targa Florio. Their over-rated, ill-handling AC Cobras, designed to eclipse the Corvette, always DNFd, or shunted, at the Targa Florio. Ford's GT-350 Mustangs, far too blunt and instrument, were woefully uncompetitive at the Targa Florio, and were always eclipsed by lesser, more efficient machines. As for their self-proclaimed "all-conquering" GT-40s?
They weren't.
We had a newbie, with a big-block Shelby, who no doubt wished he had that magic button, to turn his sports car into a comfy, cozy Buick, on command. Real nice guy. Great car control. Certainly no slouch. Couple regional driving titles under his belt, too. Disciplined. A real trooper. Only thing: he had a very-very light complexion. Long seven hour drive, hammer and tongs, all day long, sun beating down on him, at high elevation. When the day was done, poor guy looked like a lobster.
Banged up, bruised all over from an open cockpit thrashing in that potent, antiquated Shelby of his, buffetted by wind for seven long hours, at high speed, debilitated, dehydrated, sun-burned beyond recognition, altitude sickness, sun sickness, motion sickness, A/C Cobra sickness, canyon driving sickness, all at the same time, half-way through the run, that poor guy was spent. No shame in that. We have never (NEVER) seen a guy hang onto an A/C Cobra, for such duration.
Determined to soldier on, to the bitter end, he trailed in 40 minutes arears, our chase car directly behind.
First of a two day event? We still had one more day of driving, on tap. Not one scratch on that Cobra, he did yeoman's work, keeping that awful car of his between the sign posts. Intended for two hour stints, at most, that A/C Cobra kicked his ass. Exhausted, passed-out in his motel room, he never made it to dinner with the rest of the group. We had to call his wife on the telephone, to haul up the guy's trailer, and come fetch him home: "Aaa... errr, is this Mrs. So-and-So? Yer husband? No, it's okay... No, we didn't do anything to him. No, he didn't have an accident. No, he's not with another women. MA'AM! LISTEN TO ME! He's fatigued. He can't get up. He won't go to the hospital. You need to come here, and fetch him home, and take him to the doctor."
Nothing on this planet worse, than a nag wife. She was furious...
Poor guy, laying there, legs all cramped-up, banged-up and bruised, and blistered, that white hair of his, all messed up and sticking straight up, from getting buffetted, for 7 hours. He looked awful.We didn't initially know what to do. In hope, at the very least, to make him look presentable, for his wife, we sent a guy over to the local drug store, and bought a whole bunch of stuff... aspirin, Ben Gay, cough syrup, sinus medication, suntan lotion, and some Brylcream, to get his hair to stay down. If things weren't bad enough, already, we screwed-up on the Brylcream, bought the wrong stuff, and somehow turned his hair another color.
Fine time of it, having to explain that.
"We're sorry. Honest, Ma'am. It wasn't us. It's not his fault. It's the car. You should have seen him! He was magnificant, at the wheel, yesterday. Plain and simple, that car flat-kicked his ass, ma'am. In all my years, never seen anything like it." We cinched up his flawless A/C Cobra, on the trailer. Guy who screwed up on the Brylcream apologized, all over himself. We helped walk him out to his wife's Suburban. Poor guy. Never saw him again.
His wife read us the riot act. She chewed our asses out, like they've never been chewed, before... She was pissed: "Oh, my God! Oh, baby! What did they do to you?"
Far too cumbersome for OTR endurance driving events, no A/C Cobra or Ford GT-40 ever came close to victory, at Targa Florio. Ford GT-40 derivatives were always lapped, in Can-Am. Theory of bureaucratic behavior looms large: Final analysis, Ford could care less about anything, than aggrandizing themselves, by notching victories in high profile events (e.g., LeMans, Daytona, and Sebring). They could care less about real significance. They could care less about the one that got away... the Targa Florio. The Nurburgring. The Mille Miglia.
The Targa Florio was the one that got away. Their Ford GT-40s uncompetitive at Targo Florio, not a sufficiently high profile event, to this day, Ford Motor Company could care less.
40 years later, Ford still doesn't get it. The folks at Ford Motor Company have no conception what a sports car is. They are incapable of building sports cars. The retrograde Ford GT-FORDIE, hopelessly overweight, woefully defective for 10/10ths canyon driving, and not much good for anything else but long stretches of remote, linear highway, it weighed-in heavier than a Corvette. Just as did the drivers, who attempted to compete in Ford GT-40s, at the Targa Florio, during the 1960s, those having coughed-up the big bux for a new Ford GT-FORDIE who venture out, into God's canyons, are going to have a very difficult time of it. Perhaps the worst car you could buy for circumstances where highly technical driving is necessary, hopelessly overweight, the retrograde Ford GT-FORDIE is a... turkey.
Expensive turkey, at that.
For lack of hard pavement, point-to-point, hard-core OTR events for which to sufficiently measure the contemporary sports car, international competition wholly divorced from real world driving circumstance, weight is an afterthought. Henceforth, sports cars have subsequently evolved to become hopelessly overweight, something they're not supposed to be. Sports car evolution, the last 30 years, is an abomination. Today's sports cars which might have otherwise evolved from Porsche's 908/3 concept, never did. Their overweight, underpowered, McPherson strut laden Boxster is a woefully pathetic apology, for their all conquering 908/3.
That F.I.A.'s International Rally Championship better approximates real world driving circumstances than anything else it sanctions, similarly so, Ferrari's F360, Porsche's Boxster, and Honda's S2000 have evolved to become inferior to sport compact cars, at a fraction the price. This is not the way it's supposed to be. As it is? Hammer and tongs, point to point, deep in God's canyons, a capable driver in an overweight F-360 Ferrari would have a difficult time of it contending with an equally capable driver piloting Dodge's pesky, lightweight SRT-4.
Porsche and Ferrari dedicate themselves to building boutique automobiles for wealthy housewives. Alfa Romeo is insignificant. Indicative of F.I.A.'s divergent evolution, Porsche, Alfa Romeo, and Ferrari no longer build lightweight automobiles. They haven't, for more than 20 years.
No matter what sports car you're comtemplating for 10/10ths canyon driving, collectively, automakers' and F.I.A.'s divergence from the truth guarantees whatever it is you choose will be a hopelessly suboptimal vehicle you won't want to keep, particularly long. You're equally bad off, no matter what you select, at your particular price point. The more you spend, the worse off you'll be.
Opt for A/C. Opt for a cruise-control. No shame in that. Endpoint to one of our Gran Turismos, several hundred miles downrange, having flogged our two-seaters eight long hours? Debilitating. If we told you we wouldn't toggle the magic switch when nobody's looking, and morph our go-fast canyon carvers into comfy Buicks for the long drive home? We'd be lying. Those creature comforts are absolutely imperative. Not for canyon driving, mind you. It's the long drive home, thereafter, that kills you. We want automakers breaking technological ground with respect to trimming the fat from those components: lightweight A/C systems, lightweight wheels, lightweight fuel delivery systems, lightweight exhaust systems, high technology lightweight sound insulation, lightweight climate control systems, lightweight high fidelity, brake-by-wire, et ceteris. We think automakers are holding back.
We think OEM suppliers have been far too lazy, for far too long. If automakers put their foot down, as diligently as Ford does leveraging Bridgestone with respect to cheap tyres, and demand lightweight, less expensive, better quality components from their suppliers? We think, without batting an eye, on average, automakers could trim 700 pounds, across the board, without removing any optional extras, without having to redesign any aspect of their platforms.
Something's fishy... How can a 2WD 911 Porsche weigh more than an AWD Subaru station wagon? Every Ferrari on the showroom floor, today, is at least 700 pounds overweight. That is a lot of pasta!
Keep in mind: This is not Solo I. This is not the good 'ol boy SCCA. We aren't charging you a membership fee for no good reason than to ration back your sports car to you, in 20 minute increments. On the race track, you can make mistakes. Hanging it out, 10/10ths, late braking a corner you've never seen, what you anticipate to be a third gear sweeper, which could just as easily be a second gear switchback, instead? When that happens? What vehicle would you want to be driving? When that inevitably happens, do you want to bend-up that glorified 120 thousand dollar Volkswagon, of yours?
We bend-up our machines, from time to time... Sometimes it hurts.
When you're on the showroom floor? That Lotus Elise is absolutely irresistable. Better think twice, my friend. After muffing what you thought to be a 3rd gear sweeper, but instead turned out to be a 1st gear hairpin? No Armco? As you pick up speed, and your newfound appreciation for gravity begins to develop, as you go off the side, somersaulting down that enscarpment, end over end? Perhaps, for 10 thousand dollars less, mind you, crashworthiness, structural integrity, those side curtain airbags on that 300 horsepower Subaru WRX STi might be variables you'd otherwise wished you'd pondered?
Keep in mind: This AINT your pappy's SCCA Solo II. Our driving events aren't portioned out, and spoon fed back to you in 90 second SOLO II increments. You aren't going to be thrashing around a 20 minute run group, before they throw the flag, and let you off the hook. Our driving events make Formula 1 drivers cringe. Our Gran Turismos are characteristic of Pre-WW II, point-to-point, marathon-style enduros, going for it, 10/10ths, six to eight hours behind the wheel.
Better think twice before you pony up for that Lotus Elise. After a seven hour stint in the canyons, physically spent, sore, you're going to have to pilot that itty-bitty sardeen can several hundred miles home, no cruise control, dance floor suspension so stiff you'll sware it's shaking your prostrate out your asshole, exhaust wailing away, rattling your brain... damned trucks ahead, throwing stones into your windshield. Perhaps that 50 thousand bux you just ponied up for that new Elise would have been better spent upgrading a much more comfortable Turbocharged MR-2. Our events are debilitating. After flogging your Sunday driver six long hours, flogging it, no prisoners, in God's canyons, you'd be lieing, and we'd know it, if you told us you wouldn't flip that hypothetical switch, when nobody's looking, morph that eencie-weencie sports car of yours into a quite, spacious, comfortable, user friendly full-sized Buick to coast home...
Nothing to be ashamed about. I would...
Ask yourself: "Who am I? What is my driver profile? What do I like most with regard to my role behind the wheel? How much am I willing to sacrifice?"
For most we encounter in car culture, vehicle selection is rarely indicative of their skill level. Oftentimes the case, vehicle selection is merely an emotional outburst; an attempt to underline if not exaggerate their income. Typically, they equate their income with a logo. Rebadge a Ford Mondeo with a Jaguar logo? Low and behold, everybody in America pays twice what motorists in England do for the same automobile. Succored out of their money, Americans have no idea whatsoever that "Jaguar" they're driving is really a cheapie Ford Mondeo.
Similarly so, those who drive high performance vehicles are merely buying themselves a trophy to reward themselves for their work ethic. And, more power to them. Everybody deserves happiness.
Your fourth hour into a six hour stint? That's about when you'll inevitably conceed: "To hell with this worthless, overweight, pimp daddy, hundred thousand dollar tank I'm tossing all over the road, trying to keep up with that damned Mazda."
We refer to the aforementioned phenomena as buyer's remorse. After getting their clocks cleaned by some kid in a turbocharged Mitsubishi, typical owner of an exotic automobile will commonly place an ad in the classified section of the undisputed capitol of the world, for buyer's remorse, Autoweek Magazine, but for no good reason than car dealerships' collective aversion to accepting boutique automobiles, in trade.
Who are you? What do you want? Do you like pedal to the metal, terminal velocity stuff, excellent straight line stability, one hand on the wheel, at 165? Then don't expect you'll shake off that pesky, lightweight, turbocharged Dodge Neon that's looking for a way past, where emphasis on technical driving, in tight quarters, where lightweight vehicles reign supreme.
Lack confidence? You're best off with crashworthy, well-balanced, lightweight, normally aspirated, all wheel drive vehicles. Pay particular attention to how the steering position feels to you. If you lack confidence? The most important thing for you is brakes. It's imperative you avoid high output vehicles, or forced induction vehicles. Opt for a semi-automatic gearbox, or a clutchless manual.
Pretty big guy? Sorry, pal. You are going to have a time of it finding anything lightweight you'll feel comfortable driving. Avoid Asian imports; stick to American or European vehicles. Find the lightest, most comfortable vehicle you can, with the most powerful brakes you can get.
Like hillclimbs? Any lightweight turbocharged rear wheeled drive vehicle will do. Brakes are no less important. Just that you won't use up as much of them.
Like downhills? Find the lightest vehicle money can buy, and option up with the finest brake upgrade money can buy.
If you like point and squirt? Hacking your way through traffic? If you drive canyons? Then we recommend you get yourself in shape, and get acclimated to lightweight, short wheelbase vehicles, with short overhangs, and lightweight wheels. Last thing you're going to be in the market for is a Corvette, Porsche, Ferrari, Viper, or a Ford GT Fordie.
Every vehicle beyond the 50 thousand dollar price point is inferior for canyon driving. Every vehicle made today priced beyond the 50 thousand dollar price point is hopelessly overweight, and can be easily eclipsed, by lesser vehicles piloted by disciplined drivers, deep in God's canyons. Anything over 2500 pounds is extraneous for canyon driving.
That narrows the market for you, considerably... near to nothing. Outlook is bleak. Depressing. You'll have to be innovative.
Rule of Thumb for Vehicle Selection: Defer to the Golden Rule of Canyon Driving.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ General Note: Of today's current offerings, the high downforce Radical SR8 would likely win a hypothetical, present day Nurburgring. But, a present day Targa Florio, no one knows. The SR3 is a high downforce vehicle. An over the road version would likely wear its tyres more than twice the rate of a 908/3, or a 312 P/B. The Radical SR3 is fast. In a straight fight, it humiliated Porsche's GT-3 at the Nurburgring, where it shattered the track record by 13 seconds (August, 2003). The Radical SR8 recently shattered Niki Lauda's sub-seven minute qualifying mark, set over 30 years ago. Qualifying is one thing. Competition is another. No doubt the Radical SR8 would clean the clock on Ferrari's Enzo, Saleen's S7 and the Ford GT Fordie. But, is it 30 years faster than Ferrari's 312 P/B? No...We don't think so.
Table Of Contents_|_The Golden Rule
Automotive Chassis Archetypes for Idiots, 101 ~Know what it is you're driving. Vehicle selection for hard-core canyon driving, it is imperative you are intimately familiar, with basic automotive architecture. Divergence, evolution from the horseless carriage, spawned contemporary chassis archetypes, as follows (e.g., NVH = noise, vibration & harshness):
Chassis Archetype Provenance & Pedigree Principle Attribute Principle Issue Comfort? NVH? Rigidity? Ease of repair, ex post shunt? Insurance Friendly? Crash worthiness, side impact & rollover axiom? Threshold Handling & Performance Axiom? Choice for 10/10ths Canyon Driving? Classical Body on Frame (BOF)
The Chariot; Horse Drawn Carriage; Horseless Carriage Comfort & durability, for a long service life, simplicity, and ease of repair.
Weight & Rigidity Excellent Excellent Sloppy Good Yes Not Good... high rollover axiom. Transfers shock to its occupants Awful At Your Peril Civil Engineering Inexpensive method to achieve rigity, and a lower center of gravity, with minimal cost, at minimum efficient scale
Fit & finish variance; Burden of rigidity and crash worthiness shirked, upon its coachbuilders Significant variation between automakers Significant variation between automakers Varies significantly, a dependent function of coachwork architecture Varies significantly, a dependent function of coachwork architecture So long as it's not a sports car Depends entirely upon the structural integrity of its coachwork Hikes up the inside rear wheel, under trail braking With Substantial Modification Body Frame Integral (BFI)
Body On Frame BOF iteration, low cost chassis with a low center of gravity for light duty vehicles
Component integration; consumer confidence Issues Issues Sloppy Fair Yes Fair Mediocre, at best Not recommended Unibody-Subframe (aka, semi-monocoque)
Hybrid A compromise between performance, comfort & durability intended for a mild to moderately harsh service life
Buyer Remorse Poor Issues Sloppy Costly Even with crumple zones, generally not Fair Mediocre, at best With Substantial Modification Superleggera (aka, tube frame; tubular space frame)
WW I Aeronautics Rigid, lightweight purpose-built chassis for which to achieve smooth, uniform surfaces
Skilled Labor Intensive Endeavor; Homogeniety Cramped cockpit issues Awful Good Cost Prohibitive Superlegerras tend to be uninsurable Good Significant variation between seemingly identical units. No two are ever quite the same Depends on the vehicle's kerb weight WW II Aeronautics Lightweight chassis with superb rigidity, low NVH, superior survivability axiom when shunted
Capital intensive endeavor; minimum efficient scale Good Good Significant variation between automakers Expensive Sans crumple zones, generally not Good Good Depends on the vehicle's kerb weight Classical Body on Frame (BOF) Chassis Architecture:
Contemporary examples: Shelby's AC Cobra; Grand National NASCAR of yore (1950s through the late 1960s); Lincoln Towne Car, service vans & pick-up trucks, SUVs, Jeeps and military vehicles, limousines.
Hallmark Characteristic: ride height
Rolls Royce Silver Cloud ladder frame chassis, shown below:
Unrivaled pedigree, archetype directly tracing its roots beyond the 19th century horseless carriage to antiquity, essentially unchanged, the Body On Frame chassis, also known as a ladder frame, employs dual longitudinal crossbraced rails, which consititute the main stressed members. Cross members provide resistance to lateral force, for which to bolster torsional rigidity.
As simple as it gets.
Mounting a separate body to a rigid frame which supports drivetrain and coachwork was state of the art, building carriages and chariots, and continues to this day, with respect to inanimate self-propulsion. Original frames were made of wood (e.g., ash), but steel ladder frames were introduced, in the early 20th century.
In the United States, frequent changes in automobile design made ladder frame architecture the standard. That quick to market design advances were deemed imperative by domestic automakers, without having to change the chassis, BOF permitted the luxury of frequent changes and improvements to freshen the car's bodywork and interior, while leaving the chassis and driveline unchanged, kept cost down and design time short. BOF architecture facilitated use of the same chassis and driveline, for platforms of differentiated models. Sans computer-aided design, BOF was the architecture of choice, for automobile product managers.
Body-on-frame ensures latitude for which to isolate the chassis, distinct from bodywork and coachwork. Fundamental characteristic of BOF architecture, is superb ride quality. No free lunch, historically, tracing it's roots back to antiquity, this chassis archetype lacks for rigidity.
Recent effort underway, principly by GM and Mercedes Benz, to ameliorate rollover axiom and characteristic increases in NVH indices (e.g., "Noise, Vibration, and Harshness") when attempting to affect torsional rigidity of classical BOF based offerings, met with limited success. Elevation of frame rigidity, a top priority amongst automakers, stouter frames were engineered, allowing for more precise suspension tuning, in hope of better handling. Hydroformed frames on GM's C/K series proved so stiff, weld joints on prototype cabs cracked, like stale peanut shells. Stress loads across the frame migrated into the body structure, across the frame... made their trucks look like crab walkers. As nice as Mercedes Benz M Class SUV is, such is its divergence from classical BOF principle, like so many contemporary SUVs, it simply can't be relied upon, for heavy duty off-road use.
Only so much which can be done with a ladder-frame, time and time again, best and brightest, from Carol Shelby to the brain-trusts at GM and Mercedes Benz have proven, you cannot make a silk purse from a sow's ear...
Ideal for the battlefield, commercial or industrial applications, where service life or comfort is critical, a body on frame chassis archetype, indicative of what you see, above, constitutes your last-worst choice for hard core canyon driving.
Got to hand it to the guy... He lapped the field, won the Grand Prix of Judea, handily, in a ladder frame chariot. That takes some doing. Two millenium later, Shelby's ladder-frame AC Cobras never won at the Nurburgring, or the Targio Florio. Never even came close.
Most light duty passenger vehicles were migrated, to a body frame integral chassis architecture, during the 1960s, leaving trucks, buses and large vehicles, using conventional BOF chassis. The migration continued, several decades thereafter, with smaller SUVs drifting away, similarly so, to unit-body construction.
Body-on-frame remains the preferred construction method for heavy-duty vehicles, especially those which are intended to haul a burdensome load... not to win the Targo Florio.
Ease to which it can be stretched, the Lincoln Town Car, last American luxury car conceived with a body-on-frame chassis archetype, dominates its segment of the limousine market.
Advantage:
¥ Superb ride quality (e.g., high consumer satisfaction)
¥ Very tough (durability)
¥ Readily supports an extended wheelbase
¥ Tried and trued for heavy duty industrial use
¥ Ease of production
¥ Ease of repair, ex post accidents
¥ ease of restoration; ease of rust removal
¥ Absorbs vibration intrinsically, away from coachwork
¥ Ease of redesign to bodywork and coachwork, between model years (less of an issue, ex post advent of CAD)
¥ Wonderful platform to afix running boards, from which to stand, indiscrimanently firing rounds from Thompson sub-machine guns, while the vehicle is in motion
Drawbacks:
¥ Weight (crude, heavy & cumbersome)
¥ Push (understeer)
¥ Snap oversteer
¥ High center of gravity; prone to rollover
¥ Poor rigidity (e.g., flexing of the chassis in corners)
¥ Prone to corrsion
¥ No crumple zone
¥ Initial production cost
¥ Gangsters will employ their use, for drive-by shootings
¥ Guys who don't know beans about cars will try to use them, for road racing
Backbone Chassis (BOF derivative):
Contemporary examples: The Delorean; the TVR; Chevrolet's C-6 Corvette; the Lotus Europa; the Lotus Esprit; Subaru AWDs.
Hallmark Characteristic: Hikes up the inside rear wheel, under trail-braking
Colin Chapman's1962 Lotus Elan, shown below:
Backbone chassis is a methodological derivation of what civil engineers employ, in the architecture of light standards, and bridge abutments. Instead of a two-dimensional latticework structure, backbone architecture consists of a strong central tubular beam, in cross section, spanning fore and aft, the front and rear suspension attachment areas. Indicative of a BOF, bodywork and coachwork is then attacted to the backbone. Because it lacks for strength of larger BOF vehicles, this type of chassis is commonly found, on antiquated small lightweight sports cars. Backbone chassis, inherently unable to contribute to side impact abatement, relies wholly upon safety cage integrity incorporated, into bodywork and coachwork.
Don't let that fool you. Any automotive engineer worth his salt can boot up his CAD, coachbuild a solution for a contemporary backbone chassis automobile.
However, with a backbone chassis, by definition, coachwork always weighs a disproportionate qualtity greater, relative to coachwork of every other chassis archetype. The chassis may be lightweight, but the body always weights too much. Especially so in high performance applications, so much coachwork for which to over-engineer, to take up the slack with respect to what the backbone archetype simply cannot do, always fit and finish issues, vehicles with a backbone chassis shake and rattle themselves asunder.
Do not hit potholes in your Corvette.
To achieve a lightweight final product, Corvette engineers, their backs against the wall, must stoop, to balsa wood composite floorboards. Pinned, to an antiquated backbone chassis archetype, try as they might, they cannot produce a lightweight Corvette (e.g., under 2500 pounds). Even still, Chevrolet's Corvette is, by a significant margin, the world's finest backbone chassis archetype. You will never see a C6, hiking up it's inside rear wheel, under trail braking. Virtuoso perormance, that their C6 Corvette weighs-in under 3500 pounds is a master stroke of backbone chassis engineering. Credit where credit is due, job well done...
Most advanced backbone archetype ever developed for an automotive application, what you see directly above is amazing.
As it is, the C6 is the most advanced backbone archetype chassis, with the best of superlegerra and monocoque attrubutes integrated, as coachwork, into their Corvette. Corvette engineers and designers, given Carte Blanche, a clean sheet of paper, I suspect they'd do it the other way: evolve a highly advanced monocoque hybrid, best attributes exacted from backbone and superleggera architeture integrated, into their C7 Corvette.
By definition, the backbone chassis archetype is not a competition chassis. That is the way it is. That is the way it will always be.
Though they may look identical? GM doesn't dare race their works C6 Corvettes, in ALMS, with the backbone chassis archetype they sell, to us, on the production Corvette. Purpose built works Corvettes General Motors engineer, for GT2 ALMS competition, is a pure superleggera tubular space frame chassis. International road racing competition, the C-6 Corvette, with its backbone chassis is a misspecification. The backbone chassis archetype was never intended for large vehicles, over 2500 pounds, much less is it suitable, for competition driving.
Not your worst choice for 10/10ths canyon driving. If GM's execs wouldn't be caught dead, wasting their time foisting their backbone chassis, at LeMans? Then, why waste your time, pulling teeth, trying to make a backbone do what monocoques and superlegerras do, so effortlessly?
Advantages:
¥ Few components
¥ Simple and inexpensive
¥ Lightweight (...in theory)
¥ Low center of gravity
¥ Easy to produce
¥ Excellent straightline stability
¥ Superior to a superleggera, under harsh conditions
¥ Ease of redesign to bodywork and coachwork between model years, without having to alter the chassis
¥ Good platform for light duty AWD
¥ Ideal chassis archetype for scale model cars (e.g., slots cars & remote control cars)
Drawbacks:
¥ Wierdness (e.g., cockpit ergonomics)
¥ Flex
¥ Relies excessively, upon design prowess of the automaker's coachbuilders
¥ Side-impact protection a wholly dependent function, of the integrity of its coachwork
¥ Can't alter weight or ballest, without adversely affecting side-impact protection (e.g., clean sheet of paper)
¥ Inferior to monocoque and superleggera archetypes, in road racing appliations
¥ Inferior to BOF archetypes, with respect to heavy duty industrial use
¥ High variation in side impact protection, between automakers using this chassis archetype
¥ Inside rear wheel wants to hike up, under trail braking
¥ Dumb guys who shunt them, road racing, will be in for a big surprise
Contemporary Examples: Vast majority of low cost contemporary light duty production vehicles
Hallmark Characteristic: Awkwardness
Its ancentral BOF utilized an independent ladder-frame to attach the suspension and coachwork. Principle advantage well known throughout the tw thousand year evolution of the horse drawn carriage, soft mounts were used to dampen vibration, in both the frame, and suspension. BFI, and evolution of BOF architecture, was conceived to preserve benefit of BOF, while reducing weight and drag, by lowering the center of gravity in light duty production vehicles.
The result: Boils down to a bulimic, cheapie-cheesie ladder-frame, two steps removed from the horssless carriage.
BFI ladder-frame architecture, front end cradles are still employed, which allow soft mount implements in the engine bay. However, most rear ends, hard mounted, technological advancements (e.g., better shock absorbers) served to take up the slack, dampened amplitude and frequency of noise, vibration and harshness (NVH) to facilitate delicate nature of BFI architecture, relative to its paternal BOF ancestor.
A duck is a duck. Anything but a scientific breakthrough, its a ladder-frame, strugging to cope with the Jenny Craig diet. Moderately better handling, moderately more efficient, the slow evolution from BOF to BFI, tradeoffs just don't pan out, for performance driving.
Advantages:
~ Less weight; greater efficiency for light duty vehicles
~ Lower center of gravity
~ Diminished likelihood of rollovers
~ Less areodynamic drag
~ Affords ample wheel clearance
Drawbacks:
~ Component integration (e.g., difficult to assemble or repair)
~ Noise, vibration and harshness issues (e.g., potential consumer satisfaction issues)
~ Passengers seat uncharacteristically lower than a BOF chassis
~ Unsuitable for heavy duty, industrial or off-road use
Unibody with Subframe (hybrid chassis; semi-monocoque)
Hallmark Characteristic: Pervasive understeer and snap oversteer; lack of leg room in the back seat
Contemporary Examples: the Mustang; Chevrolet's Camaro and Pontiac's Firebird shown below:
American automobiles, such as Chevrolet's 1967-81 Camaro, Pontiac's 1968-79 Firebird, Chevrolet's Nova, most ever Chrysler Corporation product from 1960 until the early 1980s, used a hybrid chassis architecture, known as a partial (e.g., semi) monocoque, in tandem with a bolt-in subframe, supporting its powertrain. Automaker's intention were to hurry product to market, achieving rigidity and strength of a unibody, simultaneously lowering cost of manufacture.
The result: Cheap, inefficient, lousy handling vehicle which rattle themselves apart, prone to rollover like a pick-up truck.
In theory, subframes or partial subframes were employed, in monocoque construction, to isolate vibration and noise of powertrain or suspension components from the rest of the vehicle. Semi-monocoque is not intrinsically rigid. It relies upon its coachwork and complimentary components to achieve rigidity. Bolting a subframe to the unibody does nothing whatsoever, to exogeneously enhance rigidity of the semi-monocoque. In practice, subframe taxed and inevitably attritted its unibody.
The powertrain subframe contained the greatest single portion of the vehicle's overall mass. Thus, movement of the subframe, relative to the rest of the body, indicative of a pick-up truck, caused extensive distortion and vibration. Super Duty 455 cubic inch Pontaic Trans Ams, commonplace observation spied the front hood, trunk, doors and body panels torque-twist, about the fixed panels, under hard acceleration, or when put hard, in turns. Big block Fords, Chevrolets, AMCs and Chrysler products, under full throttle, entire dash boards would violently shake, oblongating carrier holes afixing the dashboard to the firewall, cracking the windshield.
Few muscle cars ever survived to find second or third owners, during the late '70s. Low level of scholarship, hastily conceived by ambitious, self-important auto execs, hurried to market, so few muscle cars ever survived to see their odometers turn, past the 80 thousand mile mark. Heyday of muscle car, vast majority of them went from their original owners, straight to the junkyard.
What few which survive remain crude, inefficient, inferior oddities they always were, coaxed back to life by clever, greedy fabricators, in hope of fetching a 6-figure price from dumb, mid life-crisis bidders compelled to aggrandize themselves, throwing money around, showing off at the Barrett-Jackson auction house, on the Speed Channel.
Drag racers and circle track racers typically gut the front subframe, throw it away, and install a full front tube frame (e.g., tilt front end). Any hard core race fabricator worth his salt would never waste his time, with anything short of, if not a monocoque, at minimum, top-down tubular space frame architecture.
Advantages:
~ Noise, vibration and harshness theoretically isolated, to the subframe (e.g., powertrain)
~ Lower center of gravity, and somewhat lighter than a BOF chassis
~ Somewhat better handling, than a chassical BOF chassis
~ Facilitates a behemoth powertrain
Drawbacks:
~ Excels nowhere... does no one thing particularly well
~ Wierd handling attributes; consumer dissatisfaction issues
~ Prone to understeer and snap oversteer, simultaneously
~ Prone to rollovers
~ Consumer disssatisfaction with respect to comfort and ergonomics
~ In practice, NVH problems abound (e.g., noise, vibration and harshness)
~ Differential flex, fore and aft
~ Premature subframe fatigue, attritting its unibody and coachwork
~ Inferior to tubular space frames and full monocoques, with respect to performance
~ Inferior to body on frame chassis archetypes, with respect to comfort and durability
~ Ergonomic issues (e.g., passengers acclimated to BOF won't be seated as high)
~ Unsuitable for heavy duty, off-road, or competition driving
Superlegerra (e.g., Tube Frame, or Tubular Space Frame)
Contemporary Examples: NASCAR, Lamborghini's Gallardo, Porsche's slant nose 935...
Signature Characteristic: Weird doors and cramped cockpits (e.g., cockpit sized disproportionately small, relative to the size of the vehicle)
The1966 Ford GT-40 Mk II, shown below:
Architecture: Internal lattice framework, preponderance of trusses, covered with a non-load-bearing skin (e.g., bodywork).
Tracing its roots to World War I fighter aircraft, superleggera, coined 1937 by Italian coachbuilder Carrozzeria Touring (e.g., Italian, for lightweight), also known as a tube-frame, or a space frame chassis, was an automobile chassis archetype typically used in classical sports cars of the mid 20th Century. Unlike the monocoque, or body-on-frame methods widely adopted during the 1950s, Superleggera chassis relied upon a network of thin, interconnected metal tubes formed to compliance, then covered with metal or composite, exotic lightweight materials like aluminium or magnesium alloy. Expensive, labor intensive, this construction technique is no longer used in production motorcars today, but is only found in low-volume, high priced hand-built boutique vehicles.
Fair warning: Never hit a pothole in your superleggera.
A space frame is a truss-like, lightweight rigid latticework constructed from interlocking preponderance of struts welded to form, in a geometrically impeccable pattern, a cage. Space frames utilize multidirectional extensions, with ancillory cross-sections. This chassis archetype derives its strength from the inherent rigidity of triangle, whereby bending moments under tension or compression absorb and diffuse, along the extent of the preponderance of struts.
Cockpit quarters are always cramped.
Geometry intensive platonic solids run amok, in its basic form, a space frame is a prepondrance of interlocking pyramids, built from aluminium or steel tubular struts. A more robust structure is composed of interlocking tetrahedral pyramids, diagonals equidistant (e.g., isotropic vector matrix, in a single unit with an octet truss). More complex variations alter the lengths of the struts, to curve the overall structure, or incorporate a precise geometric shape purpose built, to a particular circumstance.
Simplest form, in NASCAR, chassis builders merely build up, from a ladder-frame chassis (...which explains why stock cars weigh three times what a pure tubular space frame chassis does).
Banned from use, by FIA, in almost every form of top tier international motorsport, tubular space frame chassis presents a problem for race sanctioning bodies. Perks from GM, they still tolerate them, in the ALMS. Tick-tock, tick-tock, GM's tube frame C-6s, circulating amonst all those monocoques... accident waiting to happen. That, when crashed into other chassis archetypes, a tubular spaceframe vehicle cuts through monocoque, like a hot knife through butter, put just one tube frame car on the track, everything else on the track has to be. When two tube frame cars come together, at differential velocities, they'll intertwine (e.g., the spaceframes entangle).
Slow, grizzly, painful, agonizing death... rips the occupants apart.
Tubular space frame architecture is the chassis archetype of choice, for those who lack for capital intensity or wherewithal to fabricate a proper monocoque. No shame in that. A nicely done tube frame is to die for. Scant few drivers ever live to strap in, behind the wheel of a tubular space frame chassis.
A good one is heaven on earth.
Variation is significant. No two are ever the same. Steve Saleen's woefully overpriced tubular space frame S7, its kerb weight now exceeding 2800 pounds, undercuts everything in its class, by at least 1000 pounds. Lamborghini's hopelessly overweight tubular space frame Mercielago weights nearly 4,000 pounds, twice what it should. Even still, no two S7s are ever identical, just as are no two Lamborghinis.
Lamborghini does not yet know how to build a monocoque. Nor does Steve Saleen.
Beware overweight supperlegerras (e.g., NASCAR; Lamborghini). Caveat emptor, poorly done superlegerras, abound. Fair warning, there are more bad ones out there, than good ones. The people who make their living bending tube frame chassis are without compunction. Bragging rights alone, they will sell down the river without a paddle, on a fatigued tube frame well past its service life. Beware, alternative alloy superlegerras. Aluminium or magnesium tubular space frame architecture is forever banned, from every from of organized motorsport, on this planet.
Tech inspection exists, for this reason: Ferreting out alternative alloy superlegerras. You will never clear tech inspection, grandfathering an aluminium space frame superleggera. Unless you're lucky, and get a tech inspection by a guy who's out of his depth, alternative alloy superleggeras you must lap alone, on an empty track.
Inferior technology for an opened wheel racing chassis, a superleggera architeture is an antiquated, inferior archetype, for the basis upon which to build a monoposto (e.g., Italian, for single seater).
Advantages:
¥ Lightweight (e.g., given equal volume and surface area, achieving less than half the weight of a passenger car is a realistic objective)
¥ Tension and compression is wholly absorbed, intrinsic unto the chassis, itself
¥ Torsional rigidity is intrinsic unto the chassis, itself
¥ Rigidity readily achieved, independent of the structural integrity of complimentary components
¥ Self-sacrificing (e.g., survivability in high speed shunts very good, relative to a BOF chassis)
¥ Highly evolved tool and die sector in your economy is not prerequisite
¥ High level of scholarship is unnecessary (e.g., building a Superleggera is not inherently complex; it's just involved)
Drawbacks:
¥ Forever banned from use in top eschelon international open wheel competition
¥ A crude, blunt instrument (e.g., an antiquated WW I technology)
¥ Geometry intensive; geometry extensive
¥ Economies of scope (e.g., as opposed to scale)
¥ Cost prohibitive; skilled labor intensive
¥ High cost of homogeneity (e.g., uniformity difficult to achieve)
¥ Can't be efficiently mass produced
¥ Significant performance variation between seemingly identical chassis (e.g., no two superleggeras are ever quite the same)
¥ Spatially inefficient (e.g., cramped cockpit issues; wierd oversized doors are prerequisite)
¥ Lousy ergonomics (e.g., ingress/egress issues)
¥ Seldom do they not look like kit-cars (e.g., they may look good from a distance; not up close)
¥ Heavier than a monocoque
¥ Prone to rust
¥ Short service life
¥ Burdensome maintenence
¥ Astronomical to insure
¥ Problematical to QA
¥ Metallurgical expertise is prerequisite (e.g., you better know someone, who is)
¥ Just one pothole, it will never be the same
Monocoque (e.g., unibody; unit-body)
Contemporary Examples: McLaren's MP4/22; Mazda's Miata; Lotus Elise and Lotus Exige
Hallmark Characteristic: Spatial efficiency (e.g., well proportioned)
Bruce McLaren's M8-A, shown below:
Architecture: Monocoque, a French conjunction for the phrase "single shell" is a chassis construction technique whereby, in theory, structural rigidity is achieved, employing use of the chassis' external skin.
Two families of Monocoques: Monocoque chassis (pure monocoque, as seen above), and Ultra Light Steel Auto Body (ULSAB) monocoque superstructure (unit-body, or unibody, as seen below):
Ideal for open wheel racing, given a clean sheet of paper, the pure monocoque chassis constitutes the archtecture of choice, for Formula 1 designers and engineers. A monocoque derivative, spot welded unit body construction (e.g., ULSAB Monocoque), use of "Hydroform" parts, sandwich steel and laser beam welding, is now the dominant metthodology, in the design and manufacture production automobiles.
Unibody monocoques, hydroform methodology shapes metal consistently, to specification. Conventional pressing of the unibody employed use of behemoth industrial machines, known as buffalos, to stamp sheet metal into its die, which inevitably induced subtle variances in thickness, across the length of the materal, edges and corners thinner than surfaces in-between. To maintain minimum thickness, to enhance rigidity, automotive designers had to specify thicker sheet metal than originally needed to account for the variance.
Vehicle kerb weights soared.
Pioneered by Porsche, hydroform methodology, instead of stamping sheet metal, steel tubes are placed within a die, which defines the desired shape. Then, high pressure fluid is injected, into the tube, which subsequently expands the material uniformly, across the inner extent of the die. Pressure of fluid force, essentially uniform everywhere, throught the die, thickness of the steel across the extent of the die is theoretically uniform.
In theory, hydroform theoretically enables designers to specify minimum thickness steel, reduce kerb weight, while increasing rigidity of the unibody.
Unfortunately, advent of hydroform methodology hasn't reduced kerb weights of unibody vehicles, not one iota. Reasons unbekownst, makes no sense whatsoever, hydroform methodology increased the kerb weight of contemporary unit body vehicles, across the board. Now, more than ever, motorcars have never been so overweight.
Henceforth, now we enjoy two families of monocoques: exotic, lightweight purpose built monocoques, made specifically for a unitary application, and ULSAB monocoques, designed for passenger cars. In the ULSAB family, two types: Monocoques made, for a single vehicle (e.g., Mazda's MX-5), and monocoques made, for multiple model variants (e.g., Nissan's overweight 350 Z).
The latter tends to demerit the heavier kerb weight.
Still commonplace however, true monocoque frames, structural members around windshield and door jambs are machined, by folding and stamping substrate material several times. The principle concerns, to ensure spreading the load evenly, with no holes for corrosion. Relative to antiquted techniques, in which a body is bolted to a frame, monocoque cars are less expensive, and stronger. Advent of CAD, crumple zones can be easily incorporated into the monocoque.
Best kept secret in car culture, Subaru's chassis engineering prowess now rivals Mercedes Benz. Subaru is doing yeoman's work, highest side-impact crash ratings in the industry, with their hopelessly over-engineered backbone-spaceframe enhanced aluminium monocoque intrgral.
A standout, Subaru builds a lighter, better monocoque.
The leader in monocoque chassis development, is not GM or Mercedes Benz. Integrating best attributes from backbone and supperleggera archetypes, into their all aluminium monocoques, Subaru is steeping out. With one extra axel, a differential, an extended sunroof, five doors and a back seat, a fully loaded AWD Subaru Outback station wagon weighs about the same, as Chevrolet's fully loaded, two door, two seat, two wheel drive Corvette convertible. Subaru's AWD Outback station wagon weighs-in a 1000 pounds less, than the lightest comparable two-wheel drive units Mercedes Benz, Audi or BMW can collectively muster.
When was the last time we've seen a Porsche, Mercedes Benz, Audi or BMW win, in FIA World Rally?
Tracing its roots to high performance WW II fighter aircraft, monocoque design, windshield and rear window glass make signal contributions to the structural integrity of the vehicle. When a unibody vehicle is crashed, increased difficultly to affect repair, relative to a vehicle with a classical BOF chassis spawned innovations in local autobody tool and die market sectors. Once sleepy, lazy autobody shops of yore have specialized, with integration of sophisticated methodology which now constitutes its own distinct skilled trade (autobody repair science).
Unibody construction, that the structural metal, integral to the load bearing structure makes it vulnerable to weathering, rust is a paramount concern. Hence, premium is placed upon welding, as opposed to bolting on components. Here in the United States, vehicles will not pass state inspection if rust perforates rocker panels, floorboards or pillars. Older cars with BOF chassis still readily pass state and federal vehicle inspection, with quite advanced rust in jambs, sills, rocker panels, and pillars, whereas modern monocoques, welded components vulnerable to weathering are structural, and commonly attribute to test failure.
A BOF is easily restored. Fatiqued unibody, you have little choice, but part-out.
Not all monocoques are created equal. Not all monocoques are done correctly. Lotus, using a bonded aluminium monocoque, achieves a kerb weight of 2000 pounds in their Elise and Exige, 1100 pounds lighter than anything in its class (e.g., Porsche's overweight Caymen). Mazda, a steel monocoque for its MX-5 Miata, has evolved to now exceed the kerb weight of 2500 pounds, 500 pounds lighter than anything in its class (e.g., Honda's overweight, overpriced S2000).
Lamborghini, stuck building a superlegerra chassis, doesn't yet know how to build a monocoque. Albeit overweight ones, its parent company, Audi, in fact does. Not good news for Lamborghini, Audi hasn't built a lightweight monocoque for its production vehicles, in over 30 years. Nor has Mercedes, Porsche, Volkswagon or BMW.
Toyota's Scion division most certainly does.
Beware overweight monocoques. Beware poorly done monocoques. Beware bonded monocoques (e.g., bonded = glue = temporary). Glue is never a permanent solution. Bonded aluminium is not the way to do a low production monocoque (e.g., Elise, Exige and the NSX require a heated garage).
Higest level of motorsport, monocoque architecture constitutes the chassis archetype of choice... I don't believe we've seen McLaren build a tubular spaceframe chassis, since the 1950s. Impossible to build in small numbers, capital intensity prerequisite, high start-up cost, high fixed cost nature of producing a viable monocoque, in limit production, were it not for deep pockets of McLaren's generous benefactors (e.g., tobacco sponsorship), they'd still be in the dark ages, racing a tubular space frame chassis.
Advantages:
¥ Rigidity (albeit exogeneously achieved)
¥ Lightweight (in theory)
¥ Scalable
¥ Crumple zones
¥ Economies of scale (e.g., diminishing average marginal cost function)
¥ Ease of homogeniety; uniformity between units
¥ Self-sacrificing (e.g., survivability in high speed shunts)
¥ Nothing can hold a candle to a properly conceived monocoque
Disadvantages:
¥ Rust
¥ Astronomical average fixed cost function (e;.g., cost prohibitive to build, in small number)
¥ Expensive to engineer, build and repair
¥ Design phase is CAD intensive
¥ Requires intensive and extensive planning
¥ High level of scholarship is imperative
¥ Requires a sophisticated level of automation, and a highly evolved tool and die sector in your economy
¥ Rigidity dependent upon the structural integrity of complimentary components
Rule of Thumb, Chassis Dvelopment: Know what you're driving. And, choose wisely. Know your chassis archetypes. Know how to differentiate them, anecdotally. Know what they can, and cannot do. Do not piss your money away, making a silk purse, from a sow's ear. Backbones, BFIs, subframe-unit-bodies, or BOFs will never jump through hoops superlegerras and monocoques do, readily. If the old dog can't jump? Then, why make him?
Table Of Contents_|_The Golden Rule
Suspension ~Our grand turismos are lengthy, and debilitating. We want your half-shafts as close to level as humanly possible. Tie-rod ends concern us a great deal, as well.
The stiffer your suspension, the more critical will become your heel & toe. Competition suspensions aren't necessary for the type of driving we do. But, if you insist... Modifying your suspension is an intimate, personal experience. Changes your life. It changes your behavior. Changes the way you must dress. It destroys the resale value of your automobile. Changes everything. Profoundly.
Think about it, a moment. Do a dance floor suspension, high durometer bushings, coil-overs, Konis, chassis stiffening kit, anti-sway bars, what's the first thing you'll notice? Answer is derived, in the first sentence of the preceeding paragraph (e.g., heel 'n toe).
For any driver worth his salt, venturing out on his brand new dance floor suspension, first thing he'll notice... He feels funny. Thrashing around, trying to settle himself in his seat. He can't get comfortable. His feet don't feel quite right, dancing across the pedals, with what he's used to wearing.
More guys punt cars with brand new altered geometry suspensions, straight into the Armco, but for one reason... You'll strap in, spark ignition, wheel your two seater out, and you'll inevitably discover, even a name brand tennis shoe is woefully inadequate. Altered geometry suspensions, driving shoes become prerequisite.
Answer is: Shoes... Your shoes.
Competition suspensions induce a higher frequency, but a shorter wavelength insofar as driver endurance. A competition suspension will indeed improve handling attribute, but only for a shorter time horizon (before WWII, it was considered stylish for one driver to drive the entire 24 Hours of LeMans). The firmness of your set-up is directly related to the quantity of work you demand from your tyres and chassis. A firmer suspension does less work, transferring shock or noise to tyres, chassis and driver. Vehicles look awesome decked out in a dance floor suspensions. But, altering the geometry of a vehicle's suspension is a threshold modification many drivers later regret... porpoising down the highway; never knowing which way the car will turn when bearing down hard on the brakes... not as much fun to drive.
Five things you must discern, via muscle and bones, with a dance floor suspension: drift, cyclicality, periodicity, white noise, and structural breaks. You cannot drive a vehicle with a competition suspension, and interpret these five things adequately, without driving shoes.
Dance floor suspension, you'll need a set of driving shoes. Good ones.
Increasing your suspension's sensitivity will better communicate feedback of your inputs, but it does no good whatsoever if a driver cannot interpret the increased noise. Unit time is the key threshold parameter... per unit time is what becomes profoundly impacted by threshold change. Resisting force doesn't simply go away by making a suspension modification; it's got to go someplace. A stiffer suspension diffuses resisting force across all other parameters: tyres, bushings, chassis, driver. After altering the geometry of your suspension, it will be a completely different car... a different driving experience entirely. So much so, that in a few hours, perhaps most drivers will deny their longing for their old suspension geometry as a function of rationalizing the marginal benefit they derive by looking cool. However, looking stupid porpoising down the freeway at 55 mph is a small price to pay. It cannot be denied: Young women prone to losing their chastity are more likely to smear lipstick on zippers of guys who drive low riders with shiny bicycle sized wheels.
Diffusing resisting force away from the suspension reverberates it elsewhere. Your track times will improve, but all other things being equal, the toll it takes upon the driver must, by definition, increase, per unit time. Your car will become both an easier and a more difficult car to drive: easier to drive at maximum tyre adhesion initially, as your suspension transmits more data, but harder to do so for duration, as the noise will eventually atrit the driver. A competition suspension is easier to drive initially, but harder to do so for duration, somewhat indicative of why professionals are so much faster during qualifying (they can hang it out for four laps; but not for 500 miles).
By definition, tyre ware and chassis denigration increase with this type of modification. The stiffer the suspension, the more resisting force you'll diffuse away from your suspension to yourself, your chassis, your bushings, and your rubber. The softer your suspension, the less demand you place on your tyres (ware) and chassis (flex). You'll want to upgrade to high durometer competition bushings, and install strut braces to compensate your chassis. The sooner the better on those bushings. Have a reputable alignment shop take care of the installation, the bushings, and your 4 wheel alignment at the same time.
Expect to replace tyres, every 3000 miles. Twice a year, expect you'll have to break out screwdrivers and your socket set, and have at the car, tightening nuts and bolts, here and there, especially in cockpit and engine bay. Installing a stiffer suspension shakes things loose.
Nonetheless, for those who intend to modify their Sunday driver, suspension is always done first.
If your Sunday driver is a late model sports car, then never venture into God's canyons without fresh tie-rod ends. Those who call their hobby canyon driving, tie-rod ends should be replaced religiously, every 10 to 20 thousand miles, especially if you're into stunts (... brake turns,180s, and 360s are murder on tie rod ends).
Handling is not an absolute variable, nor is it a critical variable with regard to the type of driving we do. At best, "handling" is but a marginal, arbitrary, subjective, relative criterion no two driver's can agree upon. A vehicle can handle well, yet still be slow as molasses through the canyons.
Formula 1 machines pull a lot of Gs, and they go pretty fast through turns, don't they? Five degrees yaw, ex post apex, the likes of Mika Hakkinen or Juan Montoya, in thier prime, were utterly helpless to adequately effect remedial correction. Twenty degrees yaw, ground-effects enhanced open-wheel racing machines lose 90% of their downforce. One hundred-eighty degrees yaw, they go airborne, into the grandstands. Precarious, twitchy, diabolical, quirkie, Formula 1 machines, amongst the worst handling devices on this planet, need serve little else than billboards for big tobacco.
Care to guess what the best handling devices on this planet are? They certainly aren't racing cars. Aircraft notwithstanding, if you guessed heavy equipment? 18-wheelers? Earth movers? Backhoes? Crains? Capital must "handle" well enough to accomodate labor's contribution over significant duration.
Ipso facto, F-1 machines are amongst the worst "handling" devices on this planet insofar as their axiom to facilitate labor's contribution to capital. My daily driver? An AWD Subaru Legacy wagon, it handles better than my two-seater. It's predictable; it's forgiving. It handles terrific! One of the best handling vehicles in the world. That it's several hundred pounds lighter in ballast, my two-seater thoroughly out performs it, across every aspect of the performance spectrum, which makes me go so effing fast through God's canyons.
But, my two-seater doesn't handle worth beans...
Before you pony up the big bux for that pretty new, 3400 pound EVO? Fair warning: That mass increases, exponentially, as a function of velocity, there is no substitution whatsoever for mass efficiency. Weight and tyres are everything. All the good handling on God's green acre cannot suffice for a lightweight vehicle. THERE IS NO SUBSTITUTION...for weight. Direct causality of mass efficiency in correlation with respect to handling is spurious. Performance suspensions do not make your sport compact cars go faster... You do. Doesn't matter whether it's a domestic, or an import. Handling is a relative variable; mass efficiency is an absolute criterion.
Ceteris paribus, that weight constitutes the critical variable, choose your Sunday Driver accordingly.
Rule of Thumb, Suspensions: Your first and last vehicle mod, is always suspension.
Rule of Thumb, Shock Settings: Tighter (e.g., stiffer) your suspension, the more work you'll demand, from your tyres. Softer your shock-setting, the more work you'll demand, from your suspension. Softening your front shock setting losens the rear. Softening your rear shock settings will induce push.
Table Of Contents_|_The Golden Rule
Horespower Illusion: The Harmonic Mean ~~ Do you think a horsepower upgrade is going to make you faster, in God's canyons? I just asked you a question. Well, do you? Imagine my eyes narrow, snapping my fingers at you, giving you two values: 60 and 120, asking you, "What's the mean? Is the average 90? Is it 84.853? Could it be 80? Come, on... Think. Compute. What is it?"
~ Answer might surprise you.
~ Retired Race Driver Jacques Villenueve, when interviewed by the British press asserted, "I'd always rather have horsepower, than good handling." That is exactly the opposite of what you want, in canyon driving. Would you like to know why?
~ Anybody ever (...EVER) quizzes you, "WHAT IS THE AVERAGE," or "WHAT IS THE MEAN," the correct answer is always, "I don't know."
~ Jacques Villenueve was unidimensional. Jacques Villenueve was not the same balls-out driver, as was his father. Different breed of driver, Jacques Villenueve was methodical, clever, systematic. He preferred a low downforce race set-up. In his CART days, always nailing down a good qualifying slot, early in the qualifying session, to ensure track position, he trimmed out his race set-up, to a low downforce confiquration, to make it problematical for competitors to pass. So, it didn't matter how fast Jacques could go, on race day, just so long as no one else could pass. Aerodynamics in CART, during the mid 1980s, inefficient at the rear end, turbulence Jacques Villenueve's car so much different than everyone else's, he'd nailed down his first CART championship, then his first F1 World Driver's Championship, and settled into his corner office at BAR, long before everyone else finally got his number.
~ Good track position, good equipment, he always did well... But, his modus operandi never works well, with a sub par chassis. Unidimensional driver, never enough horsepower to compensate, he languished, midfield, the rest of his driving career, in his undeveloped BAR-Honda.
~ Sweet-tooth for horsepower, Jacques could exact what an optimized suspension could do, and trim it out to be faster, down the straightaways. Oblivous to the notion of the harmonic mean, Jacques could never sufficiently develop or advance a Formula 1 chassis. To this day, for all the years lost, optimizing the BAR chassis to suit Jacques Villenueve, BAR (e.g., Honda) languishes, hopelessly lost.
~ Example: Suppose Jacques has an awesome mill... A very-very fast Honda racing engine, one which allows him to cruise 120 MPH, down the straightaways on a particularly technical canyon road. But, let's suppose Jacques, laden with a lousy suspension package, has his areo package is trimmed out, to a low-downforce set up. Where he'll have to brake, to 60 MPH, every turn on that canyon road, I, to the contrary, will have an unmodified OEM mill, with a dialed-in suspension which allows me to carve, constant velocity, 90 MPH, across the 120 mile extent of same canyon road.
~ Simple question for you: Given Jacques Villenueve's two velocities, 60 MPH average, in each turn, and 120 MPH average, in each straightaway, normalized by distance, what is Jacques' mean? Arithmetically:
Artithmetic Mean = (60+120)/2 = 90 MPH? ~ Is this correct? Is Jacques Villenueve averaging 90 MPH, across that canyon road? Well, let's see if he is:
~ No. I don't think so. We can plainly see, that canyon drive took Jacques 90 minutes. Right? But, was 90 MPH his average velocity? His average velocity isn't his arithmetic mean. Rather, it's his harmonic mean we seek:
~ Throw midpoint theorem out the window. The arithmetic mean is utterly meaningless, in canyon driving. Jacques Villenueve's average speed, would be 80 MPH. His canyon drive took 90 minutes. Going steady state, 90 MPH isn't the same, as going 60 MPH in the turns, then 120 MPH down the straightaways. Crunch the numbers; see for yourself:
Time = 60(120/90) = 79.9999 minutes ~ Going steady state, 90 MPH, I hypothetically cleaned Jacques Villenueve's clock... by 10 minutes!
~ See what's happened? Pegging Villenueve's midpoint velocity, my having axiom to travel the entire distance, steady state, at 90 MPH, I arrived 10 minutes ahead of a vehicle, with a superior powerplant relegated to traveling 60 MPH in the turns, but 30 MPH faster than I hypothetically am, on the straightaways. Me, just cruising, steady state, 90 MPH, to beat my 80 minute time, exceeding 180 MPH straightaway velocity would be prerequisite for Jacques Villenueve, with a superior powerplant, to rival my leisurely 80 minute elapsed time:
~ Anecdotally, your inclination to challenge yellow traffic lights is not without basis, or unfounded. You have every incentive to, when possible, blow red lights. Opportunity cost of being unnessarily halted by red traffic light, to make up for lost time, you'd have to triple previous your velocity. Indicative of hitting a traffic light, paying a heavy price, constrained to being 30 MPH slower in the turns, Jacques would have to triple his mean turn velocity, to a mean straightaway velocity of 180 MPH, and he must do so consistently, down every straightaway, but for no good reason than to keep pace with a vehicle maintaining a 90 MPH constant velocity?
~ Indeed. It's true. Numbers don't lie.
~ By definition, brakes and tires are everything... lack thereof, there is no substitution, for weight. By definition, anything which makes you more constant, makes you faster. Anything which makes you less constant, makes you slower. Anything which makes you less constant, is nearly impossible to overcome or compensate.
~ Said another way: What you lose in the turns is forever lost. What you lose in the turns you could never (...NEVER) hope to make back, down the straightaway.
~ Under the constraint of canyon driving, horsepower upgrades are relatively insignificant. You are unequivocally better off, enhancing your axiom to maintain constant velocity. A good handling vehicle is always (ALWAYS) preferable, to a vehicle which isn't. Given the choice, between suspension excellence embodied in a lightweight vehicle, versus an outstanding powerplant in a heavy, cumbersome vehicle, you are unequivocably better off, with a good handling, lightweight vehicle.
~ Freak of nature... A miracle Jacques Villenueve ever won the World Driver's Championship, he did it the hard way.
~ Aptitude for optimizing suspension and aerodynamics, Michael Schumacher, literally and figuratively, coasted to 7 World Driving titles, on superior handling (e.g., he endeavored to be constant). Sweet tooth for horsepower at the expense of handling, trimming out his aerodynamics to bare minimum (e.g., he endeavored NOT to be constant), Jacques Villenueve fought the battle of his life, to win but one, an
