metalshapes, It's time to post those pics of the Mallock suspension on this thread...please. If you still have them. Question; Is it made up of (English) Ford axles cut and inverted to keep the kingpin angle?
Here are some pics, doc... Yeah, they are Ford Pop/Anglia axles that were cut and lengthened. They were not upsidedown when I got the car, but they hit the opposide axle's pivot point at full droop. So I turned them around. Because of the arc of the Ibeam itself, that gave me a bit more clearence. ( Arthur saw that when I brought the car to him for some work, and he agreed with it ) Camber stayed almost the same, just a touch more Neg...
Thanks! I/We needed to see those again. Put a Watson Indy car shark nose and the remnants of a '25 T cowl on there, even if just for pics, and every traditional nitpicker on the HAMB would love it! I think it probably works better than a typical Ford truck twin I beam because the axles pivot from about an inch and a half above the bottom of the wheel rims instead of a foot and a half like the trucks. On all of them on the thread: It's about roll center vs center of gravity. Plus some slip angle and camber change on body roll and moment of inertia and a bunch of other things...
From you comment it would appear that you do not understand how sliding pillar suspension and live hubs work. For this reason I posted the links so people could find out more about it. This is very much independent suspension with low unsprung weight....
Many designers have made the mistake of raising the roll center to reduce bodyroll. If the lateral accelaration forces are greater than the vertical weight at the roll center the car will lift. [ similar to how pole vaulting works ] So even cars with upper and lower wishbones can get a jacking effect under hard cornering. The laws of physics mean there will always be lateral accelaration with cornering, So the idea is to try and harness these forces and transfer it into traction. The idea is to get the roll center as low as possible then control the "overturning moment" [ bodyroll ] with roll stiffness. This transfers weight over to the outside wheel for better traction. Cars with parallel wishbones [ A-arms ] will get dynamic positive camber during bodyroll, so what the designer does is lower the roll center to induce negative camber during jounce and positive camber during rebound reducing dynamic camber changes [ at the wheel ] due to bodyroll. Even modern cars get camber change due to suspension travel [ it is all a compromise ] On race cars they dial-in static negative camber as part of the wheel allignment. The idea is to have 1/2degree of negative camber at maximum bodyroll [ cornering speed ] The problem with too much static negative camber is camber thrust [ 2 cone shaped wheels trying to drive towards each other ] So the also use toe-out to counteract this. This makes a car feel very twitchy in a straight line or on uneven roads [ especially under hard braking on uneven roads ] The best compromise for a 1940's era retro car would be a Twin I-Beam, but keep the I-Beam overlap as long as possible to reduce the camber change. Then lower the pivot point as low as possible, so the pivot points and the stub axle centers create an "imaginery X" when the lines cross over. You can do this with really deep drop axle ends if you want to keep the beams parallel to the ground, or simply cross them over in an X shape and correct the camber at the axle ends [ with heat.] The other compromise for a 1940's era retro car would be a Beam axle ,but mount a Watts Linkage horizontally under the axle to lower the Roll center [ and control lateral movement ]
The Jalopy Journal
