Suspension observations.
 

So, as far as I understand things, The stock rear control arms can be replaced by the 3 link setup... Either of these locate the axle in an up/down motion.

The watts linkage can be replaced with a Panhard bar. These locate the axle within a side to side motion.

Is this correct? Damn, I need that $80 book. But it's $80... For a book...

Yes, but I am not so sure why you would want to do either...

I thought a Tri-Link and Panhard are better than the stock systems.

. . . for racing.

How would these setups be bad for the street?

I just found some adjustable Watts link arms on eBay...

I wanna buy stuff, but I dunno what to buy.

When will you see the light. You wanna buy stuff, but you dont know what to buy. BUY THE DAMN 80$ BOOK! Then youll know what to buy and not waste your money. WTF man, information is power. trust me :dammit:

First of all it will be noisy, and will cause a lot of stress on your cars mounting points. Tell us what your current set up is, what your goals of the car is, and how much money you want to spend?

Racing is great, but I don't recommend that anybody races their car on the public streets.

Honestly, having 2 cars is not that expensive to do. You can build a Race only car little by little that you can take to track days and autoX events. I believe that racing is like going fishing, you have a better time if you can share it with somebody. Meaning find a partner that you build/drive the car with.

I have a street Rx-7 (200k miles on it) that I just drove down to SevenStock in.
When its a 100 degrees out it more that just nice to have Air conditioning, especially when sitting in LA traffic for a few hours. 2nd installing a slightly firmer suspension is nice without knocking all of your fillings out of your teeth. Granted it was only 800 mile round trip, but in a race car it would have SUCKED.

Just my thoughts.

John

Well, there's times when my Daily driver (1989 Mazda B2600i 4x4 pickup) will probably be down for service, or for nice sunny days when it'd be cool to just go on a scenic drive, I want the 7 to be somewhat streetable (I use the term loosely... Every car I've owned, I put 45-50+ PSI air in 70 series tires to compensate for stock suspension.) So I don't mind a stiff suspension...

The 7 is also silver with a sunroof, so it's not terrible with no A/C...

And I'll be keeping stock emissions components on a shelf for that once every two years sniffer test.

So nothing that won't work at low speeds or on public highways... IE Too fucking low to clear potholes or speed bumps. Etc. Stiff suspension is no problem... I have no fillings and I'll probably kill my kindeys with alcohol before I do any physical damage to em... How stiff are we talking anyhow?

Aside from that, I think I'll be doing autocross... Don't ask me what class, I don't know about classes... Alls I know is don't knock over cones... (I've never been to a real autocross, only Mazda's Rev It Up 2003 and 2004.)

Was kinda short and slow, but fun none the less.

I looked at Summit Point Raceway and that looks cool as hell, so I guess that's road racing... Wonder if they let you do multiple laps or something...

My setup currently is stock 20 yr old suspension, a broken steering box, and a trashed front end alignment... Sitting on half inflated, dry rotten, flat sided tires...

Okay, basics. The stock upper and lower links locate the axle front to back, and keep it from yawing or pitching. The tri-link does the same thing. The watts link and panhard both locate the axle side to side.

The difference is geometry. Because of how the stock links and watts link are setup, when the body is rolled in relation to the axle, the suspension binds going up and down, resulting in weird oversteer. To compensate, Mazda put a sway bar back there, which keeps them from rolling relative to one another but also results in oversteer. The tri-link/panhard setup just simply doesn't bind in the same way.

Speaking as someone who has the G-Force setup in a race car, I can't see how exactly it would be adding stress to the mounting points. The lower control arms use the stock mount points, and the new upper control arm adds a really heavily built mount point. The panhard is similarily well built, though I must admit we had to redesign the bit that attaches to the rear axle (had to custom make that because our kit didn't come with one, and the first try broke)

All the new links on the G-Force setup are spherical rod ends. They transmit vibration straight to the chassis, but I don't see it as that big a deal. I heard from my dad that in street use, you might end up having to lubricate the things periodicially, but can't say for sure.

In conclusion, buy the damned book. ;) This just a very basic description of what's going on.

Book on the way!

You wont regret it. ;)

what Book

The Bible man...

http://www.gforceengineering.net/products.htm

Scroll down till you hit the "1st gen setup Manual".

I'll tell ya how it is.

It is an excellent book. However keep in mind it is oriented for specific applications, and those need to conform to SCCA rules. There are other approaches which yield better suspension.

Seen what the Pro-7 guys have done (well, from Yaw's page) in making a better 4-link... dunno. Kinda wondering how close to optimal you can get the things.