new member and first post... so i guess.... Hello everyone

i need a little help.
i'm a uni student doing motorsport enginnering and as a project i am modelling the front suspension on my 340, with which i am going to build a set of coilovers for the front (mainly due to one side being completly broken)
so i was wondering if any one had some information on any parts of the front suspension and chassis, because at the moment i only have taken a few rough measurements with a tape measure (which wont really provide great results).
Type of things i am after are; any dimensions, angles, spring rates, auto data, any thing! I've got a haynes manual but it doesn't tell me half of the things i need, and i need a bit of help finding out where to look.

cheers

p.s. where is the best place to source gaskets for a b172 engine from?

Hi, and welcome to V3M

Not sure if anyone has all the exact angles etc that you require but I'm sure they'll post if they do. What kind of a model are you creating i.e. what is the purpose of the model other than to design coilovers?

Cheers

Jason

You might want to contact Jani on theses forums. I've made a virtual 300 for a racing game/simulator called rFactor, and he did all the physics work, so he would have used a lot of that data

I am going to do a finite element analysis of the old strut and see the kind of forces involved that caused it to fail (but it’s probably just old age and rust). Then I am going to build a model of the front of the car to find out how I can optimise the suspension and improve its ‘boat like’ handling and also see what effect lowering the car will have and also to see what effect other changes will have in the future. But mainly it will be cheaper for me to find out the right ball park figures for things like spring rates and any angle changes which will require new mounts/bushes made up.
But pretty much i need new front suspension so I thought I might as well think about it and try and do it properly.

The final model will look kinda like this (when it’s in its pretty 3d mode)…. Hopefully
http://www.susprog.com/images/Susp01.jpg

how do I get in contact with ‘jani’? do you know how simplified the model used in the games was?

Thank you both for the support and a warm welcome

Thought you might like a pic – here’s the old broken strut
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sorry, dunno how to post the pic properly.

what software do you use for your course, is it an automotive specific package or industry standard like solidworks/catia?

The software I will probably be using is;

Ansys finite element (www.ansys.com/)
susprog3d (www.susprog.com/)
and the bible that is “race car vehicle dynamics” by William F. Milliken and Douglas L. Milliken

You can drop Jani a PM, his user name is jtbo. He's rather busy, so don't worry if he doesn't get back for a couple days.

The game is a racing simulation, and it's pretty accurate about suspension types etc.