Roll Center Adjusters

When you lower your car, it results in a lower center of mass, and therefore an increase in the distance between it and the roll center. Straightening the lower arms puts the roll center as close as possible to the original position. The problem is, some believe it is good to have a lower roll center with a lowered car for proper roll distribution, unless it's below the ground. If you try to relocate the point of the roll center by raising it closer to center of gravity, you decreasing the distance between them, which causes a decrease in roll. But you don't want the roll center at center of gravity cause it fucks with other suspension components in that they have less of an effect on driving/handling because of this decrease in roll. Roll center adjusters are supposed to lift the roll center and improve handling if it's so low to the point that car no longer handles correctly. Which is exactly what I need. So, based on that...

Anyone have roll center adjusters on their 240? Did they improve your suspension geometry? Do you have a better steering response? Does the car have a decrease in body roll? Does it handle better? Is it better to have a roll center further away from the center of gravity?
 
ilida of cola said:
When you lower your car, it results in a lower center of mass, and therefore an increase in the distance between it and the roll center. Straightening the lower arms puts the roll center as close as possible to the original position. The problem is, some believe it is good to have a lower roll center with a lowered car for proper roll distribution, unless it's below the ground. If you try to relocate the point of the roll center by raising it closer to center of gravity, you decreasing the distance between them, which causes a decrease in roll. But you don't want the roll center at center of gravity cause it fucks with other suspension components in that they have less of an effect on driving/handling because of this decrease in roll. Roll center adjusters are supposed to lift the roll center and improve handling if it's so low to the point that car no longer handles correctly. Which is exactly what I need. So, based on that...

Anyone have roll center adjusters on their 240? Did they improve your suspension geometry? Do you have a better steering response? Does the car have a decrease in body roll? Does it handle better? Is it better to have a roll center further away from the center of gravity?


what is a roll center? :confused:
 
Maybe this is better instead of engrish?


rollcouple.jpg

rca_diagram.gif
 
No, that's not true. Battle version makes em now, KTS makes em, NAMs, ect.

That last image is misleading b/c LCA's in mcpherson sus aren't usually level from the factory.

I always thought the general rule of thumb would be to have the roll center as close to the ground as possible. Maybe that's for wishbone race suspensions.
 
Yeah, I don't know.

I looked up Battle Version because I thought they made them too. I was told by someone that Battle Version makes them for Corollas only. If you look on their website, they have a weld on adjuster kit for front control arms, which controls their length, rather than angle/position like what roll center adjusters do. I need to straighten the arm rather than extend it.
 
Yes. Battle Version makes them only for Corollas, not 240s.

Only one company makes them for 240s. That's the one I already mentioned.
 
Ive always tried to use the same theory as bump steer correctors.

try and make everything as flat and equal to the chasis. So the roll point is closer to stock.


of course with certain parts you can only go so far.
 
Devil Man said:
so this is to make the rear wheels "flat" to the ground? im a little lost... 0_o


No thats camber,

It would be like making the control arm more parallel with the ground, but still keeping the car lowered. You will prob have to gain a little bit of height if your on ur nuts.

If your car has coilovers and its lowered and you were to look at the FLCA you would notice its angled up like in the diagram in figure B.

With adjustable LCA's you can change the pitch of the arm from the chasis mounting point. Which helps cause you fine tune your roll center.

SPL parts make some
SPLProFrontLowerArm.jpg


Roll center
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


The roll center of a vehicle is the notional point at which the cornering forces in the suspension are reacted to the vehicle body.
There are two definitions of roll center. The most commonly used is the geometric (or kinematic) roll center, whereas the Society of Automotive Engineers uses a force based definition.

The location of the geometric roll center is solely dictated by the suspension geometry. The SAE definition of the force based roll center is "The point in the transverse vertical plane through any pair of wheel centers at which lateral forces may be applied to the sprung mass without producing suspension roll". Note that it is a height only, the lateral location is irrelevant.

The significance of the roll center can only be appreciated when the vehicles center of mass is also considered. If there is a difference between the position of the center of mass and the roll center a “moment arm†is created. When the vehicle experiences angular acceleration due to cornering the size of the moment arm, combined with the stiffness of the springs and roll bars (sway bars in some parts of the world) dictate how much the vehicle will roll while cornering. This has other effects too such as dynamic load transfer.

Load transfer is of critical importance for vehicle stability in vehicle such as SUVs. Ideally in high performance applications load transfer tends to be minimised as a tyre's performance is directly affected by the amount of load that it has to transmit. In a steady state turn the final load transfer, summed across all the axles, is only related to the position of the center of mass above the ground, the track width and the lateral acceleration. SUVs must shift their center of mass lower or decrease their lateral acceleration to avoid tipping. To keep them from tipping many auto manufacturer use tyres with lower grip to reduce the vehicles cornering capacity, or the roll stiffness balance front to rear can be altered to encourage understeer or oversteer as necessary to limit the maximum lateral acceleration of the vehicle.

The geometric roll center of the vehicle can be found by following basic geometrical procedures when the vehicle is static. However, when the vehicle rolls the roll centers migrate. It is this movement of roll centers that vehicle dynamicists seek to control and in most cases limit. The rapid movement of roll centers when the system experiences small displacements can lead to stability problems with the vehicle. The roll center height has been shown to affect behaviour at the inititation of turns such as 'nimbleness' and 'initial roll control'.

Current methods of analyzing individual wheel instant centers have yielded more intuitive results of the effects of non-rolling weight transfer effects. This type of analysis is better known as the lateral-anti method. This is where one takes the individual instant center locations of each corner of the car and then calculates the resultant vertical reaction vector due to lateral force. This value then is taken into account in the calculation of a jacking force and lateral weight transfer. This method works particularly well in circumstances where there are asymmetries in left to right suspension geometry.
 
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For drifting, all the tires operate at crazy slip angles, I am not concerned with roll centers and king pin inclination. Although I am not stupid low, some people might experience some weird vibes from putting their sub frames an inch off the ground.

You have to take special consideration how much the front and rear roll centers change depending on ride height and suspension compression and rebound. Only trying to correct the front suspension will screw with the front to rear balance, the end result of only correcting front suspension will be worse then what you started with.

The fix, either run a larger diameter wheel then 15", or raise your car a little.
 
240SicknessX said:
For drifting, all the tires operate at crazy slip angles, I am not concerned with roll centers and king pin inclination. Although I am not stupid low, some people might experience some weird vibes from putting their sub frames an inch off the ground.

You have to take special consideration how much the front and rear roll centers change depending on ride height and suspension compression and rebound. Only trying to correct the front suspension will screw with the front to rear balance, the end result of only correcting front suspension will be worse then what you started with.

The fix, either run a larger diameter wheel then 15", or raise your car a little.

I don't believe that slightly changing the angle of the control arm will mess with the front to rear balance as much as you're thinking it would. The adjusters can raise the spindle only about an inch and with just that, they help correct issues with bump steer, steering response, and other steering issues, where as rear roll center plays a minimal effect on the way the car handles. Either way, you can get rear roll center adjusters to fix any imbalance you might experience.
 
all you really have to do Ilida is make the hole where you mount your FLC higher up. Do it on both sides. there really isnt a way I see to easily put a RCA on the front of an S13.

Those control arms by KTS and battle version are hella expensive and overkill for what she wants. If you move the mounting point up then that will work the same as pushing the end down with a roll center ajuster but then you have to worry about moving it too much and getting it the same on both sides. But I see it done alot on road race cars.
 
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