"4-Way suspension" work alike?

[Piledriver]

Thanks for the bump, so simple, and yet they worked so amazingly well ...
...it's an idea that really shouldn't be allowed to die.

Perhaps some of our Aussie contingent knows of a source of used ones?
(perhaps they were common hot rod parts on Holdens in their home country?)

...and Welcome to the STF!

[Iguana]

Have you got a Picture of them ?

What brand and domain do you have on them ?

[Piledriver]

Good to "see" you're still around, Iguana!

Unfortunately 4-way were mostly pre-web, and the company that used to sell them went under and such,(EDIT---ended up as part of or became ToughDog) I'll google a bit, they DID have a webpage many moons ago, but even that went away long ago.
(bunch of rambling removed for clarity)
Google and the Wayback Machine were kind to me.

EDIT-Trailmaster was only the US distributor at the time, see below)

HERE: one, and only one snapshot for trailmasters 4-way page, still looking for <2009 4-Way pages
http://web.archive.org/web/200912021005 ... shocks.htm

Yodogg actually called it early on---Toughdog out of Oz---Blacktown, NSW is still making "return to center" HD steering stabilizers using the identical design (except using std round springs), I suspect some of the same folks are involved there. http://www.toughdog.com.au/?page_id=77

Hell, those would probably work, at least the springs, the units they are selling are probably stiff enought for any ACVW and ~same size as HD shocks.

WOOT, they still sell them, 3 units for the "boom spray" industry and still do customs have to Google THAT now... page 18 (warning-Adobe flash catalog )
http://www.toughdog.com.au/catalogue/

(Boom Spray--- bigass crop spraying rigs)

Sorry for the rant, was using this post as a ~scratchpad while twiddling Google and the wayback machine.

Know anybody at Toughdog by some bizarre chance? (customer perhaps?)
Perhaps I can piggyback an order on one of your crates to the US?

I'm going to try and score springs/mounts for my T3 and 914 if possible.
(914 setup will look ~like coil over struts, but the springs that actually hold the car up work the lower control arms up front, and these would fit inside the stock ~3"ish coil springs out back, although on the T3 I'm considering flipping the whole setup backwards and using an upper link vs. the struts for various reasons for a full wishbone setup, so the shocks would look like typical coil overs, except not quite)

[helowrench]

Pile, if an order gets placed, I am in for at least one set for each Type 1 and 914 fitment.

Maybe we can swing a group buy..........

[PhillipM]

Sounds like a complete marketing gimmick.
If they had springs that worked to stop the wheel going down, then it wouldn't go down, it's as simple as that, it'd be no different to simply halving your wheel travel, or strapping the travel short by a few inches - you'll just lift the wheel off the floor. Trying to control the unsprung mass by lifting the sprung mass off the floor ain't exactly a brilliant idea, at least an anti-roll bar actively transfers some of the force into the opposing damper/spring unit.

It'll work fine for self centring a steering rack, but it offers no benefits as part of the the suspension, unless you intent to strap the tyres to the floor first.

[Piledriver]

Sounds like a complete marketing gimmick.

You apparently have not actually used them, or you would understand the laws of physics are not being violated in any way.

There's no "gimmick", just really poor marketing, or perhaps the concept is a little too out there without actually feeling for yourself what they do...

It doesn't STOP the wheel going up/down, it provides resistance, sort of like a fully independent sway bar, resisting changes in any axis from rest (dive/squat/roll)

They can take a car that's a little unstable in transitions and ~put it on rails.

I have had a set.
Another poster also had a set... (his might have even been the right ones )

They worked really, REALLY well, to the point that i would spend reasonably serious money on them if available.

However, "reasonably serious" has limits: Since it appears they charge ~about like buying a full $$$ Bilstein suspension kit for their stuff, it looks like Coleman racing and my metal man will be getting some orders for springs and thickwall aluminum tubing. They are far from rocket science, I'll try to make a pair and see how it goes.

The split sway bar idea also still has legs, and has some actual advantages for making things more easily adjustable and adjustable for leverage.

I'm going to take another pass and see if they'll just sell the spring setup rather than the full shock set.

[Soul]

Interesting topic... There happens to be one 4 way adjustable shock on eBay at the moment, maybe worth purchasing just to reverse engineer the hardware?



http://www.ebay.com/itm/one-4-way-adjus ... d9&vxp=mtr

This one is cheaper.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SUSPENSION-SHOC ... 1185762190

[Piledriver]

Anyone want to roll your own super HD self centering steering damper?

very... tempted... Aw, hell, same number of turn on spring, very common app.
I just ordered both.

Thanks! I think

That's wild, have never seen 'em on ebay before, but OTOH I never looked for Trailmaster...

[PhillipM]

You apparently have not actually used them, or you would understand the laws of physics are not being violated in any way.

Did I mention I make racing dampers as part of my job? From scratch?
I do understand what you mean and intend when you describe how they work, I just don't agree with it.

It doesn't STOP the wheel going up/down, it provides resistance, sort of like a fully independent sway bar, resisting changes in any axis from rest (dive/squat/roll)

Any meaningful resistance will lift the wheel off the floor. 30kg of unsprung weight vs the weight of the car? In addition to that, it's entirely the opposite thing you want to do in order to increase grip.
Resistance to changes in axis is quite happily provided by a normal damper and spring setup. A damper works both ways.

They can take a car that's a little unstable in transitions and ~put it on rails.

But not because of some magic two-way spring, more likely it just has much stiffer and more sensitive low speed damping than you previously had.

Sorry about splitting it up, it was just the easiest way to address things one-by-one.

[Piledriver]

Any meaningful resistance will lift the wheel off the floor. 30kg of unsprung weight vs the weight of the car? In addition to that, it's entirely the opposite thing you want to do in order to increase grip.
Resistance to changes in axis is quite happily provided by a normal damper and spring setup. A damper works both ways.

Sway bars put "meaningful resistance" into a suspension without locking it up solid, these do the same but on the front/rear axis as well, without direct coupling the suspension members. There is absolutely no magic involved.

But not because of some magic two-way spring, more likely it just has much stiffer and more sensitive low speed damping than you previously had.

I put the spring kit on my existing Monroe-matics.
The different rates of the secondary spring did probably provide an additional damping effect.
It managed to do it without destroying the ride.

If you haven't tried it, don't knock it on theory.
Just because it wasn't "popular" doesn't mean it didn't work.

The same principle was used in formula cars for quite some time, and may still be in some form.

[PhillipM]

Sway/Anti-roll bars transfer the load across the car and compress both the spring and damper on the inside of a corner to effectively increase the wheel rate on the outside. They don't extend it.

As for the Formula cars, there's no reason to, they just limit the droop with packers if they wish.
I don't care whether you've tried them and I haven't, they aren't working the way you think they are. You can't control the attitude of the car by 'pulling' on the spring to stretch it, what's going to pull on it*?
The springs have to have load to support the weight of the car, so they're always going to push down to their unloaded state when you remove force anyway.
What it could have been is rather than a spring that 'works both ways' was simply a normal, soft coilover spring designed with a perch that gave a close to zero-droop setup. Which would give a lot less roll while still having a soft ride, and pull the car down while cornering, at the expense of grip on rougher surfaces and even versus a lower setup with double the spring rate.

The only similar thing to what you've described and the pictures here that I've seen on many formula cars as you mention (and as an option on the Ariel atom) are spring seats that look very similar to that, but they don't hold the spring for extension, they're simply a much faster and easy way of adjusting ride height, travel, preload and spring rate, as the seat just clamps to the shock, and you can shorten the spring to increase spring rate and reduce travel in one swift move:



As an aside, they are also called '4WAY' and are made by Intrax, they also have anti-roll and anti-pitch/dive control built in. They are a hell of a price though...



*(There's only the weight of the wheel/tyre/hub down there, and you don't want to be pulling that off the floor anyway)

[Piledriver]

Your arguments. so far are ~equivalent to to positing the utter impossibility of sway bars.

These work in a similar fashion to sway bars, with only obvious implementation detail differences.
(fully independent, for one)

The units you posted may very well be the same idea, once you realize these are NOT coil overs per se.
I will check them out, but to be "like" the "4-way" suspension units I'm referring to, they must have the shock mounted spring locked at both ends, at rest--- they are NOT coilovers, despite appearances.

The "magic" springs are locked at both ends to allow push and pull. and exert no force at rest.
They don't hold the car up. (although they can add significant rate if heavily loaded)
They Do resist changes from the rest position.

[PhillipM]

No, they are not, what you are proposing is almost the opposite of a sway bar.

Of course they hold the car up, otherwise it'd be on the floor. The only way they could exert no force at all would be for it to be fitted as a secondary spring system whilst keeping torsion bars/whatever the vehicle normally had, in which case, it'd be no different to a simple (and cheap) progressive/rising rate spring anyway, as it would only be working for or against the main spring. Which would probably be why it didn't take off, it was something already achievable far more simply and cheaply. Hell, you could even emulate it with a normal soft, cheap coilover spring and the preload slacked off on the torsion bars so they come in in stages.

And a progressive spring isn't exactly akin to an anti-roll bar, as you end up underdamped under roll, and with a slightly higher CoG and less linear responses.

[Piledriver]

No, they are not, what you are proposing is almost the opposite of a sway bar.

Of course they hold the car up, otherwise it'd be on the floor. The only way they could exert no force at all would be for it to be fitted as a secondary spring system whilst keeping torsion bars/whatever the vehicle normally had, in which case, it'd be no different to a simple (and cheap) progressive/rising rate spring anyway, as it would only be working for or against the main spring. Which would probably be why it didn't take off, it was something already achievable far more simply and cheaply. Hell, you could even emulate it with a normal soft, cheap coilover spring and the preload slacked off on the torsion bars so they come in in stages.

And a progressive spring isn't exactly akin to an anti-roll bar, as you end up underdamped under roll, and with a slightly higher CoG and less linear responses.

Darn, thought you had it for a moment. You have even described them while arguing.

Please read the thread and look at the pretty pictures/links.
There are not coil overs, they do not hold the car up.

Helo, the "split sway bar" proposed at the beginning of the thread (center locked at rest) would be a functional equivalent.

You will get to see and perhaps "feel" a pair the next time we have coffee, although the springs may be on the back of the square if they fit over the current shocks. I may go with the split swaybar setup up front.

[helowrench]

The only way they could exert no force at all would be for it to be fitted as a secondary spring system whilst keeping torsion bars/whatever the vehicle normally had, in which case, it'd be no different to a simple (and cheap) progressive/rising rate spring anyway, as it would only be working for or against the main spring. Which would probably be why it didn't take off, it was something already achievable far more simply and cheaply.

Bingo, you just got it.
and, I for one would absolutely love to hear cheaper and easier ways to do this.

Please share.