Mark,
You missed something in my last post: namely that I asked someone who knows
a lot more about this than me (and most others) and presented both points of
view to that person as fairly as I could. Why? because I thought your (and
Phil's) arguments were persuasive and they made me question my original
statement.
Unfortunately, Carroll basically agreed with both points of view, so I
didn't get a definitive ruling on the subject (as if that was possible on
anything related to cars and racing...) Your point:
> because the amount of roll in most performance
> oriented sports cars is small to begin with; on
> the order of ~3 degrees. However, the force
> differential will not be as insignificant for a
> production type vehicle because the magnitude
> of the forces are significantly greater
brings up something that didn't occur to me. Carroll Smith was speaking in
the context of real race car (Formula Ford, Atlantic, CART, etc.) as opposed
to a production car. Maybe in the production car context what you say is
correct.
I've honestly received posts from about 30 individuals on this topic and
they are generally split 50-50, but as the discussion progressed opinions
changed both ways (but its still about 50-50). I've also called Ground
Control, EMI Racing and talked with Carroll Smith for about an hour. Most
of the arguments for either side of this topic have been lucid, reasoned,
and intelligent (and each side claims the laws of physics). After all of
that, I don't have a definitive answer!
Soooo... I've got an anti-roll bar lying around in my garage and if I can
rig up something to hold it and use a scale, some bailing wire, hose clamps,
duct tape, sticks, bondo, and tin foil I'm going to try an experiment.
----------
John Coffey
johncof@ibm.net
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