Keep hearing about frame twist with 440s
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Sure, a lot of what he says “sounds intuitive”. That’s not science. He has a lot of experience, that’s true. But anecdotal evidence does not change the science. If what “sounds intuitive” was reality anybody off the street could design airplanes and bridges and everything else. That’s not how it works..
I don't expect that you're following all of my posts but please note that I'm trying to play devil's advocate on this debate and to entertain Tony's suggestion. My first post in this thread, I stated that I'd take as much stiffness as I could get in a chassis...and this is because I am weary of metal fatigue and because I know what changes I can make to the suspension and to affect handling where the inherent (and possibly evolving) variables introduced by a an overly flexible structure are not preferable, IMO. Honestly, that's
my intuition. I don't have the resources nor time to dynamically measure contact patch changes beyond chalk line over the sidewall of the tire...and that is telling more about tire pressure than suspension/chassis induced contact patch changes.
How have you used science back up your conclusions?
What hypothesis were you testing? What were you measuring? How did you control the variables? How did these measurements translate into real world performance data? What kind of real world performance were you measuring? Was your hypothesis valid?
I'm not doubting that you have done some actual science here.
Otherwise, your evidence is just anecdotal too, no?
... That example has nothing to do with chassis stiffness and 100% to do with suspension tuning. Those are VERY different things, and you’re interchanging them. So does Tony. That’s not experience, that’s oversimplifying what’s actually happening so it sounds good on YouTube.
No. The behavior of the chassis is absolutely part of the dynamic suspension system. If you're imagining that you can just stiffen up a chassis to eliminate the variable, good luck. It would take half a Plymouth Scamp worth of metal reinforcement to eliminate chassis flex to the point where it was negligible. :D
The flex was almost certainly engineered into the Mopar unibody platforms. Unless someone knows otherwise, the pennies worth of sheet metal that they saved by not connecting the front and rear subframes most likely does not explain why they didn't connect them, meaning that it was part of the design...a design which was meant to ride comfortably and perform safely and predictably, which it did very well.
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Like I said, Tony knows a lot, and he’s definitely an authority in a lot of things. But he’s completely out of his depth on chassis reinforcement, and he’s putting out bad information.
Well, shame on anyone who just takes the word of any internet source without thinking critically. I certainly don't think Tony is right about everything but he has earned my time and attention. As far as anecdotal evidence goes, his is worth listening to, IMO.