isnt he a member here?
Right, and while I agree that's kind of shady and doesn't really prove anything as far as the ultimate capabilities of the RMS system it does point out some of the shortcomings too. People think they can just write a check and slap on the RMS suspension and have the best handling Mopar ever. It's just not true. Can you tune and dial in the RMS and have a very good handling Mopar? Absolutely. Might the "out of the box" set up be better than you might achieve just slapping random replacement parts on the torsion bar suspension? Yep, it probably is.
But it's not some magic suspension that fixes everything and doesn't have it's own shortcomings. And there's a "magazine racing" component to it as well, how many people just write a check and pay a shop to install an RMS, then say they have the best handling Mopar when all they do is putt around? So quite frankly I also understand the desire to make a car like that look stupid on the track, even if in the grand scheme of things it doesn't really "prove" anything as far as the actual capabilities of the suspension.
And honestly, I think that's where Wracks got himself in trouble. He bought the fanciest stuff he could get at the time and then said stuff like "all the fastest cars in the country have coil overs", which didn't go well for him when he started losing to torsion bar cars.
Yes. People see the worn out, beat down suspension on their project car and then look at the shiny, expensive coil over systems and are fooled into thinking that's the best thing to do. Just bolt on all those fancy expensive parts and it has to be the best right? But pretty much all of the coil over conversions for Mopars are just MII based suspension. And when people look at them they see this...
But what they don't see is this, which is just stock MII suspension all those fancy parts are based on. Looks the same as the beat down, worn out stuff on everyone's project car.
And very few people actually consider the suspension geometry or chassis loading when they do that. Heck even @HemiDenny said something to the effect that very few of his customers even ask about things like that.
And yeah, it does matter what car you're starting with. I'm not an expert on GM suspension, but the motion ratio's and spring rates that you see on Camaro's obviously indicates some pretty big challenges with the OE design. Which is not to say the Mopar torsion bar suspension doesn't have it's own challenges.
Yeah exactly. Stielow is a GM engineer and his Camaro was on an entire different level than the Green Brick. By today's standards the Green Brick is half a step over a stock rebuild. Torsion bars are too small, alignment is very conservative, brakes are a decent improvement over stock but no where near some of the big disks available now (although later versions of the Brick got Viper calipers), tires were pretty small although a decent compound. And yeah, the original version didn't have that much power either, although again that was upgraded later.
And sure, some of that is that Kevin Wesley is a really talented driver. But it's also a reflection of the basic torsion bar suspension being a better starting point than most people want to give it credit for.
Right, and while I agree that's kind of shady and doesn't really prove anything as far as the ultimate capabilities of the RMS system it does point out some of the shortcomings too. People think they can just write a check and slap on the RMS suspension and have the best handling Mopar ever. It's just not true. Can you tune and dial in the RMS and have a very good handling Mopar? Absolutely. Might the "out of the box" set up be better than you might achieve just slapping random replacement parts on the torsion bar suspension? Yep, it probably is.
But it's not some magic suspension that fixes everything and doesn't have it's own shortcomings. And there's a "magazine racing" component to it as well, how many people just write a check and pay a shop to install an RMS, then say they have the best handling Mopar when all they do is putt around? So quite frankly I also understand the desire to make a car like that look stupid on the track, even if in the grand scheme of things it doesn't really "prove" anything as far as the actual capabilities of the suspension.
And honestly, I think that's where Wracks got himself in trouble. He bought the fanciest stuff he could get at the time and then said stuff like "all the fastest cars in the country have coil overs", which didn't go well for him when he started losing to torsion bar cars.
Yes. People see the worn out, beat down suspension on their project car and then look at the shiny, expensive coil over systems and are fooled into thinking that's the best thing to do. Just bolt on all those fancy expensive parts and it has to be the best right? But pretty much all of the coil over conversions for Mopars are just MII based suspension. And when people look at them they see this...
But what they don't see is this, which is just stock MII suspension all those fancy parts are based on. Looks the same as the beat down, worn out stuff on everyone's project car.
And very few people actually consider the suspension geometry or chassis loading when they do that. Heck even @HemiDenny said something to the effect that very few of his customers even ask about things like that.
And yeah, it does matter what car you're starting with. I'm not an expert on GM suspension, but the motion ratio's and spring rates that you see on Camaro's obviously indicates some pretty big challenges with the OE design. Which is not to say the Mopar torsion bar suspension doesn't have it's own challenges.
Yeah exactly. Stielow is a GM engineer and his Camaro was on an entire different level than the Green Brick. By today's standards the Green Brick is half a step over a stock rebuild. Torsion bars are too small, alignment is very conservative, brakes are a decent improvement over stock but no where near some of the big disks available now (although later versions of the Brick got Viper calipers), tires were pretty small although a decent compound. And yeah, the original version didn't have that much power either, although again that was upgraded later.
And sure, some of that is that Kevin Wesley is a really talented driver. But it's also a reflection of the basic torsion bar suspension being a better starting point than most people want to give it credit for.
