Multimatic 32 Front end

Repost from Classic, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0w7_N9Aenn8

The first half is awesome!!

It's interesting, but I don't necessarily mean that in a good way. The chassis seems interesting, but the suspension is pure flashy crap. Sliding pillars are crap on Morgans since the 30's, and that's not going to change with a their flashy billet aluminum pieces. Those systems have a lot of internal friction. Massive bump-steer also.

Also, they didn't choose the right car to showcase that. Look at that huge aluminum crossmember they had to fab to connect their suspension to the rest of the chassis. If they would have chosen a car whose structure would have reasons to go all the way to the wheel, then that would make sense.

Well at least it's different.

Not much wheel travel, for sure.

there should be zero bumpsteer on that setup, since the steering arm doesn't move up and down with the wheel.

but check out the spring setup- each spring is remotely mounted to a hydraulic cylinder and is adjustable with the turn of a knob... you could mount them within reach of the driver and they could do spring adjustments on the fly and either fine tune it and make it better or just make it drive like total crap..

iceracer wrote: Not much wheel travel, for sure.

the original VW rabbit/Golf only had 4 inches of suspension travel.

I was reading through the comments under the video (I must be a masochist) and somebody mentioned that rather than using hydraulics, they should go air. I think they missed something important. The Hydraulics are not the suspension. In an A arm car, the Fluid would be replacing the A arms.. it is a medium for movement, not the actual movement itself.

novaderrik wrote: there should be zero bumpsteer on that setup, since the steering arm doesn't move up and down with the wheel. but check out the spring setup- each spring is remotely mounted to a hydraulic cylinder and is adjustable with the turn of a knob... you could mount them within reach of the driver and they could do spring adjustments on the fly and either fine tune it and make it better or just make it drive like total crap..

I re-checked and you are right, they mounted the steering arm in a way that it stays static. But that make the friction problem even worst.

You must have never ridden in a traditionally sprung hot rod. That amount of travel is the norm.

The sliding kingpin reminds me of the RC10L.

I cant see this handling or riding any better than a suicide axle with coilovers. Neat though.

Far too many wearing surfaces that will be difficult if not impossible to properly seal. The 'steering pin' (small pin just ahead of the main damper) is a perfect example, 1,000 miles of normal street driving and the pin will just grind the hole in the steering 'lever' out.

There's no camber gain unless you count what's caused by the kingpin inclination.

The remote mounted damper/spring setup is cool, reminds me of the original Mini 'hydrolastic' setup. But it does add a lot of weight and complexity (if you think about it there's two complete shocks/dampers for each corner), not necessarily with a performance advantage. The shocks inside are right behind the engine, I'd say exhaust heat could quickly cook them.

My verdict: cool to look at but not practical.

Appleseed wrote: You must have never ridden in a traditionally sprung hot rod. That amount of travel is the norm. The sliding kingpin reminds me of the RC10L.

Yet even Team Associated finally got all fancy:

fanfoy wrote:

novaderrik wrote: there should be zero bumpsteer on that setup, since the steering arm doesn't move up and down with the wheel. but check out the spring setup- each spring is remotely mounted to a hydraulic cylinder and is adjustable with the turn of a knob... you could mount them within reach of the driver and they could do spring adjustments on the fly and either fine tune it and make it better or just make it drive like total crap..

I re-checked and you are right, they mounted the steering arm in a way that it stays static. But that make the friction problem even worst.

Yeah, Multimatic has no idea what they are doing.