New Elephant Spring Plate

[JP911]

I received the latest Excellence last night and an ad from Elephant Racing featuring a radical new rear spring plate design caught my eye. Anybody else see this? I checked ElephantRacing.com, but it's not on there yet. The new piece melds the factory adjustable plate design (vs. the perched adjusting bolt similar to Weltmeister) with new means for adjusting ride height and camber. It looks WAY cool!

I'll scan the ad and post it here when I get a free moment.

[arcsine]

Are you asking about this:
Spy Photo, from Elephant Skunk Werks

[JP911]

I had seen that post, and the blurred image is in fact what is featured in the ad. There's a link in the post with a pic that is clearer (see below).

[Lukesportsman]

I suppose this if for Al arms only? We steel arm guys get left in the dust

EDIT: Followed the second thread and found it works on both with SWB coming soon!

[TRE Cup]

We installed a set on Pieterk's 74 Carrera. It corrected a handling problem that could not have been fixed otherwise (peculiar to this car only). The ease of adjustment now is terrific and i love the improved camber curve geometry.
I am anticipating driving the car at Willow soon to experience how it handles for myself. I've seen what it did for Chuck's car at a recent POC event

[randywebb]

IS it only for race cars?

What about AutoX?

What about street only?

[Scott Clarke]

No reason that this wouldn't be great for street cars, as far as I can tell. Another thing to add to the "when I win the lottery" list.

[78-911SC]

Re: New adjustable spring plate

HI PJ

Preview page is here:
http://www.elephantracing.com/suspe...springplate.htm

The page will go live with more info in the next day or so.

Regards
Chuck

[ttweed]

Originally posted by 78-911SC

Preview page is here:
http://www.elephantracing.com/suspe...springplate.htm

linkie no workie. HTTP 404- "Not Found"

[jaydubya]

Try this:

http://www.elephantracing.com/suspension/springplate/911springplate.htm

[juanbenae]

Originally posted by 78-911SC
HI PJ

hey jon, you are "PJ" now!

that's beautiful!

[78-911SC]

Toby that was Chuck responding to a PM I had sent him. I posted his response so everyone would have the link he sent me. Always been PJ.

[juanbenae]

so, do you mind if we call JP PJ from here on out? or do you have the market cornered on that handle?

in all seriousness PJ us BAP guys have a long standing tradition of when a name is mispronounced, mistaken, misspelled, orused out of context it becomes their new handle. like a guy named doug was referred to as dave one day in a post, he became dave, then dustin, and about 4 other D names before we settled on dirk. on another occassion a guy named ross has his named misspelled as roos one day, now he's roos (pronounced like booze).

so settle, and let us know if the reclassification of JP is ok with you.

T$

[JP911]

Works for me. Had a few buddies in college call me that...more based on their inability to keep letters properly ordered whilst wasted/high/tripping, but it sounded good at the time.

[78-911SC]

Toby not sure if your referring to JP911(Jon) as JP or me. Either way is fine with me. PJ came from my last name being a couple letters off of pajamas .But to even be mentioned by the BAP's is a honor.

[beepbeep]

Could somebody explain to me if this is in some way better than "ordinary" 935-style uniball spring-plate with coilovers?

[rfn026]

I would love to know how this compares to the usual 935 set-up. How would this arrangement be superior?

Richard

[Todd Simpson]

There's a good explanation of the benefits on the Elephant site.

The thing I notice is that the lower part of the trailing arm pivots in the normal place but the top part uses a longer arm than stock, by curving around the stock torsion bar.

I think this has the effect of "leaning back" the trailing arm as it goes through it's travel. Since leaning back the trailing arm gives negative camber, this setup allows you to run less static camber but still get the camber you need while turning.

Anyway, I should allow the designer to describe the details.


More grip, better tire contact patch

Corrects rear suspension camber curve to maintain optimal tire contact patch. Superior grip in turns, superior grip in straight-line braking, reduced tire wear. Excellent for both street and track.

- Improved contact patch for both outside and inside tires on turns

- Improved contact patch for straight-line braking

- Go street-to-track without running "compromise" camber setting

- Run less static camber for superior tire wear, reduced camber thrust/lower rolling resistance on straights

How does it work?

As the car chassis leans in a turn, the tires try to follow this lean angle - causing poor contact patch with the road surface as the tire leans over onto its outside edge. Grip suffers. The stock suspension counters the problem by causing the tire to gain camber as the suspension compresses. But the rate of camber gain is too slow and grip is far from optimal.

ASP makes the tire gain camber faster as the suspension compresses in turns. The result is a tire that remains square with the road surface, a superior contact patch, and more grip.

Porsche recognizes these same benefits and has designed aggressive camber curves into all road cars beginning with the 1990 964 and continuing through the new 997 and Cayman.

With the ASP early 911s can now achieve modern suspension performance.

Setup is fast, easy, and accurate

Extremely easy to setup toe and static camber, independently. Replaces the troublesome stock eccentric adjusters with simple double-adjusters.

Unlike the stock eccentric adjuster, ASP allows adjustment with vehicle weight resting on the tires making it easy to read a camber / toe gauge while turning the adjuster. By making equal adjuster turns on both driver and passenger sides, quick changes can be made trackside even if a camber gauge is not available.

[beepbeep]

Hmm...OK, I think I get it. But when using 935-setup, uniball gives you any degree of freedom you want. Shocks are installed angled so if you need to get this progressive camber (and a tad of Weissach-turn in) thing is to move inner arm pickup point.

This looks like quite complicate way of getting better suspension geometry while still keeping torsion bars.

Of course, I'm a bit biased as I manufacture 935 spring plates myself and find them "a final solution", but I agree this is a good way of getting better rear suspension if you want to keep torsion bars.

[Chuck Moreland]

Todd has pretty well captured the key. The camber curve is more aggressive than stock, so you can run a fairly mild static camber while still having optimal camber when you roll into a turn.

Running a mild static camber has a lot of benefits. Better contact patch when straight line braking and accelerating, reduced rolling resistance, less tire wear.

Because of the aggressive camber curve, with the ASP you don't need to choose between a mild street-type camber (little static camber) and a performance setup (lots of static camber). You get the best of both, no compromises. That benefits both street and track cars.

Goran, the normal 935 setup does not change the camber curve. Similarly, the angle of the shock does not effect the camber curve. The 935 solutions are fine, but the ASP is a different animal.