Suspension Education

I'm not sure how compatible the Mendeola setup is going to be with the Intermeccanica chassis. The front frame is wider than the vw framehead that the Mendeola is normally welded to. Not sure if the mendeola's pickup points are far enough outboard to clear. And I don't know if the rear has enough similar mounting points to the vw to make their rear setup work. Outer pivots and upper coilover mounts would be potential problem areas. You'd have to find out from Mendeola or ask coolryde if it'll work.

Henry would be the guy to contact first regarding your suspension options.  Suspension gurus always have the same first question, sometimes phrased slightly differently:  What do you want from your car, or tell me what you expect from your car.  This means that a car that is tracked or autocrossed twice/year, and driven as a daily driver for the rest of the time will have much different suspension (likely much softer) than a no-holds-barred race car. 

Bear in mind that true racing suspension isn't lots of fun on the highway, even with adjustable sway bars, anti-lift kits, and moderately stiff bushings.  Most daily drivers are used on city streets with other traffice, not the winding, deserted, country roads that are great fun to drive.  Almost all of us need a compromise: suspension that reduces body roll and improves handling without race harshness and the associated increase in vibration and noise associated with true racing suspension. 

Henry's been doing this for a long time, on lots of different platforms, for lots of very different customers.  He'll lay out clear options for you.  Please keep everyone informed of your choices as your project moves along. 

Bogart, I spoke to Henry regarding that at Carlisle and while he is a magician and can probably make the Mendeola somehow work, he feels the Porsche stuff is proven and that his 911 and water cooled(914) cars are already past that.  I think the Mendeola is good choice for redoing an older Intermecannica(VW frame) or if you are building a new JPS or Beck as they are not afraid of some custom work.  

That said, with the rarity and sky high cost of Porsche suspensions Intermecannica might have to rethink this in the future.  You will not be disappointed with the WC or full 911 suspension options from Intermecannica.

Tell us more about the Raby 2.6 

Bogart, do you also plan on going with Jake's Subaru transmission?

I priced out his basic Subaru engine & transmission last Fall.  I would have loved to have gone that route, but it was more than I wanted to spend.

is he just still don=ing the 4cyl subys or 6 cyl too.if I were to do it I would probably go with the 6.(and of corse do it all my self, not a raby) there is also a co that builds new ring&pinion to use the suby trans in a rear end configuration.

As a rule Henry makes a excellent handling car and offers a rack and pinon setup that give you good road feedbac. And it has been said that  his cars will handle like their riding on rails. He likes to standardize his parts so (off the self parts) will bolt right on it . If something breaks or wears out. thats a real plus.

Bogart have you already started or are you just looking into it?  You owe it to yourself to talk to Kevin over at Mendeola.  I live in San Diego and when I was looking for a spare tire he offered me one that he had lying around.  With his suspension, 915 transmission combo you are future proof.  After I saw the way he mounts his transmissions I had him make me a mount for a 901 transmission I have.  Based on the way his car looks he seems like a perfectionist and that is what you want if you are dropping a lot of cash.

Check out some of his pics on the samba. (look for coolrydes)

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/for...=0&sort_dir=DESC

All suspensions are a compromise.  A 911 or 914 suspension is great stuff providing wonderful steering feel, robust mechanicals, well sorted, and with alot of aftermarket support.  But it is not perfect.   If it were perfect, then Porsche would still be using these torsion bar based systems on their street cars.  But moving from a torsion spring to a coil spring, with modern manufacturing/engineering offers some benefits for street driven cars that a torsion spring does not offer.  Packaging size/location is one big plus that coil springs have.  Also, the ability to tune a coil spring exceeds the the same capability for a torsion bar.  For a street car, you want relatively long suspension travel, with the initial rate rather soft to soak up pavement irregularities and the unfortunately common car-eating-pothole, then increasing in rate through the travel.  Pretty easy assignment for coil springs, but more of a challenge to hit both ends of the spectrum with tbars.  Next comes the travel of the suspension in relation to the camber/toe of the wheels.  With the packaging options for coil springs, a clever person can build a suspension  that maintains the needed camber/toe throughout the travel (this can also be done badly - so the "clever" person needs to be - well...CLEVER).  If done poorly, you get setups like on my Dad's 87 Monte Carlo, where the suspension gains negative camber in both full bump and droop so ever increment of movement results in a camber change.  What a dumbass setup that GM came up with...

Anyway, this got long winded.  Here's the short version.  The 911/914 cars drive wonderfully with great parts availability. They are also may prove more desirable from the Porsche "purist" standpoint - not that any of us really give a hootus what a purist thinks.  The mendeola should offer better handling and easier tuneability.  I suggest you drive both and look at the packaging (e.g. does the footwell open up - is everything accessible for service, etc) to make your decision.

Much as I love 911's...if money were not an issue, I would use Mendeola on my own car.  My humble opinion is that it really is a better setup.

angela

To be fair, unequal length double wishbone suspensions all gain negative camber at the limits of travel. And during cornering, the camber gain of the heavily loaded outside wheel is much more important than the lightly or even unloaded inside wheel so you can get by with whatever you get under droop. Granted it'd be better if the inside wheel was as well behaved, but that takes tricky multi-link suspension. Doesn't mean the Monte's design couldn't be crap though.

Angels,

First thank you for the plug it means a lot coming from someone with your knowledge and know how. It shows in the words you choose.

If any of my fellow Porsche kit car guys have any questions about the Mendeola Suspension, please contact me. Also if any of you want to go for a ride in a 250+hp speedster with all of this good stuff on it, simply ask when you see me or come by the shop.

If you have ever driven your speedster above 55mph you get a very unsafe feeling, and I can say as some of you that have riden with me will agree, my car feels complete stable above 80 and even 120 mph...... Besides who actually does 65mph anymore? I do but it is on my way past it to ??? mph

Agreed in principle - a negative camber increase on bump (outside tire in a corner, assuming there is suspension compression) is usually beneficial.  Negative camber in the droop position is useless and could even be dangerous - think weight jacking - swing axles, etc.  There is a reason that alot of swing axle VW based kit cars have a limiting strap...  The strap keeps the suspension out of full drop and thus eliminates the positive camber on droop (we're talking street cars here).  The trick with the camber changes is that someone CLEVER (read not ME) designs them to take advantages of the negative change on bump (outside tire, compressed suspension in a corner) without goofing up the slip-angles which introduce tire scrub, minimizing the toe-change, and avoiding bringing in the bump-steer party.  All of those factors, and enough travel for a street car.

Most cars that have significant camber changes also have TOE changes that accompany them and that brings up other issues.  For braking and acceleration, you generally want the wheels to point straight ahead.  With cars like the Monte, the camber changes that occur in short distances of wheel movement produce changes in the toe.  So the Monte's suspension compromises in this area.  It's a soft spring car with massive roll bars.  It has decent suspension travel which is great for soaking up bumps.  The roll stiffness is surprisingly good (1 and 7/8 solid front sway bar)  but the car does have a fair amount of pitch and dive on acceleration/braking.  It does help to accelerate hard because the pitch gives weight transfer, but less dive, especially braking hard and turning into a corner, would probably get it around the corner faster - compromise.  The pitch issue has a big change in toe as the front end works through it's travel, generally a bad idea - again a compromise.  The rear end?  On that car it's a four link solid axle.  Lots of unsprung weight, but zero camber or toe changes through travel - compromise.

The Monte's pressed arms, and even the rear control arms, also are not terribly rigid especially when compared to the aftermarket tubular setups.  So we have the compromises above plus fairly heavy components that also FLEX.  Let's call FLEX in a component a generally bad thing as it introduces more variables.  But the components are cheap, simple, rebuildable, and readily available.

Again - long winded - here's the short version.  ALL suspension is a compromise of cost, packaging efficiency and trade-offs for intended use.  The finest suspension in the world for a race car is a useless pig for a street car or off-highway racer, etc.  Choose what you want the car to do for you, then pick the suspension type that offers the least number of compromises (meaning availability, cost, packaging in the vehicle, adjustability, etc).  At that point, whatever you choose, you will be happy with.

angela

I will add 4 aspects to this, #1 first figure out what you want/need it to do, second firgure out what type of suspension is needed to get what you want. 3rd is to figure out how your going to do it or who is going to do it for you. 4th, price how are you going to pay for it, and this bring us back to #1 and re evaluate your needs,wants,abilitys&pockets, then on to #2 again.

      I wish I still had the drive & ability to do all of it my self like I did 20+ years ago when we were building chassies&cars(mostly drag &prostreet but some dirt&circlejerkers too), but I dont.I wish I had the $$$ to stick in to it like I did 20 years ago..I dont.  So in the end my bug feals fine at 90 mph. I think with a little work the 356 should do there too and hopefuly faster with a layed back beam& some extra frame stifining (fiberfab 356)& extra bars added where they must of forgot to add them.hmm any body know how hard it is to remover the body from the frame of a fiberfab??I havent got it in the air yet but it needs help, I gladd it was never finished.the basic vw parts look like they were new(tunnell,rear torsion,swingarms etc) but the front beam is crooked as all hell. a few months & Ill start working on it too much stuff in front of it now that has to get out.

I see what you meant now. I thought you were saying the design was bad simply because it also gained negative camber in droop. I was just trying to say that such behavior is an unavoidable consequence of the geometry itself. And because the other design parameters are much more important for handling/braking than the droop camber curve, they get set first, leaving it the odd man out.

Agreed on everything else.

Kevin, that is a sweet set up that you have, unfortunately it won't happen to me in the near future. As Angela said, all is a matter of compromise, I just have to pick what suit me best.

I'll take you up on your offer next time I see you.

BTW are you coming to SLO this year? Hopefully more than 1 day.

Take care,

Eddy

the gm is crap.nuf said, whats new.

  I think I still have a new compentition enginerering front setup from way back when just before moroso bought them.I might think on that for a bit, there are somany options out there if you look and have the ability&tools to do it, my issue is my getup&go has just about got up&left.AND IT SUCKS!! WITH THAT SAID IF IT SAYS MENDEOLA IT HAS TO BE GOOD!!!(just like smuckers)

A very humble thank you to all that have made positive coments about Mendeola Suspension. I think we all strive to do the best we can and when others notice it feels GREAT!!!!

Thanks again.....

On a side note, I am opening up my own business doing repairs, custom work, full car builds and pre-purchase inspections for any and all VW and other vehicles here in the Mendeola Building. I will still be running Mendeola Suspension so I can still full fill any suspension questions and needs.

Look around for Coolrydes Creations, I'll be building some sweet stuff (I hope).

You guys can always PM or call me with you needs.  

I wish you luck, these days that can be a crap shoot, but with you still being under the same roof&still doing what you were doing then this addtion to your shop and work, should work out great for everybody.

It will work.