I remeber seeing this trick used on the Stillen PPG pace car. What they did to increase the stiffness of the rear suspension, in addition to the sway bar, was to box the rear beam. They welded a plate to the bottom of the beam making it stiffer by converting it from a C-section to a box-section. Has anyone else here tried this?

 

Looking at your mods, I think you have a long way to go before stiffing up the maxima rear beam is gonna make a significant difference. I would consider it the very last resort. I mean no here has even done poly bushings yet.

 

Man...I have no idea what you just said. I guess that's what I get for not having a engineering degree =). Whip up a diagram or something.

 

Tony, he's talking about the 4-gen maxima rear beam suspension. Stillen was able to get rid of the flex(apparently it must flex a little) by welding some steel plates to the rear beam. To make is stiffer.

It would be alot of work for mininal gains expecially at his level of mods.

QUOTE]Originally posted by 1MAX2NV
Man...I have no idea what you just said. I guess that's what I get for not having a engineering degree =). Whip up a diagram or something.

Quote:

Originally posted by mzmtg
I remeber seeing this trick used on the Stillen PPG pace car. What they did to increase the stiffness of the rear suspension, in addition to the sway bar, was to box the rear beam. They welded a plate to the bottom of the beam making it stiffer by converting it from a C-section to a box-section. Has anyone else here tried this?

[/QUOTE]

 

I think the beam was designed to flex... but I believe that's for ride comfort more than performance. Instead of welding a plate to the beam, just get a RSB. There's no reason to weld the beam if you don't have to.

-Shing

 

Welding the beam will work, but you will increase the binding of the trailing arms on the body of the car. This will results in more creaks and a harsher ride. It is a wise mod if you do lots of ultra high speed racing (which accounts for about 1% of the owners in here). Just keep the rear sway bar.

Dave

 

Heh, you should get yourself one. Good for impressing the ladies. (Yeah, right...)

C-section:
+-----
|
|
+-----

box section:
+-----+
| |
| |
+-----+

The more material you have and the further it is from the center, the harder it is to bend it, hence the box section is stiffer. Like trying to bend a ruler horizontally versus vertically.

 

Thanks for the diagram. Now, I get what he was saying.

 

[/I][/QUOTE]

Glad to help. It probably makes even more sense when the spacing isn't messed up...

<pre>
box section:
+-----+
| |
| |
+-----+
</pre>