What makes a good chasis?

cymatty

cymatty

cymatty

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Sorry for what seem like a n00b question but what makes a good chasis, what makes a Clio 182 a good chasis and a Kia Rio crap.

Also what is the best standard from factory (no modded ones please :p ) chasis you have driven. :)
 
Rigid, light with a low centre of mavity and even distribution of weight.... but the last three points also count for the complete vehicle.

I'd say the MR2 (SW20) was a good example of this.
 
cymatty said:
What makes the elise chasis as good as it is.
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Very stiff, very low centre of mavity, and very light for it's strength, as it is box section bonded alluminium, a huge amount stronger and lighter than any monocoque steel chassis.

elis10.jpg
 
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Clio 182 chassis is nothing to special to speak of. It cocks a rear wheel under tough cornering for christ sake :p

Elise chassis is very good but it is very specialised at what it does. It may be very rigid but its made of thin aluminium extrusions glued together so it wouldn't last five minutes off road.

The Elise chassis, a 10 year old design, recently won the British GT3 championship - so it's still got lead left its pencil too :)
 
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NathanE said:
Clio 182 chassis is nothing to special to speak of. It cocks a rear wheel under tough cornering for christ sake :p

Elise chassis is very good but it is very specialised at what it does. It may be very rigid but its made of thin aluminium extrusions glued together so it wouldn't last five minutes off road.

The Elise chassis, a 10 year old design, recently won the British GT3 championship - so it's still got lead left its pencil too :)
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Is there much Difference between an Elise Chassis and an Exiege chassis??
 
None. :)

I'd say the Elise chassis wins it by miles. If you watch Lotus Elise - The inside story" you will see how at the time, the chassis was absolutely groundbraking, no one had done it before. I'm not aware of any other cars that are even remotely similar.

But what makes it good?

Lightweight, low centre of mavity, massive torsional rigidity, extremely strong and made using an innovative technique.
 
Zip said:
Is there much Difference between an Elise Chassis and an Exiege chassis??
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Other than some of the higher end cars having 8-point roll cages bolted directly to the chassis... Nope! :)
 
NathanE said:
Clio 182 chassis is nothing to special to speak of. It cocks a rear wheel under tough cornering for christ sake :p
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And? Virtualy all FWD cars will do that if pushed hard enough.

If you are just talking about a chassis, then it just has to be stiff and light. Suspension geometry is the really tricky bit.
 
Limited droop thanks to a rather agricultural tosion beam setup causing lifting wheels is now a measure of chassis preformance?

Id include the suspension geometry under the title of the chassis aswell, unequal length double wishbones over McPherson setups etc. Is part of the fundamental way the car will drive and react to wheel loads.

Elise is indeed a rather special one in terms of the chassis tosional stiffness but the suspension arms and the geometry of components is integral to how it performs and drives. A stiff chassis is just the start of a capable car.
 
lost of factors for a good handling car based on high and low speed compression and rebound,spring rates,centre of mavity,weight distribution,corner weight,anti roll bar thickness,bush material and handness-the list is almost endless.
best handling car ive friven is a caterham superlight r(187bhp vhpd version),so adjustable and you feel everything,an elise aint nowhere near!!!!!!

too many people confuse handling with grip though and the best way of describing handling is how clarkson described it in one of his vids "handling is all about feel" therefore a perfect handling car could have littl egrip like an old lotus elan but you can feel what ever wheel is doing and exactly when your going over the limit.best fwd car for handling imo is the teg'r closely followed by 106gti and 306 rallye.apparently the new clio 197 has sacrificed a bit of handling for more grip
 
merlin said:
I think there's some vids knocking around on the S2000 chassis - that's a nice piece of kit.
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Yeah definately, excellent chassis IMO, a convertible as stiff as a coupe without the need for extra sill bracing like most convertibles. All the strength is from the X-bone monocoque chassis and the strength is in the transmission tunnel.

http://www.s2000.com/s2k_xbone.php
 
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