Hey Cory,
C10CoryM wrote:
The "less stability at speed" part is talking 160mph+ sort of thing for normal amounts of Caster.
OMG! I'd need a hundred and fifty horsepower to get to 160mph+!
C10CoryM wrote:
Note: I've never really considered suspension geometry in terms of fuel economy so I've not thought that hard about it. Toe would be your biggest gain in terms of MPG. Keeping in mind that static Toe, and dynamic Toe(driving down the road with bushings etc flexed) are often different by 0-0.20° on production cars due to bushing flex etc. That's a considerable amount of friction if not 0° while driving and would be a main priority to correct.
Yeah, that's one of the reasons I use rod ends instead of bushings.
C10CoryM wrote:
I'd assume best MPG would come from some Caster (maybe a lot) to force the tires to return to straight-ahead (lowest friction) position as fast as possible. By increased steering inputs I meant that reacting to the bumps in the road turning the wheel is going to be slower than the Caster pulling it straight.
You may be right, but my experience with zero caster/toe/camber is that the steering doesn't react much to bumps in the road, and thus remains straight (if I was going straight) and thus doesn't need caster to pull it straight afterward. Besides, caster doesn't remember the previous straight, and if one's heading is perturbed by a bump in the road deflecting the steering, caster just makes the wheels aim straight at the new heading,,,[/quote]
C10CoryM wrote:
I'd assume the less you have to touch the steering wheel, the better your MPG.
...thus demanding steering input to get to the original desired "straight" heading.
And now I'll shaddup so the conversation can get back to Electric Power Steering. All I know on that subject is, if I had EPS on my casterless car, I'd wager it would run for a week on a couple of AA batteries.