solamanda – Member
The mechanics of a good handling frame have improved. Geometry is sorted, shocks behave and the frames are light, stiff and strong. Most people get too obsessed with rear suspension when tyres and forks matter so much more.

Does that apply to Volvo’s too? ;)

martinxyz, don’t give up, you post sounded interesting, it would have sounded even better if it made sense ;)

Nice one, I’ve just come back from wendover woods, I can confirm it’s dam cold on the chilterns, but the views are stunning in crisp wintervision.

Nice, but I take it that was at the beginning of the ride, bike looks brand spanking ;)

Oh, and I am a Porsche fan, but the Cayenne is an abomination on absolutely all counts

Except off road, oh & they do a diesel now ;)

The comments about car suspensions hold good for our bike world. Wishbones, McPherson struts et have been around for ever, but handling and grip have improved massively by fine tuning and using better components. And most really high performance cars like Porsche, Ferrari etc do not use stuff like air suspension

Too true, to an extent, but now for the technical bit on Porsche suspension…

As before, front suspension consists of a spring strut axle with separate arrangement of the longitudinal and transverse control arms, simply because this concept guarantees precise wheel guidance combined with superior roll comfort. The front axle subframe, in turn, has been redeveloped for the Boxster, lighter but nevertheless stiffer aluminium swivel mounts ensuring far greater stiffness in the interest of enhanced steering precision and maximum lateral acceleration.

The McPherson rear axle concept of the Boxster has been further upgraded for the most recent model series. The objective in redesigning the components of the rear axle was to enhance lateral stiffness while at the same time reducing axle weight through consistent lightweight engineering. Furthermore, the individual components of the axle have also been improved in terms of stiffness.

Now Boxsters are also available with active suspension as an option. PASM Porsche Active Suspension Management lowers the entire car by 10 millimetres. In the 2.7-litre Boxster PASM also comes as part of a sports package comprising Porsche’s six-speed manual gearbox.

PASM – Porsche’s Active Suspension Management is available as an option and changes the damper control map at the touch of a button: The Normal mode offers a more comfortable damper setting automatically switching over to an increasingly sporting mode as soon as the driver starts to push his car faster and more dynamically. The Sports mode, on the other hand, activates a harder damper control map for a particularly agile and dynamic style of motoring. Incorporating a special unit referred to as the load change module, PASM serves to enhance active safety in both of these modes: When accelerating with full power, taking back the throttle and changing gears, the damper control maps are automatically adjusted individually on the front and rear axles. Under such conditions the dampers are briefly switched to a harder response in the Normal mode to prevent the car from diving excessively. In the Sports mode, by contrast, the system switches briefly to a softer damper curve whenever required in order to improve traction when accelerating, for example on bumpy surfaces.

Porsche Active Suspension Management incorporates adaptive dampers with infinitely adjustable damper force, two accelerometers determining vertical movement of the car’s body, as well as the PASM control unit. The purpose of this intelligent control system is to relate the signals emitted by the two accelerometers fitted on the damper domes front right and rear left to the car’s lateral acceleration, steering angle, road speed, brake pressure, and engine torque. Then, applying this data provided through the CAN-bus, the system determines the optimum damper control map and adjusts damper response accordingly on each individual wheel.

You wouldn’t say they are exactly standing still when it comes to suspension development would you?

Oh, & how about the Cayenne air suspension?

Peter – Member
You can say exactly the same about car and motorbike suspension too, except that’s been pretty much the same for even longer……

Not really, top end cars have air suspension that changes at the touch of a button, ‘magnetic’ shocks that don’t compress under cornering loads to keep a car flatter in the corners, anti roll bar mounts that rotate under cornering to stiffen things up, granted its only really on expensive cars, but we are comparing against expensive frames right?

I didn’t want to put aside shocks, just pointing out that they have progressed whilst the basic suspension designs have remained quite stagnant.

I could ask the question in a different way…

Is there a better suspension design than the Horst link
:oops:

the_lecht_rocks – Member
you need to perform a ringdrive service ASAP. a quick clean out and re lube with either ringdrive lube or mobil 1 will resolve, simple as ABC.

Why Mobil 1? surely if that works then any other oil would work.

Oh, and I was wondering about the possibility of the disc binding when the QR was done up, as mentioned above, also.

Normal STW service has been resumed, good to have it back :wink:

I’m the old me 8O