By William Turner (Wturner) on Thursday, September 13, 2001 - 08:10 am: Edit

I heard a rumor (probably not true) that Ford was going to put Independent Suspension on a Rover down the road.

What is the difference in performance, Really?

The Hummer is 4 wheel Independent right, and it is a great off road vehicle (just ridiculously BIG).

What is better or worse about Independent Suspension?

By William Turner (Wturner) on Thursday, September 13, 2001 - 08:17 am: Edit

If engineered correctly, does a straight axel provide more wheel travel?

By Al Hang (Alhang) on Thursday, September 13, 2001 - 08:38 am: Edit

IFS is probably the way most car makers are going.
For off-road though it sucks, unless it is purpose built like the Hummvee or all those desert race trucks, it offers too little drivetrain clearance and is costly to modify. think about all of those little toyotas, fords, and chevys with IFS. Ever seen the lift kits for those? you've got brackets to hack and weld and once you are done the end result is usually pretty complex. With a straight axle parts are simple, easy to fix and reliable. If you ride over rocks the straight axle will always keep it's minimum ground clearance, whereas the IFS will want to conform to irregular terrain and will lose ground clearance.

-Al

By jmoy on Thursday, September 13, 2001 - 09:42 am: Edit

Here is a good web site

http://www.prism.gatech.edu/~gte224i/IFS-SFA.html

I would rather have solid axle.

Jim

By William Turner (Wturner) on Thursday, September 13, 2001 - 09:50 am: Edit

Wow, huge difference, I will keep my solid axel.

By Discosaurus (Discosaurus) on Friday, September 14, 2001 - 05:31 am: Edit

Well, I think that's a little misleading. The IFS shot is probably close to stock while the solid axle conversion is probably far from what an earlier stock solid Toy would be.

IS can be made to flex pretty well IF the factory intended it, to begin with.

keith
discosaurus

By chris browne on Friday, September 14, 2001 - 06:21 am: Edit

Land Rover already has IRS, its called a Freelander.

By William Turner (Wturner) on Friday, September 14, 2001 - 08:14 am: Edit

Freelander is for HIGH SCHOOL GIRLS!

Looks stunningly similar to Fords compact SUV. They say that the Freelander is designed with off road in mind.

I also have a mansion and supermodel wife in mind, so lets see who gets there quicker!