What does it do?

Apart from your car's tyres and seats, the suspension is the prime mechanism that separates
your bum from the road. It also prevents your car from shaking itself to pieces. No matter how
smooth you think the road is, it's a bad, bad place to propel over a ton of metal at high speed.
So we rely upon suspension. People who travel on underground trains wish that those vehicles
relied on suspension too, but they don't and that's why the ride is so harsh. Actually it's harsh
because underground trains have no lateral suspension to speak of. So as the rails deviate sideto-side slightly, so does the entire train, and it's passengers. In a car, the rubber in your tyre
helps with this little problem.
In it's most basic form, suspension consists of two basic components:
Springs
These come in three types. They are coil springs, torsion bars and leaf springs. Coil springs
are what most people are familiar with, and are actually coiled torsion bars. Leaf springs are
what you would find on most American cars up to about 1985 and almost all heavy duty
vehicles. They look like layers of metal connected to the axle. The layers are called leaves,
hence leaf-spring. The torsion bar on its own is a bizarre little contraption which gives
coiled-spring-like performance based on the twisting properties of a steel bar. It's used in
the suspension of VW Beetles and Karmann Ghias, air-cooled Porsches (356 and 911 until
1989 when they went to springs), and the rear suspension of Peugot 205s amongst other
cars. Instead of having a coiled spring, the axle is attached to one end of a steel shaft. The
other end is slotted into a tube and held there by splines. As the suspension moves, it twists
the shaft along it's length, which in turn resist. Now image that same shaft but instead of
being straight, it's coiled up. As you press on the top of the coil, you're actually inducing a
twisting in the shaft, all the way down the coil. I know it's hard to visualise, but believe me,
that's what is happening.
Shock absorbers
Strangely enough, absorb shocks. Actually, shock absorbers are one of those great
misnomers in life. They're really called dampers, because they actually dampen the vertical
motion induced by driving your car along a rough surface. If your car only had springs, it
would boat and wallow along the road until you got physically sick and had to get out. Or at
least until it fell apart. Shock absorbers perform two functions. Firstly, they absorb any
larger-than-average bumps in the road so that the shock isn't transmitted to the car
chassis. Secondly, they keep the suspension at as full a travel as possible for the given road
conditions. Shock absorbers keep your wheels planted on the road. Without them, your car
would be a travelling deathtrap. Technically, they are actually dampers. Even more
technically, they are velocity-sensitive hydraulic damping devices - in other words, the
faster they move, the more resistance there is to that movement. They work in conjunction
with the springs. The spring allows movement of the wheel to allow the energy in the road
shock to be transformed into kinetic energy of the unsprung mass, whereupon it is
dissipated by the damper. (phew!....and you thought they just leaked oil didn't you?)

Suspension Types
In their infinite wisdom, car manufacturers have set out to baffle use with the sheer number of
different types of suspension available for both front and rear axles. The main groupings are
dependant and independent suspension types. If you know of any not listed here, email me and
let me know - I would like this page to be as complete as possible.

Front suspension - dependent systems

So-called because the front wheel's suspension systems are physically linked. They are, in a
word, shite. I hate to be offensive, but they are. There is only one type of dependant system you
need to know about. It is basically a sold bar under the front of the car, kept in place by leaf
springs and shock absorbers. It's still common to find these on trucks, but if you find a car with
one of these you should sell it to a museum. They haven't been used on cars for donkey's years
for three main reasons:
Shimmy - because the wheels are physically linked, the beam can be set into oscillation if

one wheel hits a bump and the other doesn't. It sets up a gyroscopic torque about the
steering axis which starts to turn the axle left-to-right. Because of the axle's inertia, this
in turn feeds back to amplify the original motion.
Weight - or more specifically unsprung
weight. Solid front axles weigh a ton and
need huge springs to keep their wheels on
the road.
Alignment - simply put, you can't adjust the
alignment of wheels on a rigid axis. From the
factory, they're perfectly set, but if the beam
gets even slightly distorted, you can't adjust
the wheels to compensate.

Front suspension independent systems

So-named because the front wheel's suspension systems are independent of each other (except
where joined by an antiroll bar) These came into existance around 1930 and have been in use in
one form or another pretty much ever since then.

MacPherson strut
This is currently, without doubt, the most widely used front suspension system in cars of
European origin. It is simplicity itself. Unfortunately, the image on the left doesn't show you all
the components - I'll put a new one there as soon as I can. However, the system basically
comprises of a 'coil-over-oil' spring and shock absorber combo, which pivots on a ball joint on the
single, lower arm. At the top end there is a needle roller bearing on some more sophisticated
systems. The strut itself is the load-bearing member in this assembly, with the spring and shock
absorber merely performing their duty as oppose to actually holding the car up. The steering
gear is either connected directly to the lower shock absorber housing (purple in this image), or to

an arm from the front or back of the spindle (in this

case). When you steer, it physically twists the shock
absorber housing (and consequently the spring) to
turn the wheel. Simple. The spring is seated in a
special plate at the top of the assembly which allows
this twisting to take place. If the spring or this plate
are worn, you'll get a loud 'clonk' on full lock as the
spring frees up and jumps into place. This is sometimes confused for CV joint knock.

The following four types of system are all essentially a variation on

the same theme.
Coil Spring type 1
This is a type of double-A arm suspension. The wheel spindles (purple) are supported by an
upper (green) and lower (blue) 'A' shaped arm. If you look head-on at this type of system, what
you'll find is that it's a very basic lever system that allows the spindles to travel vertically up and
down. When they do this, they also have a slight side-to-side motion caused by the arc which the
levers scribe around their pivot point. This side-to-side motion is known as scrub. Unless the
links are infinitely long the scrub motion is always present. There are two other types of motion
of the wheel relative to the body when the suspension articulates. The first and most important is
a toe angle (steer angle). The second and least important, but the one which produces most pub
talk is the camber angle, or lean angle. Steer and camber are the ones which wear tyres. Also
note that the springs/shocks in this example are in a so-called 'coil over oil' arrangement
whereby the shock absorbers (yellow) sit inside the springs (red).

Coil Spring type 2

This is also a type of double-A arm suspension although the lower arm in these systems can
sometimes be replaced with single solid arms. The only real difference between this and the type
1 system mentioned above is that the spring/shock combo is moved from between the arms to
above the upper arm. This transfers the load-bearing capability of the suspension almost entirely
to the upper arm and the spring mounts. The lower arm in this instance becomes a control arm.
This particular type of system isn't so popular in cars as it takes up a lot room.

Double Wishbone
So-called because the lower and upper arms are
the shape of wishbones. The spindle is a highly
complex construction in this system, as are the
wishbones themselves. This rapidly becoming one
of the most favoured suspension types for new cars
as it gives excellent roadholding capabilities whilst
taking up very little room under the car. This allows
for smoother lines on the bodywork, and less
intrusion in to the engine bay. A 2D diagram such
as that on the right does not do this system any justice. To really appreciate it, you need to get
your head in a wheel well and have a look. And I know a few mechanics who've still not been
able to figure it out even then.

Multi-link suspension
This is the latest incarnation of the double wishbone system described above. It's currently being
used in the Audi A8 and A4 amongst other cars. The basic principle of it is the same, but instead
of solid upper and lower wishbones, each 'arm' of the wishbone is a separate item. These are
joined at the top and bottom of the spindle thus forming the wishbone shape. Car manufacturers
claim that this system gives even better road-holding properties, because all the various joints
make the suspension almost infinitely adjustable. There are a few variations on this theme
appearing at the moment, with differences in the numbers of joints, numbers of arms,
positioning of the parts etc. But they are all fundamentally the same.

Trailing-arm suspension
Unfortunately, no image for this yet. The trailing arm system is literally that - a shaped
suspension arm is joined at the front to the chassis, alowing the rear to swing up and down.
Pairs of these become twin-trailing-arm systems and work on exactly the same principle as the
arms in the coil spring type systems described above. The difference is that instead of the arms
sticking out from the side of the chassis, they travel back along it. If you want to know what I
mean, find a VW beetle and stick your head in the front wheel arch - that's a double-trailing-arm
suspension setup. Simple. It's used mostly in older cars and beach buggies now.

Rear suspension - dependant systems

Contrary to the front version of this system, many many cars are still designed and built with
dependant (linked) rear suspension systems.

Solid-axle, leaf-spring
This system was favoured by the Americans for years because it was dead simple and cheap to
build. The ride quality is decidedly questionable though. The drive axle (purple in this image) is
clamped (green) to the leaf springs (red). The shock absorbers (yellow) are also attached to the
clamps. The ends of the leaf springs are attached directly to the chassis, as are the shock
absorbers. Simple, not particularly elegant, but cheap. The main drawback with this arrangement
is the lack of lateral location for the axle.

Solid-axle, coil-spring
This is a variation and
update on the system
described above. The basic
idea is the same, but the
leaf springs have been
removed in favour of 'coilover-oil' spring and shock
combos. Because the leaf
springs have been
removed, the axle now
needs to have lateral
support from a pair control
arms. The front ends of
these are attached to the
chassis, the rear ends to
the axle. A variation on
this has the shock absorbers separate from the springs, allowing much smaller springs. This in
turn allows the system to fit in a smaller area under the car.

Beam Axle
This system is used in front wheel drive cars, where the rear axle isn't driven. (hence it's full
description as a "dead beam"). Again, it is a relatively simple system. The beam runs across
under the car with the wheels attached to either end of it. Also at the ends, the springs and
shock absorbers are attached. The beam has two integral trailing arms built in instead of the
separate control arms required by the solid-axle-coil-spring system. Variations on this system
can have either separate springs and shocks as shown here, or the combined 'coil-over-oil'
variety. One noteable feature of this system is the track bar (or panhard rod). This is a diagonal
bar which runs from the rear corner of the beam to a point either just in front of the opposite
corner, or in this case, above the opposite spring mount. This is to prevent side-to-side
movement in the beam which would cause all manner of nasty handling problems. A variation on
this them is the twist axle which is identical with the exception of the panhard rod. In this
system, the axle is designed to twist slightly. This gives, in effect, a semi-independent system
whereby a bump on one wheel is partially soaked up by the twisting action of the beam. Yet
another variation on this system does away with the springs and replaces them with torsion bars
running across the chassis, and attached to the leading edge of the beam supports. These beam
types are currently very popular because of their simplicity and low cost.

Rear suspension independent systems

It follows, that what can be fitted to the front
of a car, can be fitted to the rear to without the
complexities of the steering gear. Simplified
versions of all the independent systems
described above can be found on the rear axles
of cars. The multi-link system is currently
becoming more and more popular. In

advertising, it's put across as '4-wheel independent suspension'. This means all the wheels are
independently mounted and sprung. There are two schools of thought as to whether this system
is better or worse for handling than, for example, Macpherson struts and a twist axle. The drive
towards 4-wheel independent suspension is primarily to improve ride quality without degrading
handling.

Hydropneumatic Suspension
This little wonder was
invented by Citron in
the late 50's and has
been fitted to many of
their cars since. I've
had to separate it into
it's own category
because it is quite
different from any
other type of
suspension system.
Since the early fifties
Citron have been running a fundamentally different system to the rest of the auto industry.
They call it hydropneumatic and it encompasses features as diverse as brakes, suspension &
steering. As its name may suggest, its core technology and mainstay of its functionality is
hydraulics. Superbly smooth suspension is provided by the fluid's interaction with a presurised
gas.
The system is powered by a large hydraulic pump operated directly by the engine in much the
same way as an alternator or an air conditioner is, and provides fluid to an "accumulator" at
presure, where it is stored ready to be delivered to servo a system.
Because this page is all about suspension, for clarity we'll look at the simplified version of this as
installed in the "BX" model. The Citron BX was a major turning point in the company's history
as it was the first car to be produced under the company's new Peugeot management, following
the 1970s take-over of Citron by Peugeot. As a direct consequence of the Peugeot influence, the
car is somewhat more conventional than its larger sibling designed earlier - the CX. This
Peugeot-enforced "normalisaiton" of the design makes it easy ennough to examine as an
illustration of how hydropneumatic suspension works.
There are two main components you need to familairise yourself with and to understand. The
spheres are like the springs on the car, and the struts are the hydraulic components that make
the fluid act like a spring.
Lets start with the sphere. The spring in this suspension system is provided by a hydraulic
component called an accumulator, which is gas under pressure in a bottle contained within a
diaphragm, effectively a balloon which allows pressurised fluid to compress the gas, and then as
pressure drops the gas pushes the fluid back to keep the system's pressure up. As you can see in
the drawing above the pink gas (nitrogen) is compressed when the pressure in the green fluid
(LHM) overcomes the gas pressure, and pushes back the diaphragm which compresses the gas.
Then as the pressure in the fluid reduces, the gas pushes back the diaphragm and as the gas
overcomes the fluid, it expells the fluid from the sphere, returning gas and fluid to equlibrium.
This is the hydropneumatic equivalent to the spring getting compressed (bound) and getting
depressed, ie springing back (rebound).
Still with me? We can keep going...
How can a gas, a diaphragm and a hydraulic fluid compressing, form a spring? Simple(ish): The
pressure of the gas is the equivalent to the spring weight. The inlet hole at the bottom of the
sphere restricts the flow of the fluid and provides an element of damping. By replacing the

sphere for ones of different specs, it is possbile to adjust the ride characteristics with these cars.
Rumour even has it that a racing team in Anglesey is customising their car by pressurising their
own spheres to custom pressures to make an exact match for the circuit the are on.
Before we go any further it is pretty important that you understand where the fluid acting on the
diaphragm in the sphere gets its force from, and to do that we are going to have to look at the
operation of the other key component in the Citron system - the strut.
As you can see in this diagram, the strut has a sphere on top of it and the strut in itself acts like
a syringe to inject fluid into the sphere. When the wheel hits a bump it rises, pushes the piston
of the strut back and this sqeezes fluid through the tiny hole in the sphere to let the gas spring
absorb the energy of the bump. Then when the car is over the bump and its time to let the wheel
back down, the gas pushes the diaphragm back out, pushing the fluid down to the strut, pushing
the wheel down to the ground.
Some interesting possibilities were opened up by the company deciding to use this system to
spring their cars. One or two of the more obvious ones are that since the system is hydraulic, the
ride height can easily be altered, a trend low riders are now following on with in California, nearly
fifty years later. Also, they could link the four corners together to make a system that prepared
the car for the bump to keep it even and offer the passengers a smoother ride. Basically they put
fancy valves called height correctors on the anti-roll bar. These were mounted in such a way that
as the suspension twisted, this operated the valves that controlled the transfer of fluid to the
struts. It was possible to isolate the front and rear systems and have the front suspension set at
a height which required 'x' litres. So when the front nearside wheel takes a knock compressing
its sphere, x/2 L is lost in the sphere, then the height correctors allow another x/2 L in, to inflate
the offside strut by that much. This keeps the front of the car level in a horizontal plane.
As the car clears the bump, the reverse happens; the sphere displaces that fluid, the strut
returns to its own height pulling the anti roll bar back true with it which in turn tells the height
corrector to lose that extra x/2 litres of fluid from the other side. As one side extends its strut in
reaction to clearing the bump, the other is retracting by the same amount to return the car to its
set height above the road. Neat huh?
A further mechanical advantage of hydraulic suspension is that the car is able to link its braking
effort to the weight on the wheels. In the Citron BX, the rear braking effort comes from the
pressure exerted on the LHM fluid by the weight on those struts. This means that as the weight
travels forward under braking, there is less pressure on the back suspension. The suspension is
the able to exert less pressure on its fluid, and as weight and grip diminish on the wheels, so
does the braking effort, thus the hydropneumatic system prevents rear wheel lock ups.
In addition to these benefits, Citron pioneered computer controlled suspension in the early
nineties by inserting a computer to take readings from the cars' chassis and control systems and
let the computer make informed decisions about how to handle the cars suspension. The
computer could then effect these decisions by things like servo valves, and offered benefits like
soft suspension for cruising, but stiffer, sportier suspension for faster harder driving, allowing the
driver to cruise in comfort and still enjoy a responsive car. It also moves substantially towards
eliminating body roll and if used for a sportier driver will save tyre wear as well (they claim).

Anti-roll Bars & Strut Braces

Strut Braces
If you're serious about your car's handling performance, you will first be looking at lowering the
suspension. In most cases, unless you're a complete petrolhead, this will be more than
adequate. However, if you are a keen driver, you will be able to get far better handling out of
your car by fitting a couple of other accessories to it. The first thing you should look at is a strut
brace. When you corner, the whole car's chassis is twisting slightly. In the front (and perhaps at
the back, but not so often) the suspension pillars will be moving relative to each other because
there's no physical link between them. A strut brace bolts across the top of the engine to the

tops of the two suspension posts and makes that physical contact. The result is that the whole
front suspension setup becomes a lot more rigid and there will be virtually no movement relative
to each side. In effect, you're adding the fourth side to the open box created by the subframe
and the two suspension pillars.

Simple straight brace(highlighted). Complex brace (highlighted).

Anti-roll Bars (Sway Bars/Stabilizers)

No, these aren't the things that are bolted inside the car in case you turn it over - those are
rollover cages. Anti-roll bars do precisely what their name implies - they combat the roll of a car
on it's suspension as it corners. They're also known as sway-bars or anti-sway-bars. Almost all
cars have them fitted as standard, and if you're a boy-racer, all have scope for improvement.
From the factory they are biased towards ride comfort. Stiffer aftermarket items will increase the
roadholding but you'll get reduced comfort because of it. Fiddling with your roll stiffness
distribution can make a car uncomfortable to ride in and extremely hard to handle if you get it
wrong. The anti-roll bar is usually connected to the front, lower edge of the bottom suspension
joint. It passes through two pivot points under the chassis, usually on the subframe and is
attached to the same point on the opposite suspension setup. Effectively, it joins the bottom of
the suspension parts together. When you head into a corner, the car begins to roll out of the
corner. For example, if you're cornering to the left, the car body rolls to the right. In doing this,
it's compressing the suspension on the right hand side. With a good anti-roll bar, as the lower
part of the suspension moves upward relative to the car chassis, it transfers some of that
movement to the same component on the other side. In effect, it tries to lift the left suspension
component by the same amount. Because this isn't physically possible, the left suspension
effectively becomes a fixed point and the anti-roll bar twists along its length because the other
end is effectively anchored in place. It's this twisting that provides the resistance to the
suspension movement suspension movement.

If you're loaded, you can buy cars with active anti-roll technology now. These sense the roll of
the car into a corner and deflate the relevant suspension leg accordingly by pumping fluid in and
out of the shock absorber. It's a high-tech, super expensive version of the good old mechanical
anti-roll bar. You can buy anti-roll bars as an aftermarket addon. They're relatively easy to fit
because most cars have anti-roll bars already. Take the old one off and fit the new one. In the
case of rear suspension, the fittings will probably already be there even if the anti-roll bar isn't.
Typical anti-roll bar (swaybar) kits include the uprated bar, a set of new mounting clamps with
polyurethane bushes, rose joints for the ends which connect to the suspension components, and
all the bolts etc that will be needed.

Suspension bushes
These are the rubber grommets which separate most of the parts
of your suspension from each other. They're used at the link of an
A-Arm with the subframe. They're used on anti-roll bar links and
mountings. They're used all over the place, and from the factory, I
can almost guarantee they're made of rubber. Rubber doesn't last.
It perishes in the cold and splits in the heat. Perished, split rubber
was what brought the Challenger space shuttle down. This is one of
those little parts which hardly anyone pays any attention to, but it's vitally important for your
car's handling, as well as your own safety, that these little things are in good condition. My
advice? Replace them with polyurethane or polygraphite bushes - they are hard-wearing and last
a heck of a lot longer. And, if you're into presenting your car at shows, they look better than the
naff little black rubber jobs. Like all suspension-related items though, bushes are a tradeoff
between performance and comfort. The harder the bush compound, the less comfort in the
cabin. You pays your money and makes your choice.

Progressively wound springs

These are the things to go for when you upgrade your springs. In actual fact, it's difficult not to
get progressive springs when you upgrade - most of the aftermarket manufacturers make them
like this. Most factory-fit car springs are normally wound. That is to say that their coil pitch stays
the same all the way up the spring. If you get progressively wound springs, the coil pitch gets
tighter the closer to the top of the spring you get. This has the effect of giving the spring
increasing resistance, the more it is compressed.
The spring constant (stiffness) of a coil spring equals:
k = compression / force = D^4 * G / (64*N*R^3)
where D is the wire diameter, G an elastic material property, N the number of coils in the spring,
and R the radius of the spring.
So increasing the number of coils decreases the stiffness of the spring. Thus, a progressive
spring is progressive because the two parts are compressed equally until the tightly wound part
locks up, effectively shortening the spring and reducing its compliance.
So for normal driving, you'll be using mostly the upper 3 or 4 'tight' winds to soak up the
average bumps and potholes. When you get into harder driving, like cornering at speed for
example, because the springs are being compressed more, they resist more. The effect is to
reduce the suspension travel at the top end resulting in less body roll, and better roadholding.
Invariably, the fact that the springs are progressively wound is what accounts for the lowering
factor. The springs aren't made shorter - they're just wound differently. Of course the material

that aftermarket springs are made of is usually a higher grade than factory spec simply because
it's going to be expected to handle more loads.
Note:Make sure you get powder-coated springs! This means they've been treated with a good
anti-corrosion system and then covered in powdered paint. The whole lot is then baked to make
the paint seal and stick and bring out it's polyurethane elastic properties. It's the best type. If
you just get normally painted springs, the paint will start to flake on the first bump, and surface
rust will appear within days of the first sign of dampness. Not good.

But What if.......?

What if I get shorter springs to lower the car? Will I need to adjust my caster and
camber angles and/or my shock absorbers?
Generally the answer would be no. Most cars have a good 10-13cm (4-5 inches) movement
in their suspension from the factory. As most of the lowering springs you can buy only lower
by 2-7cm (1-3 inches), your suspension should still be well within it's designed operating
limits. Therefore, caster and camber angles shouldn't need looking at.
What if I get shorter springs to lower the car? Will my tyres rub on my arches?
They shouldn't unless you start messing about with wheel and tyre sizes. Again, given that
most suspension kits lower within the car's normal operating limits, there shouldn't be a
problem. If there was, then every time you went over a big hump with standard suspension,
the tyres would rub. Rubbing against the arches will almost certainly only occur if you lower
the car and widen the wheels. See the Wheel & Tyre Bible for more info on this.

Bouncy Links
Here's some links for you to follow.
Kinetic Suspension systems
Tim Stiles Racing - VW and Audi suspension mods etc
Monroe shock absorbers Suspension
Eibach Suspension
TMS Suspension catalogue for BMWs

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