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The SS allowance is either/or, I don't think anyone wants to change that, just applly it to other classes. At least that's my position. Even so I really doubt that the setup you described would be much better than X73 plus adjustable passive dampers. The performance advantage of the shocks themselves is minimal at best, and you're giving up 10mm of ride hieght and roughly a half degree of front camber.
There's certainly ways to make tuned active suspension way better than any stock suspension. See the crazy Bose magnetic setups from the 90s they were never able to commercialize, where they basically had full control over the shocks that were basically just giant voice coils. And of course with an advanced version of the Audi "bump scanner" you could soften/stiffen shocks dynamically based on scanning the road ahead or, heck, using the camera system to evaluate the upcoming cones and use the steer by wire, brake by wire, throttle by wire, and active suspension to just drive thru the course for you!
The reason this slippery slope argument is so silly is that the development effort is so incredibly expensive that it's just not a feasible effort for the size of the market. I have a lot of professional experience with building and tuning industrial robotics and other automated machinery, and the effort just to tune a self contained system is substantial. Dealing with widely varying external factors (even just temperature!) Is even more effort. All of this equals cost.
The development of non-active dampers has decades and decades of development for both OE and racing applications across a wide variety of applications, so there's a ton of trickle down tech that financed a lot of the development. As there aren't major professional race series that allow dynamic shocks I'm aware of, I don't see where the development money is coming from. The OE applications are unlikely going to be focused on lap time outside of some small boutique exotic cars (think Koenigsegg) that won't make things at all affordable for trickle down.
Technologically, to have adequate control for true active use you'd need high speed (likely 1khz+) absolute positional data on each shock (you might be able to get away with higher frequency IMUs), and complex algorithms with the rest of the input signals (steering, braking, calculated engine torque. Etc ) to really do the kind of "magic" that would really make them perform at levels above full race level shocks. High costs and dev effort again.
Don't get me wrong - you can definitely do magic with active suspension. But I don't see a substantial increase in performance over top level race shocks that are fairly common at the pointy end any time soon.
The original sin here was not allowing DSC tuners, it was allowing replacement shocks/struts at all. When the otherwise stock class can put custom race level components on their car, the floodgates are already open. It's probably way too late to revoke that allowance, but it shouldn't preclude other reasonably equivalent upgrades like shock controllers without shock or sensor upgrades.
Just more of the "doesn't make sense" with SCCA. . I know guys who have spent 4-figures having custom valving done for their Koni's on their E-Street Miatas. "We are trying to control costs" when people are spending 20% of their car's value on shocks = LOL
Either it's "stock" or it's not. And if it's "fun with cars" then I think they have a lot of stuff backwards, because all the basic "fun" bolt-ons your typical person would want to do would punt you into SM. And for 99% of the field, they'd never capitalize on the performance gains anyways.
I know a bunch of Miata guys doing the same thing. I don’t see how that is controlling costs.
Originally Posted by daaa nope
Waiting for the computer to boot, connect to the device, push the changes.... vs. sticking your hand underneath and twisting a ****. I'd argue it's more difficult to use the computer. One of several reasons I quickly went "meh" on the DSC box - I don't want to bring my laptop to an event. My old Cayman had JRZ's on it - I didn't even need to have my eyes open to find and adjust the comp ***** underneath. Only took an event or two to have "the position" down - sit here, arm this way, shoulder that way, reach around and click...
And in the end - I'm not at all convinced it's the advantage everyone thinks it is. A fast driver will be fast no matter what the equipment is. Usually the expensive equipment and tweaks help someone to maybe be a little more consistent overall but it's not going to take a backmarker and land them FTD.
So much of it does come down to the driver. Last event at our club I was helping coach someone in a H Stock Mazda2 and I was still able to finish in the top third out of 100 people on raw time. Driving in Autocross for 15 years had the biggest factor in that. At the top of the time sheets, it does have more to do with the driver than the car.
Originally Posted by dps214
The SS allowance is either/or, I don't think anyone wants to change that, just applly it to other classes. At least that's my position. Even so I really doubt that the setup you described would be much better than X73 plus adjustable passive dampers. The performance advantage of the shocks themselves is minimal at best, and you're giving up 10mm of ride hieght and roughly a half degree of front camber.
I would be very curious to see if identically prepared cars with one having X73 and one with PASM and DSC would do. My gut would be the X73 car would be at most a tenth quicker.
Originally Posted by Abt12
There's certainly ways to make tuned active suspension way better than any stock suspension. See the crazy Bose magnetic setups from the 90s they were never able to commercialize, where they basically had full control over the shocks that were basically just giant voice coils. And of course with an advanced version of the Audi "bump scanner" you could soften/stiffen shocks dynamically based on scanning the road ahead or, heck, using the camera system to evaluate the upcoming cones and use the steer by wire, brake by wire, throttle by wire, and active suspension to just drive thru the course for you!
The reason this slippery slope argument is so silly is that the development effort is so incredibly expensive that it's just not a feasible effort for the size of the market. I have a lot of professional experience with building and tuning industrial robotics and other automated machinery, and the effort just to tune a self contained system is substantial. Dealing with widely varying external factors (even just temperature!) Is even more effort. All of this equals cost.
The development of non-active dampers has decades and decades of development for both OE and racing applications across a wide variety of applications, so there's a ton of trickle down tech that financed a lot of the development. As there aren't major professional race series that allow dynamic shocks I'm aware of, I don't see where the development money is coming from. The OE applications are unlikely going to be focused on lap time outside of some small boutique exotic cars (think Koenigsegg) that won't make things at all affordable for trickle down.
Technologically, to have adequate control for true active use you'd need high speed (likely 1khz+) absolute positional data on each shock (you might be able to get away with higher frequency IMUs), and complex algorithms with the rest of the input signals (steering, braking, calculated engine torque. Etc ) to really do the kind of "magic" that would really make them perform at levels above full race level shocks. High costs and dev effort again.
Don't get me wrong - you can definitely do magic with active suspension. But I don't see a substantial increase in performance over top level race shocks that are fairly common at the pointy end any time soon.
The original sin here was not allowing DSC tuners, it was allowing replacement shocks/struts at all. When the otherwise stock class can put custom race level components on their car, the floodgates are already open. It's probably way too late to revoke that allowance, but it shouldn't preclude other reasonably equivalent upgrades like shock controllers without shock or sensor upgrades.
That has been mine and it seems like a lot of other people thoughts as well. In theory you could buy 4 way shocks and get either the low speed or high speed dampening dialed in then epoxy those dials and just have two settings to change. The even sillier thing is the have it allowed for some cars then reclass them and take that away.
In general there is one or two cars that are the car to have for that class anyways so in my mind no matter what the SCCA does the status quo doesn’t really change.
I know a bunch of Miata guys doing the same thing. I don’t see how that is controlling costs.
I would be very curious to see if identically prepared cars with one having X73 and one with PASM and DSC would do. My gut would be the X73 car would be at most a tenth quicker.
A little bit off-topic, but does anyone know when X73 came in? Earlier there was M030, but I can't find that X73 was available for the 987.1 Cayman and I'm not even sure about the 987.2.
A little bit off-topic, but does anyone know when X73 came in? Earlier there was M030, but I can't find that X73 was available for the 987.1 Cayman and I'm not even sure about the 987.2.
My recollection is the 981 was when the X73 was introduced. I believe M030 was 986. I’m not sure what the sport suspension option was for the 987 cars. I can’t find the option code for the R.
Edit: Researched this more and the sport chassis option code for the 987 was 030. It seemed like this was the passive suspension chassis for the Cayman R and Boxster Spyder.
My recollection is the 981 was when the X73 was introduced. I believe M030 was 986. I’m not sure what the sport suspension option was for the 987 cars. I can’t find the option code for the R.
Edit: Researched this more and the sport chassis option code for the 987 was 030. It seemed like this was the passive suspension chassis for the Cayman R and Boxster Spyder.
030 was not available for North American cars for the 987 other than the Cayman R and Boxster Spyder, so far as I can tell.
There's certainly ways to make tuned active suspension way better than any stock suspension. See the crazy Bose magnetic setups from the 90s they were never able to commercialize, where they basically had full control over the shocks that were basically just giant voice coils. And of course with an advanced version of the Audi "bump scanner" you could soften/stiffen shocks dynamically based on scanning the road ahead or, heck, using the camera system to evaluate the upcoming cones and use the steer by wire, brake by wire, throttle by wire, and active suspension to just drive thru the course for you!
The reason this slippery slope argument is so silly is that the development effort is so incredibly expensive that it's just not a feasible effort for the size of the market. I have a lot of professional experience with building and tuning industrial robotics and other automated machinery, and the effort just to tune a self contained system is substantial. Dealing with widely varying external factors (even just temperature!) Is even more effort. All of this equals cost.
The development of non-active dampers has decades and decades of development for both OE and racing applications across a wide variety of applications, so there's a ton of trickle down tech that financed a lot of the development. As there aren't major professional race series that allow dynamic shocks I'm aware of, I don't see where the development money is coming from. The OE applications are unlikely going to be focused on lap time outside of some small boutique exotic cars (think Koenigsegg) that won't make things at all affordable for trickle down.
Technologically, to have adequate control for true active use you'd need high speed (likely 1khz+) absolute positional data on each shock (you might be able to get away with higher frequency IMUs), and complex algorithms with the rest of the input signals (steering, braking, calculated engine torque. Etc ) to really do the kind of "magic" that would really make them perform at levels above full race level shocks. High costs and dev effort again.
Don't get me wrong - you can definitely do magic with active suspension. But I don't see a substantial increase in performance over top level race shocks that are fairly common at the pointy end any time soon.
The original sin here was not allowing DSC tuners, it was allowing replacement shocks/struts at all. When the otherwise stock class can put custom race level components on their car, the floodgates are already open. It's probably way too late to revoke that allowance, but it shouldn't preclude other reasonably equivalent upgrades like shock controllers without shock or sensor upgrades.
I was going to say similar. Yes in theory active controllers like DSC have a very high ceiling in the right hands with the right resources, but autocrossers are not usually those hands, even the most serious ones.
The thing the DSC controller does is make the dampers work much more like passive dampers. Most of the "magic" of the controller is undoing the active response parts of the factory tune but maintaining the ability to switch into comfort mode. You can do some global tuning based on vehicle G force, but the impact of that is likely somewhere between "in the noise" and "actually harmful".
030 was not available for North American cars for the 987 other than the Cayman R and Boxster Spyder, so far as I can tell.
Originally Posted by saxonite
My recollection is the 981 was when the X73 was introduced. I believe M030 was 986. I’m not sure what the sport suspension option was for the 987 cars. I can’t find the option code for the R.
Edit: Researched this more and the sport chassis option code for the 987 was 030. It seemed like this was the passive suspension chassis for the Cayman R and Boxster Spyder.
The thing the DSC controller does is make the dampers work much more like passive dampers. Most of the "magic" of the controller is undoing the active response parts of the factory tune but maintaining the ability to switch into comfort mode. You can do some global tuning based on vehicle G force, but the impact of that is likely somewhere between "in the noise" and "actually harmful".
it does a whole more than that but it takes an investment of time and willingness to tinker with computer driven *****.
Technologically, to have adequate control for true active use you'd need high speed (likely 1khz+) absolute positional data on each shock (you might be able to get away with higher frequency IMUs), and complex algorithms with the rest of the input signals (steering, braking, calculated engine torque. Etc ) to really do the kind of "magic" that would really make them perform at levels above full race level shocks.
The wheel sensors operate at 800Hz, so it is entirely possible that the positional data for the wheels is already available to the suspension controller. There are 3 or 4 (I can't recall right now) IMU's in the car, 2 in the front and at least one in the rear. Steering, braking and engine torque are also available in the CANbus and Exlap protocols in the car. Most of those signals are 10Hz. I never looked at the IMU's but I would be surprised if it wasn't also 10Hz or greater.
Originally Posted by Z3papa
it does a whole more than that but it takes an investment of time and willingness to tinker with computer driven *****.
Running many DSC profiles absolutely takes time. It is however MUCH faster to test profiles than it is to spin ***** on struts.
Originally Posted by dps214
The thing the DSC controller does is make the dampers work much more like passive dampers. Most of the "magic" of the controller is undoing the active response parts of the factory tune but maintaining the ability to switch into comfort mode. You can do some global tuning based on vehicle G force, but the impact of that is likely somewhere between "in the noise" and "actually harmful".
I'm honestly unsure that the factory tune does anything more than 1400mA in comfort and 800mA in sport mode. One day I'll find out by testing, but running a static DSC profile using those same settings for the struts feels awfully like the PASM controller does. #feelings are not very reliable of course, so I would love to see if the PASM controller does vary the strut profile while driving.
Originally Posted by daaa nope
Waiting for the computer to boot, connect to the device, push the changes.... vs. sticking your hand underneath and twisting a ****. I'd argue it's more difficult to use the computer. One of several reasons I quickly went "meh" on the DSC box - I don't want to bring my laptop to an event. My old Cayman had JRZ's on it - I didn't even need to have my eyes open to find and adjust the comp ***** underneath. Only took an event or two to have "the position" down - sit here, arm this way, shoulder that way, reach around and click...
And in the end - I'm not at all convinced it's the advantage everyone thinks it is. A fast driver will be fast no matter what the equipment is. Usually the expensive equipment and tweaks help someone to maybe be a little more consistent overall but it's not going to take a backmarker and land them FTD.
I agree a fast driver probably can understand their equipment well, and utilize it better than a poor driver.
The DSC is much faster to change settings than spinning *****. A modern laptop cold boots in 10-15 seconds, and coming out of sleep a laptop can be operational in a second or two. With the laptop in the car cabled to the DSC, you could make a run, put the car in the grid and have a new profile loaded before the next car running pulls in behind you. You don't even need a full on laptop, a simple touch screen Windows system is enough to make changes (ie. https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805480173036.htm)
You can also run 2 suspension profiles during a run or between runs, just press the suspension button and you've got another profile loaded. It is quite easy to make a car tight or loose with the settings available.
It's a clear advantage to mechanical adjustment of a suspension, albeit a different way of operating and one that takes time adapting to.
The stock system is doing a lot more than constant current. Plus why would porsche go out of their way to have accelerometers and a dedicated ecu just to not use any of that stuff and run fixed current? That's the downfall of active dampers, the difference between a good constant current tune and a good active tune is not very much in a lot of driving conditions.
why would porsche go out of their way to have accelerometers and a dedicated ecu just to not use any of that stuff and run fixed current?
For the PDK (if so equipped) and the PSM.
They have separate computers to run the power windows and door locks. They use computers for everything that could just be a couple simple wires and a switch.
It's happening! Now.. since I'm in a 987 I'm required to add the "DSC Sport 3-axis accelerometer" and I don't know if that constitutes an "additional sensor" or whether it is considered a direct replacement of the Porsche PASM controller...
It's happening! Now.. since I'm in a 987 I'm required to add the "DSC Sport 3-axis accelerometer" and I don't know if that constitutes an "additional sensor" or whether it is considered a direct replacement of the Porsche PASM controller...
08-09-2023, 08:27 PM
. I know guys who have spent 4-figures having custom valving done for their Koni's on their E-Street Miatas. "We are trying to control costs" when people are spending 20% of their car's value on shocks = LOL
