Build A Faster Car - helping drivers engineer

The MAF and IAT (Intake Air Temp) sensors sit in the incoming air stream, translating airflow into little 0's and 1's the PCM can use to figure out the amount of necessary fuel to add for proper combustion. Over time these sensors can accumulate dirt, as no air filter stops 100% of incoming silicon particles.

The camber angle is the angle at which your tires lay relative to the vertical axis of your car. Assuming your chassis is level, it is also the angle at which your tires lay relative to perpendicular to the ground. A tire that is perfectly parallel to the chassis' vertical axis (and thus perpendicular to the ground) is said to have zero camber, whereas tires angled inwards towards the chassis are said to have negative camber. Camber is one of the most important aspects of an alignment because it greatly affects tire grip.

This calculator shows you the spring rate of a sway bar. It is accurate for mild, spring, and chromoly steels since they all have a very similar stiffness. Nearly all sway bars are made from these materials.

The measurements needed for this calculation are quite easy to take, especially if the sway bar is off the car.

Higher spring frequency are frequently used in the rear of a car to produce what is known as a flat ride. With a rear spring frequency slightly than the front, the rear of the car will oscillate in a sightly shorter amount of time. Done correctly, the front and rear of the chassis will complete one oscillation at exactly the same time, reducing pitching in the chassis. This article will elaborate a bit on the subject, and show how damper tuning can make this feel even better.

Spring rates seem to get a lot of emphasis from car owners. This article shows how optimal spring rates can be chosen and even compared between two different cars, and why your dampers should be taken into consideration while choosing spring rates.

Coil bind happens when all the coils of a spring are stacked on top of one another and the spring cannot compress any further. When the spring cannot compress any further, any additional force gets transmitted directly on the chassis and tires, leading to very high amounts of stress on those items (and the driver). A spring that cannot compress any further is said to be at its solid length or bound length.

To determine how much suspension travel your vehicle has, do the following:

ride height measurement.

2) Jack up your car until your wheels are off the ground. Measure again. We'll call this your droop height measurement. The two measurements should look somewhat like this:

The modern bump stop is more properly called a jounce bumper. Made from urethane and cut to varying sizes, today's bump stops are an integral part of most factory suspensions. Knowing their effects on the suspension is as important- if not more so- than that of your main springs. This page explores their effects when installing springs that lower a production car.