A different kind of Suspension Tuning

[STIwish]

Originally Posted by ArthurS

Care to put money on it? You guys seriously underestimate the trailworthiness of a Geo, the main problem is the aluminum front diff, which blows, but its fixable. Have you ever seen a Suzuki Samurai rockcrawl? A well setup Suzuki will run circles around most jeeps with a good driver.

[STIwish]

Originally Posted by sperry

Shitty driver or not, the fucking suspension destroyed itself on a 10" tall rock. Your tracker'd make that rock because it's suspension is just as strong as the H2's but it doesn't have to carry 6000lbs.

No, the suspension didn't destroy itself, that was driver stupidity, combined with non-stupid proof tie rods.

[sperry]

Originally Posted by STIwish

No, the suspension didn't destroy itself, that was driver stupidity, combined with non-stupid proof tie rods.

??? Did we just watch the same movie? I'm pretty sure that H2 dropped down a 10" tall boulder and the tie-rods broke! I don't care if my grandma was driving that thing, it shouldn't have failed. I'm not saying the driver isn't an idiot, I'm just saying the suspension components on that bohemoth aren't strong enough for its weight. The suspension for an "off-road" vehicle should be able to take the weight of the entire vehicle at odd angles for at least a temporary amount of time. How much you wanna bet if you tried lift the front of the H2 with one tire as in the new Rubicon commercial, it'd break itself?

Simply put, if a 10" drop can break a tie-rod, then the H2 shouldn't be driven anywhere except to and from the grocery store... which not coincidentally is where 99% of those stupid school busses are driven.

[AtomicLabMonkey]

Originally Posted by sperry

??? Did we just watch the same movie? I'm pretty sure that H2 dropped down a 10" tall boulder and the tie-rods broke! I don't care if my grandma was driving that thing, it shouldn't have failed. I'm not saying the driver isn't an idiot, I'm just saying the suspension components on that bohemoth aren't strong enough for its weight. The suspension for an "off-road" vehicle should be able to take the weight of the entire vehicle at odd angles for at least a temporary amount of time. How much you wanna bet if you tried lift the front of the H2 with one tire as in the new Rubicon commercial, it'd break itself?

Simply put, if a 10" drop can break a tie-rod, then the H2 shouldn't be driven anywhere except to and from the grocery store... which not coincidentally is where 99% of those stupid school busses are driven.

I'm gonna have to go with Scott on this one... not only was that not a very severe load case, but "non-stupid proof tie-rod ends" means that they weren't designed correctly. When an engineer designs a part, they're supposed to use a safety factor multiplier that takes into account stupid people that do stupid shit - it's machine design fundamentals. If the H2 steering linkage can't handle the forces exerted on it from one tire in the air and the other sliding off a small rock, then it wasn't designed correctly and shouldn't be anywhere near an off-road trail.