Aug 24 2011, 10:11 PM
QUOTE(cuckoo bird @ Aug 24 2011, 11:27 AM)
Referring to comments on Autofoam, for those of you who have not done it, you need to be very clear of what effect Autofoam will have for your ride.
Autofoam on the chassis will no doubt give you the following benefits -
- better NVH on highway speed, wind turbulence noise can be reduced with foam filled chassis vs. hollow chassis.
- slightly better handling.
- increased rigidness of chassis / reduce the chassis flex.
But there is a negative effect on your ride comfort, for a Vios, your creamy smooth ride quality on soft sprung absorber will be affected.
Some people may believe and say that Autofoam gives you continental car feeling like BMW, I would not say its not true,...but its only partially true, let me put it this way -
- over certain road conditions, for example highways,...or freeway type of smoother roads with smoothly tarred connection on different road levels, then yes,...you can feel the firmness of the ride, abit BMW like because your car's feeling over such smooth bumps are more direct and less squat.
- However, if you are to go to some town roads, with alot of small bumps on left, right of the road,...your ride is gonna suffer badly,...it is gonna feel too "busy"...quite alot worse than before foaming.
Or if you go thru lots of ripples on the road,...you will suffer more vibrations,...basically the ride is harsher.Therefore, the notion of autofoam making your car feels continental is only partly true,...there is a negative side to the ride quality as well.
In conclusion, doing autofoam makes you realise that how much your chassis flex before doing foaming. But, a chassis flex is not always a bad thing, depending on how you look at it. If you are sporty driver placing top priority over ride comfort, by all means you can consider autofoam.
For our conventional cars, chassis flexibility is actually an extension of the bump and road uneveness absorption, thus improving ride quality.
1. It had been argued that autofoam or chassis stiffening improves ride quality because a stiff chassis forces the absorber to work harder to absorb the bump. This is true that the absorber probably works harder and absorbs more bump. However, a car with original absorber and chassis flex configuration still rides more comfortable on most road conditions.
Why? You can imagine this -
Scenario 1, original car chassis flex with original absorber = one mattress (or something similar) placed over 4 springs at different end.
Scenario 2, Autofoamed chassis with original absorber = a very stiff plank placed over 4 springs.
Both have plank and mattress have similar weight, when there is energy forced from spring to plank,...it needs to work harder to absorb the impact from below because the plank is stiff. While for the mattress, the spring works less when there is impact from below. But when you sit on the middle of the plank you feel more movements compared to sitting on the mattress.
What does this mean? A flexing mattress will be more comfortable than the stiff plank to sit on even though the spring works harder on the plank.
It is not true flexible chassis causes discomfort to the ride, you are sitting in the middle of the car,...the flex is more on the both ends of the car at front and read wheel,....just like the mattress.
So more or less you guys understand what autofoam does?
I don't have anything against autofoam, I just want you guys to be very clear of the effect because it is not reversible once you do it.
For guys who place very high priority on ride comfort, they regret doing autofoam even though it helps to reduce noise level to a certain extent. You can check out some random displeasures out there in Autoworld forum.
What i am commenting is on normal mainstream cars like Vios, City and so on.
Some could argue that stiffer chassis is definitely better because all the car manufacturers like BMW is increase the stiffness for newer model. But you need to understand that when the engineer of Honda or Toyota perform suspension R&D test on the Vios, it is based on such flexible chassis, so if you stiffen the chassis, it throws out the perfect original comfort setting, the absorber would not work as well for comfort anymore.
BMWs and Merc are different, they are heavy cars,...and they want handling performance as well as comfort,...for these cars, their ideology to achieve this is to stiffen up the chassis,...to optimize for handling and comfort,..and their suspension tuning is based on such chassis stiffness.
Autofoam on the chassis will no doubt give you the following benefits -
- better NVH on highway speed, wind turbulence noise can be reduced with foam filled chassis vs. hollow chassis.
- slightly better handling.
- increased rigidness of chassis / reduce the chassis flex.
But there is a negative effect on your ride comfort, for a Vios, your creamy smooth ride quality on soft sprung absorber will be affected.
Some people may believe and say that Autofoam gives you continental car feeling like BMW, I would not say its not true,...but its only partially true, let me put it this way -
- over certain road conditions, for example highways,...or freeway type of smoother roads with smoothly tarred connection on different road levels, then yes,...you can feel the firmness of the ride, abit BMW like because your car's feeling over such smooth bumps are more direct and less squat.
- However, if you are to go to some town roads, with alot of small bumps on left, right of the road,...your ride is gonna suffer badly,...it is gonna feel too "busy"...quite alot worse than before foaming.
Or if you go thru lots of ripples on the road,...you will suffer more vibrations,...basically the ride is harsher.Therefore, the notion of autofoam making your car feels continental is only partly true,...there is a negative side to the ride quality as well.
In conclusion, doing autofoam makes you realise that how much your chassis flex before doing foaming. But, a chassis flex is not always a bad thing, depending on how you look at it. If you are sporty driver placing top priority over ride comfort, by all means you can consider autofoam.
For our conventional cars, chassis flexibility is actually an extension of the bump and road uneveness absorption, thus improving ride quality.
1. It had been argued that autofoam or chassis stiffening improves ride quality because a stiff chassis forces the absorber to work harder to absorb the bump. This is true that the absorber probably works harder and absorbs more bump. However, a car with original absorber and chassis flex configuration still rides more comfortable on most road conditions.
Why? You can imagine this -
Scenario 1, original car chassis flex with original absorber = one mattress (or something similar) placed over 4 springs at different end.
Scenario 2, Autofoamed chassis with original absorber = a very stiff plank placed over 4 springs.
Both have plank and mattress have similar weight, when there is energy forced from spring to plank,...it needs to work harder to absorb the impact from below because the plank is stiff. While for the mattress, the spring works less when there is impact from below. But when you sit on the middle of the plank you feel more movements compared to sitting on the mattress.
What does this mean? A flexing mattress will be more comfortable than the stiff plank to sit on even though the spring works harder on the plank.
It is not true flexible chassis causes discomfort to the ride, you are sitting in the middle of the car,...the flex is more on the both ends of the car at front and read wheel,....just like the mattress.
So more or less you guys understand what autofoam does?
I don't have anything against autofoam, I just want you guys to be very clear of the effect because it is not reversible once you do it.
For guys who place very high priority on ride comfort, they regret doing autofoam even though it helps to reduce noise level to a certain extent. You can check out some random displeasures out there in Autoworld forum.
What i am commenting is on normal mainstream cars like Vios, City and so on.
Some could argue that stiffer chassis is definitely better because all the car manufacturers like BMW is increase the stiffness for newer model. But you need to understand that when the engineer of Honda or Toyota perform suspension R&D test on the Vios, it is based on such flexible chassis, so if you stiffen the chassis, it throws out the perfect original comfort setting, the absorber would not work as well for comfort anymore.
BMWs and Merc are different, they are heavy cars,...and they want handling performance as well as comfort,...for these cars, their ideology to achieve this is to stiffen up the chassis,...to optimize for handling and comfort,..and their suspension tuning is based on such chassis stiffness.
I salute your explanation bro. This is very true. I think autofoam have many package too from normal undercarriage til the whole car. Your explanation apply to all foam on the market. I did my own car, firstly the undercarriage and then the whole car (not autofoam , but my own stuff) . The undercarriage does improve alot for NVH on my small kenari and handling does improve slightly. I got greedy and did the A pillar and D pillar , and like you said, lose out on comfort but performance is very very impressive. At a 360degree turn (roundabout) the car no long fish tail and i can throttle faster without feeling the car will overturn itself. Impressive i would say . Its like i had installed tons of stabilizer bar at the front and rear. It was worth it. For RM199 undercarriage , you cant go wrong.
To foam the whole car, you guys better not regret as its really feels like a track car (i love it! but my wife and kids nagging about the bumpiness after the A pillar and D pillar).
MY opinion is to just do the undercarriage would be more then enough. comfort and performance in a package.
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If we start promoting another type of foam with a proper brand name, marketing, reviews, etc then it will eventually become popular. It's just like Michelin VS Continental tyres. On the other hand, I don't think the foam is from Wurth (at least what I have been told when I foamed my car years ago was something else).
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