Prodrive Active Shock

  • Thread starter Goomba
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Goomba

Goomba

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Prodrive is putting out a new shock for the WRX. It's not released yet, but the snippet about in Sport Compact Car made them sounds impressive. I'll give a quick synopsis.

This is all done by a computer and a sensor, giving it the capability to change the valving in the damper up to 1,000 times a second.

"Think of a system that can recognize when you're entereing a turn and momentarily stuffen compression damping on the outside front and rebound on the inside front to improve turn-in, then switch to a more rear-biased stiffness profile for the rest of the turn to help the car rotate." (Sport Compact Car, March 2004. "The 20 Best New Things at the Sema Show"; page 28.)

It sounds awsome. A bit pricey (target is less than $3,000 USD) but you knew that as soon as I said computer and shock, didn't ya'?

How does this compare with other state-of-the-art suspensions? Your thoughts on it? Would you get it over a pair of Koni's because of the price difference?

Discuss!
 
Originally posted by Goomba
A bit pricey (target is less than $3,000 USD)
Click to expand...

Heheh, that's more than my whole car cost :)

The 50th anniversary corvette has that magnaride suspension, I'm not exactly sure what it's purpose was.
 
Sounds exactly like the Corvette's Magnetic Selective Ride Control, which is a Delphi product. Car and Driver did a great test a little while ago comparing a C5 with base suspension, MSRC, Z-51 and the Z06.

After the dust settled, the MSRC was almost as fast as the hardcore Z-51 car, which was only a little slower than the Z06, when they were all equiped with the same wheel/tire package. But apparently, the MSRC car rode really, really well when you're just tooling around.

It sounds like these systems don't offer any better performance than a traditional system that's been setup to extremes. But it allows the car to approach the capabilities of more hardcore suspension setups without punishing the occupants. This is a good thing.

BMW has a system called Active Roll Stabilization, which performs the same function, but using sway bars instead of shock valving. When the car is traveling straight ahead, both bars have no tension, allowing bumps to get soaked up nicely. When you turn the wheel, the computer makes a small motor twist the bars, mimiking very stiff sway bars giving the car really, really strong roll resistance. A 530i can pull .90g on the skidpad with this system (better than a 350Z and close to the Evo), and still ride like a BMW should.

I think these systems are great for street cars and can give you the best of both worlds. I see this sort of thing eventually 'trickling down' to less expensive cars and becoming accessible by everyone.


///M-Spec
 
Thanks for the feedback guys.

I don't know what I would go for. I would suppose that with all of the calculations and such it would take a bit longer than normal race suspensions to react. But the not having to adjust any struts, or change suspensions, or anything like that, and have your cake and eat it too..... I imagine my driving skills aren't that great to the point where the shocks would limit me. So, if I had an extra $3k laying around and a WRX, I imagine I would get them. How about you guys?

Wow!!! That seems like an awsome idea from BMW. 0.90g ties the Evolution 8 and WRX STi in the roadhandling capabilities.

:lol: The GTR has ATESSA, it only gets one cool thing!
 
Originally posted by ///M-Spec
It sounds like these systems don't offer any better performance than a traditional system that's been setup to extremes. But it allows the car to approach the capabilities of more hardcore suspension setups without punishing the occupants. This is a good thing.
Click to expand...
Actually, GRM just did a test on the prototype WRX system, and they loved it, although it was not quite dialled in. They said it made the 2002 base model WRX handle as well as a new Sti, and in fact modulated weight transfer better. The GRM guys were quite enthusiastic about it.
 

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