Unsprung Weight - Honda Prelude Forum

paulyg · 10-02-2007, 07:03 PM

Has anyone taken the time to measure the weight of suspension components on a 4th or 5th gen? Control arms, radius rods, uprights, calipers, rotors, caliper brackets, etc? Any of the above as an assembly? Billy? Todd? Vince?

I'm just curious. I was playing around with a spring/swaybar rate spreadsheet for my Miata and it has all these weights in it so you can factor that into the natural frequency and roll rate calculations. It would be nice to have something similar for the Prelude.

71dsp · 10-02-2007, 07:34 PM

I could probably do it sometime during the silly season, as I need to check the condition of all the sphericals in my suspension, but I have no data right now.

sr73087 · 10-02-2007, 08:37 PM

it would be nice if someone made some lightweight aftermarket components

Daemione · 10-03-2007, 09:33 AM

The radius arms on an SH weigh 8 pounds, 7.6 oz. each . . . but that's all I got.

How does one determine how much of that is unsprung? I've heard the "roughly half" thing thrown around, but that seems somewhat arbitrary. Would you need to bolt them up on the chassis end & use a force gauge to see how much it takes to lift them?

paulyg · 10-05-2007, 07:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daemione

How does one determine how much of that is unsprung? I've heard the "roughly half" thing thrown around, but that seems somewhat arbitrary. Would you need to bolt them up on the chassis end & use a force gauge to see how much it takes to lift them?

Take the weight and divide by two is good enough for all except maybe F1. The end that is closer to the ground will have more weight on it. Plus the shape of the part comes into play. But most of the suspension arms are "close to" horizontal and the weight on the outboard end is going to change as it arms moves through it's motion. So the 10%, 20 at the most, deviation from the half rule on a heavy 8lb control arm ends up being .4-.8 lbs. I think most of the weight is from the upright/hub/bearing/rotor/caliper assembly and the wheel/tire.

71dsp · 10-13-2007, 09:31 AM

I can probably get you some data during the off season, if you're interested. I need to get a more accurate scale, though.

paulyg · 10-24-2007, 02:12 PM

If you happen to be taking apart a corner and can weigh the components or assembly that would be great. But don't go through any extra lengths.