Suspension: Falcon or Commodore

brendan24688 · 19-01-2006, 08:35 PM

I am a member of a mates nissan site and we are arguing about who has the better suspension set up BF Falcon or VZ Commodore.

"lol you have only got 1 thing of interest to me that i wanna stick in me. the falcon got rated fairly high for handling in Motor Magazine, not very far off holden at all, so you, the Ex-Repco employee, know more about a cars handling than the professionals. just cos you got a grudge on anything with 4 doors"

That was a quote from one of the members. In not the ex-repco empolyee either, this was in resopnse to another post.

brendan24688 · 19-01-2006, 08:51 PM

lol i already replied to that

I bleed ford · 21-01-2006, 06:36 PM

holden seems to refuse to innovate (what new?) you hit a kerb at 60kph in both andsee what happens..my mates vs hit atlike 30 and needed comprehensive work...even the pan hard rod snapped! ford is better

'63Deluxe · 21-01-2006, 07:20 PM

Quote:

holden cant even get stock springs to fit the stock struts properley either - the springs are too small in diameter and can move about in the strut, which in a lot of occasions causes the spring to touch the outside of the spring holder, making a low "boing" noise over bumps.

Thats why my VY clunks comming to my driveway

:

Yes - I know I shouldn't have bought one - anybody want to buy it

_2:

Redrum · 21-01-2006, 11:31 PM

The VZ ploughs like every commodore does from at least VT onwards!!! terrible understeer!! A lot of clunkng from the front end too...........

vztrt · 22-01-2006, 10:31 AM

The Commo IRS is a 16yo system thats pretty sub par. If you have ever drivin one it's better than a live axel setup but the car dosn't like to grip to the road, especially when using the original holden tyres.

The BA's IRS was actually developed by Jag and than engineered onto the car. This setup is actually more modern and the car grips well in all situations and woint kick out like the Holden equivalent.

But the new VE wis meant to have a new IRS system so until than the Falcon IMO has the better setup than the commodore.

Swordie · 22-01-2006, 11:01 AM

From the VXII onwards the suspension performed ok most cars. I have a VY wagon with FE2 (sports suspension) and 16 inch wheels. I got 70,000km out of a set of tyres. The Holden’s suspension roughly weighs 150Kg less than the BA. Fords would probably handle better in certain circumstances. For the average driver they would hardly know the difference.

Pre VXII cars with a sportier setup had a tendency to scrub the inside of tyres. I waited for the VY so I didn't have the issues of the older cars. Overall I'm very happy with the way the car handles and the life I get out of tyres. Any exotic that handles better will use tyres at a faster rate.

vztrt · 22-01-2006, 11:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swordie

Pre VXII cars with a sportier setup had a tendency to scrub the inside of tyres. I waited for the VY so I didn't have the issues of the older cars. Overall I'm very happy with the way the car handles and the life I get out of tyres. Any exotic that handles better will use tyres at a faster rate.

The issue of the tyres being scrubbed was reduced when holden added suspension upgrade to the vxii but it didn't stop the problem. There are still many commos that do this.

Casper · 22-01-2006, 11:06 AM

2 words.. Mcpherson Struts

Whoever designed these into a full size rwd family car is an idiot. Give me the Ford double wishbone setup any day of the week.

Quote:

The McPherson strut is fitted to many post 1980 cars and pre 80 European cars and is a very compact suspension unit for smaller to medium cars and very suitable for front wheel drive cars for larger cars however it lacks structural and torsional strength to this point the strut is closer to the sporting end of the suspension market.

http://www.users.bigpond.com/jack_st.../struts_1.html

vztrt · 22-01-2006, 11:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Casper

2 words.. Mcpherson Struts

Whoever designed these into a full size rwd family car is an idiot. Give me the Ford double wishbone setup any day of the week.

Well the commo irs was developed from the calibra.

347Stroker · 22-01-2006, 11:18 AM

The Short/Long arm front suspension set up is vastly superior to the Pogo Stick strut in the commodore.
Even the Commodore V8 supercar boys winged about how much better the Ford set up was, so now they run the Ford front suspension.

OzJavelin · 22-01-2006, 11:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vztrt

The issue of the tyres being scrubbed was reduced when holden added suspension upgrade to the vxii but it didn't stop the problem. There are still many commos that do this.

.. and like Swordie, my VY1 got 70,000 out of a SET of tyres .. the only reason I changed them was 'cos it was going out of lease and I want new ones before then. Alternatively I've seen a LOT of Falcons with scrubbed out front tyres 'cos they go out alignment real easy. Both camps have issues I'd say ..

gmhdriver · 22-01-2006, 09:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 347stroker

The Short/Long arm front suspension set up is vastly superior to the Pogo Stick strut in the commodore.
Even the Commodore V8 supercar boys winged about how much better the Ford set up was, so now they run the Ford front suspension.

That is not the case at all, the Commodore V8 supercars were dominating when they were using mc pherson struts and I don't see why the Holden teams would've complained if the system was working well. It was only due to the parity laws that Holden changed to wishbone front suspension.

clampy · 22-01-2006, 09:27 PM

^ "It was only due to the parity laws that Holden changed to wishbone front suspension."

true, but the only benefit to sticking to mac struts would be not having to put r+d dollars into the change.. for so many reasons, dubby wishy is better, simply put. to be a smart ***, id say look at the front of an F1 car.

anyhoo, best front end sussy design between commo n falc is the BA/F.

the actual setup is subjective. (soft/hard handling/compliance+ride)

im not saying X car is better, its just that falc has had more money spent for R+D on it recently. read motor mag and listen to them complain about ride/front end scrubbing in the commo. look at the captions on the pics of the tyres of XRx falcon and S somethingsomething commodore.. como fronts are killed, falc fronts look fine.. yet, the falc is sprung softly so only performs 9/10ths of the commo.. but the commo has 7/10s of the falcs ride.. without going into much more depth, the current falc sussy outperforms the current(soon to be replaced remember) commos sussy.. its just been tuned for a different primary aim, so on a track its slower.

clampy · 22-01-2006, 09:30 PM

a great test of sussy was the wheels(boring magazine alert!) safety test.. the falc n tezza did amazing on the wet lateral loading test..

maybe it was tyres, but as far as i know wet handling is more sussy dependant than dry.

im not sayin this to be pro-ford.. just wait till the VE comes out.. it'l raise the bar, or at the very least, even it all up again..