http://www.motoiq.com/magazine_articles/ar...onda-s2000.aspx

[QUOTE]The cage in line with typical Japanese practice is pretty minimal.

 

isn't mike kojima a contributing editor for road & track magazine or something like that? name sounds familiar.

i read the 4 page article and the comments, and it doesn't necessarily seem like he is bashing the car that badly, though he does make a bigger issue by saying that autocrossing is not a difficult or legitimate motorsport. also, he makes mention of jdm tuners desiring more chassis flex in order to better utilize suspension/grip, but i was under the impression that jdm tuners were quite the opposite. stitch welding is hardcore and they spring their cars so heavily compared to euro/usdm counterparts.

in any case, it's awesome to see a naturally aspirated s2000 competing successfully with turbo monsters.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Kojima

 

repost:

https://www.s2ki.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=797087

 

Yeah I saw the story there. I posted it here to show everybody what American tuners are doing using JDM parts for racing and because the article talked a lot about the alleged Japanese philosophies of chassis and suspension tuning.

In the Racing forum they seemed to be more concerned with how the car is doing. Don't get me wrong, I am very interested in that, and I'm happy for N1 Concepts. But I posted it here because I was wondering what people thought as far as his statements about Japanese tuners and their philosophy/expertise at suspension and chassis design.

 

Well, I'll address the three points you brought up.

1) It's underpowered: It's unlimited class, yeah, it's underpowered. The only reason it was even close at Vegas is because that track is a relatively slow/handling course. If it were Cal Speedway, forget it. Also, it lost to GST by 3 seconds IIRC, which is an enternity. GST is a big hitter, but not the biggest, SSE and FXMD are faster. In the MotoGP qualifying for Laguna Seca today, the entire field of 17 bikes was separated by less than 3 seconds, 1:20-1:23 range.

2) Building a cage to the min spec of a class, not overbuilt: at Superlap in Australia, I think a few of the Japanese teams had to add to their cages and safety setups in order to be allowed to race. And safety is not an area to skimp. In one of the recent Formula Drift events, the cage of one of the cars was built 'enough' to be allowed to race, but not really well built. There was no real protection around the driver footbox area. Well, that car went into the wall, the wheel/tire penetrated the cockpit and broke the driver's leg. You think they'll build a better cage next time?

3) Japanese chassis/suspension: So they stitch/seam weld the entire chassis and then swisscheese the whole thing. So they weld to make the chassis stiffer, but then cut out a lot of sheet metal making it weaker... The suspensoin names at the very top level of motorsports are Ohlins, Sachs, Penske, Koni, and Moton. Even at moderate levels, go for a ride in a tuner car with Motons or KWs even. They tend to ride much better and maintain better grip than their Japanese suspension counterparts. I don't know if there is a real Japanese suspension company besides Showa?

 

Good points. A lot of what you said sounds like it is just parroting what Kojima said, though.

(1) As far as being underpowered, we all agree it is underpowered. Kojima said it didn't stand a chance in unlimited class because it was so underpowered, and obviously it is competitive. It was faster than FXMD at Vegas. Being competitive doesn't mean they have to win every race, it means that overall they have to be competitive. It's their first season in Redline Time Attack, and I think that most teams would be very happy to be sitting where they are in their first season, regardless of power.

(2) It is true that safety is not an area to skimp. I would not consider drifting to be racing at all, and I would not consider drift teams to be anything close to a race team or group of professional engineers, so hearing that a drift car has a substandard cage is not surprising. As far as safety in general though, there are many times where I've seen the cage on a Japanese car save a life. Like both times that carbon EVO went into the wall at Tsukuba for example. And back to specifically talking about the N1 Concepts car, the cage was not only built to spec, it was actually built stronger than spec and had a full fire system (which is not required in Redline). It is sad that some teams do skimp on cage design though, I am disappointed to hear about that. Do you remember which teams had to add to the cages?

(3) As far as "swiss cheesing" the whole thing, that is not the full story. They weld in bracing around the car and then cut out the non-essential stock sheet metal. Essentially, the goal is to build a full tubular chassis. The extra sheet metal becomes extra weight because they already build a full, stronger chassis out of higher quality tubular steel. The Japanese are not the only tuners to do this, they just trickle it down more. As far as suspension, I will agree that those names are at the top of motorsports, but so are a few Japanese brands (Showa, Crux, and Mugen all design or have designed suspension for the top levels of motorsports). And there are many other companies (Japanese and otherwise) who have companies like Ohlins and Sachs manufacture suspensions to their specs. It doesn't mean that their design capability is years behind Ohlins and Sachs, it means it is more economically advantageous for them to hire the production out.

 

1) Well, two points of view on being competitive: based on time or position. Based on time, the N1 car is way off. Based on position, it did well at Vegas, helped by the no-show of SSE and the break of FXMD.

2) While drifting isn't racing, it still hurts when you hit a concrete wall at 80mph. IIRC, the N1 car's caged is beefed up by the American team after they got it from the Japanese team.

3) On the swiss cheese, I understand what you are saying. You add in the cavet that a full tubular chassis is the goal, making the sheet metal unnecessary. I would agree IF the car had a full tubular chassis/significant tubular bracing. However, they often do not from what I've seen. I remember a white S2000 in Sport Compact Car a long time ago from some big Japanese tuner that swiss cheesed the entire car. However, no tube frame. It's a thing of someone doing something because some big team did it, but not understanding really what was going on.

It's the same with the Japanese tuners as it is the American tuners; a few do it right, most don't. There's a mentality built into our Import culture that JDM anything is better, and that's not true anymore. The cars being built by US teams are as good or better than the best of Japan. In general, the US teams build in better safety too, IMO.

 

Are you referring to the Opera S2000?

From what engineering/racing experience/background do you come from to claim the inadequate safety/rigidity of these cars?

 

Did the Opera S2000 have a tube chassis per zbrewha's assertion that cars that do that swiss cheese technique utilize tubular chassis to supplant the stock unibody? It's been years since I've seen pics of that car, but I don't recall it having any type of tubular reinforcement; I could be wrong of course.

Background? BS and MS in Mech E, done some relatively simple FEA work, been tracking cars for over a decade, and while I don't race personally, I know plenty of guys that do including a few guys that have destroyed their cars in accidents on track. I also helped build the first of the two Scion tCs that race in World Challenge. I've had the opportunity to observe a few pure touring car race cars up close. And I try to stay somewhat up to speed with what's going on in racing in general.

The issue of safety isn't exactly rocket science. Compare the cage in a touring car like from World Challenge, DTM, Super GT, FIA GT1, etc and then compare to some of these time attack cars. It's not hard to see which cars are better built. If you want to see a super serious cage, WRC cars. I got to see some of those cars up close at WRC Germany a few years back.