IIRC = If I Remember Correctly.

 

If you stiffen the car in roll you will transfer more weight to the outside. This will reduce the overall grip of the car, because of the mechanism I described.

That is what we were talking about, right? Like I said before, you had described the effect correctly, but you just had the wrong explanation for why it happens.

 

Actually Mike now that I am thinking about it, what you are saying goes against everything that I have learned and is in fact the opposite of what I described.

A softer suspension will yield better grip bottom line so we must be referring to two different things?

YGPM in a moment

 

No, we are talking about the same thing. And yes, the bottom line is that a softer suspension will yield more grip.

But the reason for this is that even though there will be more body roll there will actually be less weight transfer.

Like I said, check it out in the books.

 

Alright, YGPM

 

How far is Fontana from you dyhppy?

It is about an hour and a half away from me.

 

When you stiffen the chassis you remove (some of) the chassis flex as a component of the "suspension". (A1GP cars use taller sidewall tires as part of their suspension flex)

This means you effectively stiffen the suspension rate.

Stiffening the chassis does not in and of itself reduce your traction in any way shape or form! It DOES give you a more stable platform that has a more repeatable suspension set up.

Now a stiffer suspension can reduce your traction in a particular situation or road surface so softening your spring rate can buy you more rough surface compliance. The ability to run softer springs is a big plus to a stiffer chassis.

By your rationale putting higher rate springs would reduce your traction.

 

And guess what? It does. Within limits, all else being equal. But all else is usually not equal (typically you go to wider and stickier tires).

 

You are right, it would reduce your traction but you will attempt to compensate in other areas... Tires!

 

Yes, of course there are limits to suspension tuning and my point was that yes, there is a point where a car can be made too stiff.

I guess that I wasn't clear because I began switching from one point to another without being clear. I also did not mention various track characteristics intentionally.

It just seems to me that when adding particular components such as those that the OP mentioned that you will be placing loads on other areas and that will lead to undesired issues in the future. A chassis needs to have some flex to aid the suspension but of course when it comes to tuning and setups, there is no single solution. Although this would be taking this thread to a whole new level.