Locating the instant center

[BillyShope]

Many of you locate the instant center as being so many inches forward of the rear axle centerline and so many inches up from the strip surface.

Nothing wrong with this, of course, but I would encourage you to take a look at another way of doing it:

http://www.racetec.cc/shope/tim.44.htm

[ojh]

That is all relative smoke and mirrors why change an abstraction that everybody relates to with another abstration when all concepts are theoritical and none of them explain nor take into account the fact that it is the ring gear that transmits all this energy into the car - the tire is just there, it is the effect not the cause. But it doesn't really matter does it since we can predict what will occur when a suspension change is made, who really cares about the thoertical physics. Think i'm wrong? Take the tire off and bolt the rear hub to the starting like with a huge 'L' bracket and lauch the car - it won't go anywhere, it is bolted right? Guess what, it'll react exactly as if there is a tire and it is moving, the chassis doen't lknow if there is a tire there or not, the forces are applied thru the ring gear into the housing to the bracketry.
I generally keep my mouth shut when people start discussing chassis geometry, none of it really matters as long as we can understand what each other is talking about right?