front kick-up, why? what?

[Lowie]

as said in the title ...
I have a buggy and can choose for a 25 or 30° kickup-part in the front.
What will be the benefit or downside of more kickup (or less) .. and thus when should one use more kickup and when less?

thx

[Welshy40]

2wd or 4wd?

If 4wd the less works better as ive found that to be the biggest cause of my set up problems.

If 2wd im guessing but the ruttier the track the better more kick will aid the balance and jumping and landing. Try both and see which suits your style of driving.

Id be interested to find out whats better.

[dodgydiy]

i remember less kick up on my fab 2000 giving more steering, but isnt changing the kick up essentially the same as changing the caster, apart from possibly the change in wheelbase under compression changes too

[DCM]

It changes the caster (which affects the amount of turn in, mid corner and exit), but it also alters the angles of the wishbones approach to an obstacle... what it actually does, in terms of handling, apart from the above affect, I have no idea.

[Lowie]

I drive a 2WD buggy.
Wasn't aware it would make a difference between a 2WD and a 4WD-car

[Welshy40]

4wd can cause handling issues with a lot of kick up and you may have to redesign the width on the front and rear and also move the weight to get better balance. Its like having a totally different car so can be a problem.

[MRD]

With more kickup a 2wd car will ride better over obsticals. With a 4wd the front wheels drag the car over bumps but with 2wd the car is pushed into them, so the suspension has to work in two ways, one to take out the up and down but also the forward impact. With no kickup if you hit a blunt object most the force would try to move the arms back so the wishbones would hardly move and the car wouldn't ride the bump and either flick up or dig in. With kickup the arms can move back aswell as up and the bump is absorbed better.

The downside of kickup is that you get front end dive when braking with the front wheels, which isn't a problem with 2wd but with a 4wd when you bang on the brakes the front would dip and you get alot of forward weight transfer.

[Colinevan]

I remember years ago on my cougar 2, you could put spacers to alter the kickup and the angle of the shock tower... I broke the bulkhead once and had stripped the plastics meaning it would not tighten down. All i had for a repair was large wood screws and big spacers that were like 5mm compared to the 1mm ones. I fitted to simply take up the screw thread and it made the wishbones virtually horizontal with the chassis with no kickup.

Racing indoors on carpet, it made the car have loads more turn in from slow to medium power and easier to drive in my opinion. Never drove it anywhere else though so cant comment. Maybe one of the pros' can explain why.

HTH

Col.