Lane Change / Swerve Test - Tips

[alien]

Hey guys

Well, the time has come where my engineer is asking me to perform a miracle and make my zuk pass the "lane change test"...

110km/hr swerve through cones under no brakes or acceleration.

My setup is SPOA with 31's - total ride height is 9" over stock (including tyres). Running Speedy desert rat 15x7 rims and cooper STTs.

Anyone got any tips on things that will improve my chances?

Im thinking things like what tyre pressure to run? its running 20 on road but then doing a swerve manouvre i'd be best going to 35psi???, should i lock the front hubs so it slows down quicker on its own (more resistance on the wheel)???

All advice is welcome guys - this is a bias test invented to make life extremely hard, so i want every little edge i can get...

[dank]

improve your chances of surviving? Wear a helmet

Will the zook even get up to 110km/h? Mine does but it takes it time!

I run 32psi in my swampers on road and it handles pretty well almost better than my 31" MT-117 extremes when i had them.

How soft are your shocks? if you have adjustable ranchos crank them right up!

maybe whack in a few extra load leaves in your spring pack to stiffen your suspension if you have room on your u-bolts and locating pin.

I guess to improve stability you need to minimise body roll, sidewall distortion in your tyres and increase your luck! good luck...

[bazooked]

how quick can u build and exo?

[mrw82]

all i can say is good luck..................... getting up to 110 ! ! !

[Highway-Star]

Practice?

Drive the vehicle (if you can), and get to 'feel' it. Do not go unprepared, or not sure.

Have you seen the manouvre you will have to perform yet?

[MART]

Put your swaybar back on if you removed it , good luck , Cheers Paul.

[Drew]

As far as i was aware their driver does it not the owner,
also apparently the last model navara coudn't pass the swerve test stock??

[alien]

thanks guys... yeah luck is where its at! ahha

110 isnt a problem - i've got 5.14 tcase and a 1.6 with weber carb... she flies.

swaybar mounts are all gone during the process of the build (running hilux leaves).

Ill definitely crank up the tyre pressure.

Shocks are valved for zuk but quite firm - still need a kidney belt to go over speed bumps!

I've got the paperwork on how the test is to be arranged, but theres no where i can set it up to try it out... the zuk is more stable going around corners than my mazda 323 sedan - where the sedan bodyrolls and understeers the zuk spins the inside back wheel and soldiers on... lol

do you reckon having the hubs locked would slow the zuk down faster? i know it creates more rolling resistance, so it should in theory, but would it be noticeable???

[Drew]

hubs locked in probably won't do much but you can give it a go.

got the specs for the test ??.. can you put them up for us,might be a bit more help..

[Sarge]

I don't think locking the hubs is a good idea . For one, spinning a lifted front shaft at high speed is a bad thing , the added drag on the front end will probably cause more rear tire lift than usual too .

Let me get this straight-
Some bloke is going to do a lane-changing high speed maneuver in someone else's vehicle to satisfy an engineer? What if he crashes and burns ? Who pays?
That's the craziest thing I've ever heard , although I'm sure mine would handle it despite 8" of lift , very soft suspension and 33's . It can do things like that, it just isn't pretty .Hell, mine will outhandle most cars just due to the 12.5" wide tires and light weight .

You could install some limiting straps at each spring perch to keep the body roll down too...
Sarge

[alien]

i do have the specs, heres how it works:

6 sections, first one is width of car*1.1 and 30m long, 2nd is 25m and 1.2*car, 3rd is 15m adn 1.3*car, lastly is 15m and 1.3*car. The offset of the cones is 3.5m, so you're effectively doing an "(" manouvre. Section 1 is 30m of cones in a straight line, section 2 is the gap and 3.5m offset, section 3 is the next 15m of cones, section 4 is the gap and 3.5m followed by another line of cones to stay inside of.

So imagine you're on a 2 lane highway in the right lane, you avoid an obstacle in the right lane by swerving into the left, but theres another in the left so you swerve right again to get back on course. like this:

________******______

Its also tested under 2 conditions of load, empty mass plus the driver weighing at least 68kg... if the driver is less then additional weight is added. the other is 68kg multiplied by the number of seats plus 7kg by the number of seats. so for a zuk thats 75kg in the passengers foot well.

Now, if it passes all that, theres still a chance it can fail!!!!

The driver can say "that was too hard to control" and re-test the vehicle, possibly causing it to touch a cone and fail.

Like i said - its a biased test!

EDIT: to answer Sarge - last year the driver rolled a vehicle and was sued by the owner... the onwer lost the court case. It a stupid system - but if you want your vehicle insured and legal to drive on-road its what you have to do. At the very least, for me its an interesting excercise!

[NIK]

Sucks! By the sound of it they are making the owner jump through hoops to impress someone thats probly never driven a properly modded vehicle only to have them fail because "modified vehicles shouldnt be on the road".
Reminds me of when I had my coily they would let me lift it 3inches (atleast 2inches cant remember) and run 30" tyres but wouldnt let me run 7' rims as it "widens the track"
Thats the whole point isnt it to conteract the lift!
Nik

[GRPABT1]

I'd be putting as many leaves in the front springs as possible before doing this.

[grimbo]

if you can get them to tell when you would need to swerve between cones on a highway at 110km/h I would be surprised. That is just a recipe for disaster and I can't believe it is a requirement at that sort of speed. I could understand it at a lower speed like 60 - 80 but 110 is just ridiculous.

[sierrajim]

our engineer is signing your car off with the sway bar removed?

Most engineers i've ever had anything to do with would simply state that if it had a sway bar before it needs one now, regardless of spring changes.

[alien]

yeah - its wholey and soley made to make vehicles fail... i dont know about you guys but when something has to be avoided like that my first instinct is to plow through it.... cos at 110km/hr the only thing thats going to need avoiding like that is a roo.

remember those videos from the american consumer group vs. suzuki? when they were trying to make a stock zuk roll to prove it was unsafe? Its pretty much that manouvre... on the plus side i have a CAMS driver driving my zuk and he's done MANY of these manouvres in MANY lifted 4wd's... so he brings experience to the table at least.

[cj]

http://www.transport.sa.gov.au/pdfs/per ... change.pdf

[St Jimmy]

Best of luck bro may the zook gods look after you.

[smooooth]

Hey guys

Well, the time has come where my engineer is asking me to perform a miracle and make my zuk pass the "lane change test"...

110km/hr swerve through cones under no brakes or acceleration.

My setup is SPOA with 31's - total ride height is 9" over stock (including tyres). Running Speedy desert rat 15x7 rims and cooper STTs.

Anyone got any tips on things that will improve my chances?

Im thinking things like what tyre pressure to run? its running 20 on road but then doing a swerve manouvre i'd be best going to 35psi???, should i lock the front hubs so it slows down quicker on its own (more resistance on the wheel)???

All advice is welcome guys - this is a bias test invented to make life extremely hard, so i want every little edge i can get...

Put the shortest shocks you can on it so you limit the down travel that will help a lot.

[bazooked]

Hey guys

Well, the time has come where my engineer is asking me to perform a miracle and make my zuk pass the "lane change test"...

110km/hr swerve through cones under no brakes or acceleration.

My setup is SPOA with 31's - total ride height is 9" over stock (including tyres). Running Speedy desert rat 15x7 rims and cooper STTs.

Anyone got any tips on things that will improve my chances?

Im thinking things like what tyre pressure to run? its running 20 on road but then doing a swerve manouvre i'd be best going to 35psi???, should i lock the front hubs so it slows down quicker on its own (more resistance on the wheel)???

All advice is welcome guys - this is a bias test invented to make life extremely hard, so i want every little edge i can get...

Put the shortest shocks you can on it so you limit the down travel that will help a lot.

all he has got to do is weld the shafts at ride height so they cant move

[sierrajim]

Hey guys

Well, the time has come where my engineer is asking me to perform a miracle and make my zuk pass the "lane change test"...

110km/hr swerve through cones under no brakes or acceleration.

My setup is SPOA with 31's - total ride height is 9" over stock (including tyres). Running Speedy desert rat 15x7 rims and cooper STTs.

Anyone got any tips on things that will improve my chances?

Im thinking things like what tyre pressure to run? its running 20 on road but then doing a swerve manouvre i'd be best going to 35psi???, should i lock the front hubs so it slows down quicker on its own (more resistance on the wheel)???

All advice is welcome guys - this is a bias test invented to make life extremely hard, so i want every little edge i can get...

Put the shortest shocks you can on it so you limit the down travel that will help a lot.

He's going for swerve, not dodge

[Highway-Star]

if you can get them to tell when you would need to swerve between cones on a highway at 110km/h I would be surprised. That is just a recipe for disaster and I can't believe it is a requirement at that sort of speed. I could understand it at a lower speed like 60 - 80 but 110 is just ridiculous.

The only time I have ever required such a manouvre in real life I couldn't do it anyway as I had a car next to me. The end result was I ploughed straight into a rolling truck tyre at 100km/h. The Zook came out pretty well thanks to a bullbar, a 'better handling car' would not have come out very well, and probably would have had the tyre go straight through the cab into the drivers or passengers head as there would be no bullbar to deflect the tyre away, and modern car shapes lend themselves to objects rolling up the bonnet. Had to sand the bullbar back and re-spray it to get rid of the thick plastering of rubber on one side.

I'm trying to imagine in my head how quickly you wopuld have to react to a situation to change lanes in a 30m distance at 110km/h. 110km/h is 30.5m/s, so you change lanes in 1 second! less than that in the departure half of the manouvre!

I guess if a vehicle passes this, its pretty controlable, my concern would actually be about the short wheel base over the short ditance, I would question if one of those stupid smart twofour things would be very controllable in such a manouvre?

[Toecutta]

Good luck!!!, mine passed one of these years ago with 32" Muds and SPOA, but I had the sway bar still, maybe try and make some brackets to hook it back up.

[Gwagensteve]

OK, lets not let the facts get in the way of a good story

Last time I checked, the open road speed limit it was 110km/h. Any car certified for road use must be safe at that speed.

It's not a "biased" test. The proof is that the width of the lanes is the width of the car *1.1. That proves it's not biased. Yes, it might favour more stable cars, that's not biased, that's just fact.

You might not like it, but you have a 9" lifted car that someone is going to take PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY for signing off as safe for road use, by any driver, in any condition. That's the same condition applied to a new car - it must be safely able to be driven by any driver in any conditions.

Now, as for sierras handling better than sedans, that's a total and utter load of crap. Sierras handle terribly, that's why rollover damaged cars are so easy to find. Any measure applied to them proves they handle like a truck, not a road car.

The reason your 323 sedan "body rolls and understeers" is because it was designed that way is so the car safely slides in the event of grip being exceeded. All cars are designed to do this - they will all understeer in a lane change scenario.

What you have described is very typical behaviour for a lifted/SPOA car with large tyres - it has more grip than it can use and a high COG. They feel very grippy... until they fall over. The fact the car will pick up an inside wheel and pivot around the outside loaded wheels is the proof of this. This heavy weight transfer and roll steer is the problem. It's exaccerbated by SPOA's.

I'm not having a go at your car, but this is why it's hard to engineer a SPOA. Good on you for wanting to do it legally, you should be congratulated.

It's baasically not possible to engineer a Sierra with sierra diffs on 31's any more in Victoria, nor a car with 9" of lift (6 is the limit) as we are now working with the NCOP so while you have the opportuniry, go for it. Once certed, you can't have it "uncerted" (unless the engineer that signed it off is deregistered)

Steve.

[Gwagensteve]

Smart FourTwo's are fine in this maneuver. they have a very low COG as the motor is mounted very low, they're wide, run significant rear negative camber, and have stability control.

They are engineered specifically to pass it. Mercedes was very embarrassed by the original A class failing a similar maneuver (even though the fail was never able to be replicated) and would never release another car that would even look like failing it.

Steve.

[MightyMouse]

Its called the "moose test" on the inside - a lot of ESP work was put in to fix it.... and it was surprisingle sucessfull.

For a big lift Sierra - prayer might be the answer

[nicbeer]

btw, i beleive a stock navara also failed this test, so did another stocker.

[Sarge]

A manuever like that would put 2/3 of the modern SUV's over here on their lid easily-I've seen it firsthand more than once . One thing I forgot to mention on mine- 2" backspaced wheels . It's nearly 12" wider than the stock wheel track .

That test by Consumer Reports was rigged , flat out . I've watched the tapes and the guy was giving himself pulled muscles trying to get it to lift that rear tire . A stock Sami back in the day here drove like a straight axled go-kart compared to most of the independent front modern trucks.

This is what happens when a Government tries to idiot-proof everything.
We need to throw our current one out , they keep looking at crap laws like yours like they are the answer . Not if I have anything to say about it.
Sarge

[grimbo]

btw, i beleive a stock navara also failed this test, so did another stocker.

maybe get them to run a stock vehicle through first to show you how it should be done

[sierrajim]

What size tyres do you want to run in the end?