Originally Posted by
Nerobro
Trailing Arms
Well this is a subject that's not been visited since the late 80's. Trailing arms need to be a bit chunky. But they also are very friendly to laydown spring setups.
Having Trailing Arms where the pivot is, or is very nearly perpendicular to the chassis centerline, would provide you with constant, or even a slight camber gain through suspension movement. By limiting downtravel, you can get around the chassis English/VW Beatle axle tuck behavior.
The downside, is that trailing arms end up being pretty chunky, as they provide all of the control for the axle, and their size means the pivot loads are high. The weight is low, but they're not as light as the other options. Still, in classes where weight is a rule, this might have a place.
Trailing arms also take up lots of space, so packaging might become a concern. As would laydown shocks.
Trailing arms (or semi-trailing, to be precise) can achieve very similar, if not same, kinematics as double wishbone, while being simplier. Only downside is, that it's more complicated to change setting like camber gain or rollcentre, because change in geometry of arm and mounting is needed. Axle tuck is not issue, that's problem of swing arm suspension (that's what beetle had in rear)
I'm now experimenting with semitrailing suspension on ky rally car, as they have some advantages over double wishbone, when you need high ride height. So far it seems, that they work great
There are lot of interesting concepts in real life cars, that could be interesting in RC world. What about transverse leaf spring from corvette, which acts both as spring and anti-roll bar? Torsion spring? Using swing shaft or anti roll bar as suspension link? Possibilites are endless