Originally Posted by
reenmachine
I learned to race with a TA-05 (tranlation: many, many impacts with the boards) and never broke a single piece. I can't see how the shock tower would help at all in an impact as you're not hitting it directly and the shocks are attached with ball ends. When you hit a wall with a wheel there's no unusual load being absorbed by the shock tower.
We'll see if things are different when I start racing my IFS next weekend. It's an IFS-R though so the suspension parts are the carbon reinforced material.
I see your point. However, on the TA05 the shock is attached to the front of the A arm, and also attached to the shock tower. When the wheel is turned inward during an impact, I imagine the wheel's inward movement could be stopped or limited by the shock and the impact would be absorbed by shock and the tower. Without the shock in front of the A arm, as the wheel collapses in an impact that energy is absorbed by the arm, steering link and C carrier, and the C carrier is the weakest part so it's sacrificed. That's just my theory.
I don't know, it just seemed weird that the C carrier basically disintegrated the same in both cars.
I really just wanted to know if there's a wider bumper for peace of mind.
BTW, I think that the carbon reinforced parts are actually more fragile. I think that those parts have less plastic content, and are therefore are less flexible and more prone to breakage. But, I could be wrong.
I bought the TA05 IFS-R also. Just arrived on Thursday. Hope to begin building it this week.
