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Old 10-08-2009, 11:00 PM   #12 (permalink)
Frank Lee
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Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: up north
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Blue - '93 Ford Tempo
Last 3: 27.29 mpg (US)

F150 - '94 Ford F150 XLT 4x4
90 day: 18.5 mpg (US)

Sport Coupe - '92 Ford Tempo GL
Last 3: 69.62 mpg (US)

ShWing! - '82 honda gold wing Interstate
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Quote:
Originally Posted by elhigh View Post
I drew during breakfast in college one day, a quick-and-dirty sketch of a hydraulic circuit for a leaning car. It would be a simple four-way joystick like you see on a lot of tractor-mounted front loaders, with a weight on the knob. The joystick is mounted upside down so the knob is actually pointed straight down. In actual practice you'd want something more sensitive, but for imagining in my head, it got the job done.

With a closed center, the itty-tiny pump that's always running - I figured you could take a tap off the power steering pump if you wanted - would simply dump into a reservoir. Once there's some lean to cancel, the weight pulls the joystick to the appropriate setting to try to level the car back out. The reservoir's there to add capacity if you're out for a quick blast up the Tail of the Dragon and the switchbacks come faster than the pump can supply.

Never built it of course. I was in college, no money. No neat little car to mount it in, either.
The forces required to manage the leaning can't be all that great if the mechanism is designed that way- think motorcycle riding. Then I would think human leg power could manage it... ?
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