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Description
Software bundle, save 10%
Suspension setup software
Indispensable for anyone involved in designing or modifying a motorcycle, setting up sport or racing motorcycles, achieving improved comfort and handling, students and anyone wanting to better understand the workings of suspension systems.
The modern era in suspension design was initiated when Yamaha announced their “cantilever” system, and employed just one suspension unit – “Monoshock”. Initially the Yamaha version was designed for moto-cross to extend wheel movement, and this led to a wide variety of alternative rear suspension systems by several manufacturers. These quickly spread into most other forms of motorcycling, including racing and road use. Many of these “new” designs also incorporated movement geometries that gave varying degrees of progression.
Whilst these progressive systems offer a much wider range of set-up options, they have also been the source of much confusion. Most people find it more difficult to understand the precise behaviour of the suspension action. It is usually necessary to go through awkward step by step physical measurement and tedious geometric plotting, to get an idea of the characteristics.
This software is designed to make that job easy. It is only necessary to enter some dimensional data to automatically get detailed information about any suspension design. It becomes a rapid exercise to investigate many different permutations of any design.
Click to download the user manual
Click to checkout the instructional videos.
Alternative Front suspension software
Tony Foale says “I frequently needed to do such calculations and developed this software to fill the gap purely for my own work. However, as word got around of its existence I received a number of requests from interested people wanting to buy copies of the software. I have developed it over time to make this software comprehensive and easy to use.”
We know of no other software suitable for analysing various parameters of interest, such as anti-dive, rake, trail variation etc. for that class of motorcycle front suspension controlled by some form of swing-arm and/or pivoted links. The oft used term “Hub-centre steering” doesn’t cover the whole range of these alternative designs and we use the all inclusive term of FFE or “Funny Front Ends”.
What will it do?
The software will analyze most forms of FFE suspension. It will put numbers to many characteristics. Viz: anti-dive percentage, rake angle variation, trail variation, wheel trajectory and many suspension parameters. It will graph these parameters against suspension movement.
Designs which fit into this category include, hub centre steered designs such as Difazio, Bimota etc. and other FFE designs such as Hossack, BMW duolever, many of the Elf designs, Foale/Parker/Yamaha GTS and many many more. It will also handle head stock mounted forks like girders and leading/trailing link.
The latest version can now import rear suspension data generated by our “Motorcycle Setup” software, which is part of this bundle. This feature refines the calculations of dive and variations in the geometric parameters such as rake and trail variation.
What it will not do.
It will not handle any system with sliding elements such as the Saxon/BMW telelever type.
Performance software
Estimation of acceleration and top speed performance is often considered a simple matter. Multiply engine torque by the gear ratios and add aerodynamic drag and weight into the calculation mix and “hey presto” you have all the answers.
Reality is of course somewhat different. There are many more factors to take into account if you want to get as accurate a picture as possible. For example; CG height affects load transfer to the driven wheel as well as determining the tendency toward terminal wheelies. The height of the frontal aerodynamic centre of pressure also has a similar influence. Load transfer affects tyre slip which in turn affects the relationship between RPM and road speed, which in turn determines the power available at any particular road speed. Then there is the influence of the dead time between gear changes when no power is being transmitted.
This software takes all those factors, and more, into account and raises the bar of performance estimation to a new level for enthusiasts and racers of all levels. It is an invaluable tool to help with the proper evaluation of gearing strategies and gear change points.
Tony Foale says: “If readily available tools existed then I wouldn’t have spent the time to write this software, but I could not find anything else that fulfilled my needs. As with all our software it was developed firstly as a tool for use with our own work not just as another product to sell.”
What will the software do?
Simply put, it will produce calculated estimates of the straight performance of a motorcycle. However, there is really a lot more to it than that and there are a lot of contributing factors to ultimate performance. When fed with the appropriate data this software uses most of these factors in the calculations.
The user can enter the power / torque curves of the engine. This information is much more readily available these days than it used to be and many people interested in performance will have theie machines dyno tested.
Gear ratios, weight, drag, tyre properties, wheelbase and CG height are the other main factors which affect performance and the software accepts values for these parameters. Although of lessor importance, the values for wheel and crankshaft inertia can also be entered when known to further refine the results.
Outside of the motorcycle, performance is also affected by wind and the slope of the road surface, both of these values can be included. The web sites of many race tracks have data regarding road elevation which can be downloaded.
After the calculations have been made there are several graphical and tabular options for analyzing the results, and comparing different cases. These comparisons can be used to optimize some of the contributing factors such as gear ratios, when to change gear, whether the CG is too high or too low, what effect would engine modifications have etc., etc. If required the results data can be exported for use in external software such as eXcel or other spreadsheets and calculation software.
User manual download links:
Motorcycle setup software manual
