RE: Mercedes-AMG GT: Basic is best?
Discussion
I thought dynamics dampers weren't great for road cars because they have a more limited range of compromise between harshness and body control...
Unit price is high but they're simpler and quicker to tune though with their prediction software... Perhaps they're not expecting to sell many without the active system
Unit price is high but they're simpler and quicker to tune though with their prediction software... Perhaps they're not expecting to sell many without the active system
The Wookie said:
garyhun said:
I guess it depends on the setup. When I had my R8 I had the Mag Ride which was superb for road use.
Sorry I meant Multimatic's Dynamics dampers which are a shimless, profiled spool valve I think
garyhun said:
Got ya! I say 'got ya' but, as a not very mechanically minded car driver, I'm not sure I follow
Don't worry, there's only a few widely used different damper technologies that every manufacturer wants to give their own acronym to so when a new one appears it can be confusing!!Most car dampers are essentially equivalent to a tube full of oil with a piston that has some holes drilled in it (let's ignore the more common twin tubes for a moment before anyone pipes up). Normally there's a stack of washers either side covering the holes that bend as oil is forced through. This means that you can create more damping for smaller inputs, but for big inputs the washers are bent right out of the way and are restricted by the holes in the pistons.
The way the multimatic dampers work (as I remember being told anyway, anyone that knows better feel free to correct me) is that they do away with the washers and have a carefully profiled hole to tune the damping characteristics.
The Wookie said:
Don't worry, there's only a few widely used different damper technologies that every manufacturer wants to give their own acronym to so when a new one appears it can be confusing!!
Most car dampers are essentially equivalent to a tube full of oil with a piston that has some holes drilled in it (let's ignore the more common twin tubes for a moment before anyone pipes up). Normally there's a stack of washers either side covering the holes that bend as oil is forced through. This means that you can create more damping for smaller inputs, but for big inputs the washers are bent right out of the way and are restricted by the holes in the pistons.
The way the multimatic dampers work (as I remember being told anyway, anyone that knows better feel free to correct me) is that they do away with the washers and have a carefully profiled hole to tune the damping characteristics.
Cheers OJ - I understand now. With the Audi system it's the flow resistance in the oil itself that regulates the damping. I assume the results are similar except I get the feeling that the Mercedes system can be 'tuned' more?Most car dampers are essentially equivalent to a tube full of oil with a piston that has some holes drilled in it (let's ignore the more common twin tubes for a moment before anyone pipes up). Normally there's a stack of washers either side covering the holes that bend as oil is forced through. This means that you can create more damping for smaller inputs, but for big inputs the washers are bent right out of the way and are restricted by the holes in the pistons.
The way the multimatic dampers work (as I remember being told anyway, anyone that knows better feel free to correct me) is that they do away with the washers and have a carefully profiled hole to tune the damping characteristics.
garyhun said:
Cheers OJ - I understand now. With the Audi system it's the flow resistance in the oil itself that regulates the damping. I assume the results are similar except I get the feeling that the Mercedes system can be 'tuned' more?
If that's the case for Audi, then how do they develop the ride and handling on their cars? Most manufacturers worth their salt will constantly change the damping as they develop the car's ride and handling. Just curious.As for the AMG GT - it looks great, and there's no reason why the 911 can't be bettered, so good luck to them. I must admit though, £97k is an awful lot of money for a car, an awful lot of money. I know it's not the done thing to compare secondhand with new, but for that money I'd be jolly tempted by £60k on a Ferrari 612 and £40k on a lightly used M3, both of which could have done under 20k miles and be in perfect condition for those prices. When you consider that most, if not all, AMG GTs will go for over £100k, then the options open out even more.
RobM77 said:
If that's the case for Audi, then how do they develop the ride and handling on their cars? Most manufacturers worth their salt will constantly change the damping as they develop the car's ride and handling. Just curious.
I assume the system is 'set up' and then the mag ride works within the parameters of the setup. So they develop and then use the new setup as the basis for the next revision.I'm guessing here because this is certainly not an area I have any expertise in at all (as you can probably tell
)All I know is that it worked great on my R* to give a really compliant ride when pootling around town but firmed up nicely when making progress on twisty roads.
RobM77 said:
If that's the case for Audi, then how do they develop the ride and handling on their cars? Most manufacturers worth their salt will constantly change the damping as they develop the car's ride and handling. Just curious.
It's a compromise like any other damper system. Chances are they'll tune the default or comfort setting with the system deactivated, then experiment different magnetic settings for the firmer modes, change the damper valving based on what they achieve, and repeat ad nauseum. Eventually then I guess they'd move on to algorithms for 'adaptive' mode selection and any active roll/pitch control behaviour.Those sort of magnetic systems do have some drawbacks though, the magnetic 'fluid' is essentially made magnetic by being full of fine iron filings so the seals have to be fairly robust to avoid premature wear, adding friction. On more luxury oriented stuff you'll end up with a car that feels quite floaty in primary ride as they've added loads of damper bleed to give it back some rolling comfort.
At least one dynamics engineer I've worked with also bemoaned the potential of many setups against the reality because of marketing departments; "You usually end up with three settings: underdamped, wrong, and overdamped"
Time for some GT therapy. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yluSpyBvG7w
Totally love this thing. My money would go to a fire opal one with high end Burmester option. My money shall however go to the scale model.
Totally love this thing. My money would go to a fire opal one with high end Burmester option. My money shall however go to the scale model.
Edited by Nerdherder on Sunday 25th September 09:13
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