Rear Independent Suspension

I was just wondering if anyone has ever attempted to convert the live axle rear end to a full independent set-up? Unlike some of us, I'm more of a Dakar kinda guy and not a rock crawler. To be honest. I'm inquiring about private owners and not race teams. If it were possible what would be a suitable donor vehicle? Seeing that the VX is a full frame truck fabing something up wouldn't be that hard so long as the design was sound. IMHO this would be really cool and totally add to the VX's character. I mean how many PUV's are out there and how many are off-road capable and how many are set up that way.:yeso:

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Seeing that the VX is a full frame truck fabing something up wouldn't be that hard so long as the design was sound. IMHO this would be really cool and totally add to the VX's character. I mean how many PUV's are out there and how many are off-road capable and how many are set up that way.

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You pretty much answered your own question there. The preeminent competitive offroad vehicles don't run rear independent suspensions. The reason being that the front sucks up most of the "whoops" while the rear provides most of the "power push". What that means for the uninformed is that the front suspension(IFS in the case in point) deals with most of the travel and "normalizes" it by the time rear hits the dip/rise, therefore mitigating the overall effect and allowing the rear to "see" less of the travel. The rear in this case is used to transmit power to the ground vs. the somewhat "weak" IFS front. I know there were a lot of "" "" in the previous sentences, but if you do your homework, you will have a better idea of the logic behind what I'm saying. Rear IFS really only has it's place in terrain where there is no little to no shock loading and only a medium amount of articulation. Anything more and the rear end will get grenaded by the forces it encounters. Most are unwilling to gamble this way and use the rear solid axle as a way to hedge their bets against unforeseen obstacles.This is only one of many reasons that Baja trucks run relatively "mild" tread patterns-so they don't impart destructive forces on the rear gearsets-such that would destroy a rear independent suspension. Rear IFS should stick to mall crawling Honda CRV's until steel becomes so irrelevant as the automakers choosing to use titanium drivelines.

You can take some ideas from Czech modified Vehicross (if the link does not work, try to replace domain with .com):
http://photofile.ru/users/uncle_asa/...#mainImageLink
Unfortunately, it become front wheel drive after their mods.

http://www.fstmotorsports.com/f150_irs.htm

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Originally Posted by uncle_asa

You can take some ideas from Czech modified Vehicross (if the link does not work, try to replace domain with .com):
http://photofile.ru/users/uncle_asa/...#mainImageLink
Unfortunately, it become front wheel drive after their mods.

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Why did they have to lose power to the rear? That's a lot a work just to delete awd... They also changed the bolt pattern from 6-lug to 5.

http://www.vehicross.info/forums/sho...&highlight=irs

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Originally Posted by Ascinder

You pretty much answered your own question there. The preeminent competitive offroad vehicles don't run rear independent suspensions. The reason being that the front sucks up most of the "whoops" while the rear provides most of the "power push". What that means for the uninformed is that the front suspension(IFS in the case in point) deals with most of the travel and "normalizes" it by the time rear hits the dip/rise, therefore mitigating the overall effect and allowing the rear to "see" less of the travel. The rear in this case is used to transmit power to the ground vs. the somewhat "weak" IFS front. I know there were a lot of "" "" in the previous sentences, but if you do your homework, you will have a better idea of the logic behind what I'm saying. Rear IFS really only has it's place in terrain where there is no little to no shock loading and only a medium amount of articulation. Anything more and the rear end will get grenaded by the forces it encounters. Most are unwilling to gamble this way and use the rear solid axle as a way to hedge their bets against unforeseen obstacles.This is only one of many reasons that Baja trucks run relatively "mild" tread patterns-so they don't impart destructive forces on the rear gearsets-such that would destroy a rear independent suspension. Rear IFS should stick to mall crawling Honda CRV's until steel becomes so irrelevant as the automakers choosing to use titanium drivelines.

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Nicely written! But can you explain why the IRS suspension of my VW Baja Bug worked so much better than the VX solid rear axle in off road applications?

Is it the weight difference or that it was rear 2WD?