Customer Reviews

How to Make Your Car Handle

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I believe this book would be worth the price if it was just a pamphlet on how to do your own alignment. And on this point it does an excellent job of explaining the process to a shadetree mechanic. It explains in detail, step by step, how to measure and set up a four wheel alignment, as well as how to check your chassis for square. You will be able to set camber and toe at all four wheels using simple tools. I bought a camber guage from Racer Wholesale to confirm the settings but you will only need masons string or fishing line, a jack, a carpenters tape measurer and the patience to follow directions and measure with extreme exactness. The rest of the book is excellent reading too, especially for 70's hot rodding and sports car modifications. A very handy reference that comes off my shelf quite often.

I bought this book based mostly on its review score average. I'm very disappointed in my purchase.

The book has two major flaws.

First, it's horribly outdated. The copyright date is 1981, and the I have the 32nd printing; but it seems like the book was never revised since its publication. I began amusing myself by guessing which companies and suppliers mentioned in the book were no longer in business, and finding which products were no longer manufactured.

The book mentions some specific measurements and values, but discusses no car newer than 1979 or 1980. Some tables (such as the list of wheel bolt patterns) don't mention a car newer than 1975! While the hard statistics and tables which discuss specific models might be interesting to someone doing restorations or who is a vintage racer, they're of no use to anyone who's racing modern cars. Even if an older model of your car is listed, it's probably been redesigned enough to make dimensions (if not the advice itself) obsolete.

There are some innovations that the book doesn't even mention. For example, the section on tires doesn't discuss metric tire sizes (where the section width and aspect ratio are explicitly given, like 255-50R15) and instead includes tables that show the depricated tire size codes (where the section width is designated by a letter, as B50-15).

The book includes between zero and little advice on modern suspension tuning techniques. There's no mention of corner-balancing and cross-weighting in the book. The section on pyrometer use for diagnosing a car's handling is less than half a page long and includes a couple of flaws. One of them is suggesting that the "ideal" setting results in equal temperatures across the surface of the tire; modern directional tires are built to let the inside edge to more work, so the tire will run hotter towards the inside.

Most of these issues are forgivable in a book that's old. But they're somewhat compounded by the author's shallow treatment of other handling issues. There are impressive graphs and some simple formulae throughout, but the shallow treatment of the book is too tightly applied to the outdated parts and designs. You can read this book and learn about ride height and center of gravity, but the explanation is tied to double-link suspensions. How can you apply the author's advice to your modern car, with its MacPhereson strut system, or an independent suspension?

In some areas, the tuning advice is laughable. The book says that "the method for arriving at the best shock setting is a matter of trial-and-error". The author suggests setting the bump and rebound of shock absorbers to "the softest settings". Then, "drive the car and note the amount of wheel hop over the bumps ... increasing the bump setting until wheel hop is reduced to a minimum." And that's where the advice ends. How can a driver measure wheel hop? Should the driver really leave the rebound setting at its softest possible setting? If so, then what's the point of using a double-adjustable shock? What about using bump and rebound to cure mid-corner and corner-exit handling problems?

I think that it's easy to find more modern books on suspension tuning, and to get better advice for your car's modifications. This book is inexpensive, and might earn a place on your reference shelf just because it's half the price of some other books on the same subject. And someone resotring an older car might find the dated information useful (though little advice contained here is appropriate for the drag racer) as might someone who is restoring an older car. But the book isn't interesting for a modern road-course racer or street tuner.

I was recommended this book from a friend at the i-club. I love to drive and am looking to modify my car for better handling. This book is an excellent source for that! A major part of the fun in driving is a good handling car. This book covers all the basics in detail. It is easy to read, yet, has a Physics/Engineer depth to it as well. It is not just a matter of buying better suspension parts and installing them, this book goes into depth about understanding the nature of a good handling car and exactly what that entails from good tires, alignment, lowering the ride height, springs, anti-roll bars, shocks, brakes, etc. It emphasizes balance and that there is no magical part for better handling, but all the parts must work together in harmony and how making one change effects others parts in the car. Once you gain an understanding for the reasons of poor and good handling, you will then be able to truly understand what will work and what will not to achieve your goals. Changing one part of the design often has far reaching effects and it is rare that one part will do you any good. Just as I thought adding a stiffer anti-roll bar to the rear of my car alone would work! Tires are the source of contact and are vital to good handling, so an entire chapter is dedicated to tires and exactly what they do. This information is relevant to the everyday driver with no mechanical knowledge (like me) who simply wants to increase the fun factor in the driving experience, and also to rear gear heads with chapters on chassis modifications and designing your own parts as well! An excellent source for anyone who values good handling characteristics in their car as I do.

This book covers almost all the basics of suspension tuning, from chosing spring rates to sway bars to lowering to alignment settings. If you want a car that handles well, this should be the first part you buy.

Puhn's book is the classic treatment of suspensions and car handling issues for the automotive enthusiast.

The author neither over- nor under-estimates the reader's intelligence. Fred Puhn provides enough information (including some basic physics) that even the most science-challenged reader will understand how their car handles and how to adjust it.

If you love cars, you must have this book!

The book begins by explaining why your car handles the way that it does in the first couple of chapters. The author gets into a lot of physics formulas building up on everything as it goes. It feels a little dry after a while, but the explanations make a lot of sense.

Then he gets into explaining how to tweak your car and modify the chassis. It's best to read the "whys" in chapter two before attempting to read the "hows" in the later chapters. Otherwise, you won't have a good understanding of why he's recommending changes or if you *should* make the change.

The book is a little old, but is still applicable to any modern car.

Do not be deterred by the age of this book. It gives a broad-ranging and well-written coverage of what car handling is all about and what you can do to your own car, if you are so inclined. I actually bought it to learn more about setting up 1/10th electric racers rather than a street car. All of Puhn's 'big car stuff' at first seemed irrelevant but he covers both concepts and practicalities so well that it proved of great value. Highly recommended and, at its cut-price, a real bargain.

Yes it's old, yes it refers to bias ply tires, yes the most advance cars in the book are aluminum monocoques. It's still a very clear and concise look at how a racing or sports car works. Slip angles, weight transfer, suspension rates, differential action, unsprung vs sprung weight, and zillion other topics are covered in clearly understood text. Most of the race shops I worked for and all the racers I know have a dogeared copy of this book lying around somewhere. It's worth the asking price for the vocabulary alone. If you are tempted to buy it, buy it!

Great book - my son is working with race teams and is really just learning. He was so stoked about the book he took it with him to work on the car for their last race. They came in 3rd - best finish this season.

Some potential buyers might be turned off by the date of publish, but to be honest, nothing has really changed in the last 20 years in suspension tuning and design. The same principles apply today, because we still have to deal with the same laws of physics. Topics cover everything from alignment, springs, and shocks, to antiroll bars, rear axle control devices, and tires. The tire section is probably less useful, since tires have in fact evolved quite a lot since the book was written. But pretty much every other aspect of the book is applicable today.

Maybe new systems have improved the way OEM systems work, but the principles in this book will help those interested in improving their suspension systems to understand why their car acts a certain way, and how to address it. Furthermore, this book is useful for anyone from the shadetree mechanic to the serious racing enthusiast, with plenty of detailed information but enough lay-speak for the uninitiated.

Definitely consider this book before you make any modification to your vehicle. Too many people make poor decisions that make their vehicles actually handle worse than they might if some thought had been given to the different options out there. In other words, 20" wheels, a 27" rear sway bar mated to a 20" front bar, and the stiffest possible coilovers are not good ways to make your car handle, unlike most of the "tuners" out there might think, and this book will explain why.