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81 of 89 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Outdated and Shallow, June 14, 2003
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 First, it's horribly outdated.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graphs and some simple formulae throughout, but the shallow treatment of the book is too tightly applied to the outdated parts and designs.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.
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by Ross Bentley
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by Carroll Smith
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