One of the weak points I see in the xA and xB is the rear torsion beam suspension. This is because Toyota is trying to keep the car cheap, but if you're concerned with handling, you want an independent suspension back there.

Is there any Toyota independent suspension setup that may swap into the xB?

 

Anything is possible with sufficient funds, but there are no tie points for multilink suspension under the xB. You'd have to add them and that would be a major mod.

Once done, you would have to be very good at suspension design and setup to yield any improvement in handling. You don't just slap some parts on and expect good results.

The car actually handles very well with the stock setup. It doesn't seem to have any bad traits.

George

 

Thanks, that's all I needed to know. Some chassis are designed to use either a torsion beam rear suspension or an independent setup - I wasn't sure if this was the case with the xB chassis (not sure of the chassis code).

 

The rear suspension on the scion is the same as the Matrix , Sienna, etc.... It is an ingenious design that uses toe-correction bushings that give a tad bit of rear-steer in turns. It works excellent and would be hard to beat with a 4-link. One thing to remember is when you do an alignment you want to use 2-wheel settings, not 4-wheel or thrust-line. Try not to turn the car a lot when driving onto the alignment machine as this can shift the bushings a bit. Otherwise this setup is exactly what the Scions needed.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~scott

 

Some of the best autocrossers- vw's a1 and a2 chassis- use the torsion beam axle setup. It's light, simple, and works pretty well. Of course, it's not as tunable as a true irs, but it's still pretty good.
Now if only they had gone multilink up front... sigh...

-Phil

 

volkswagon uses the same setup on its golfs and jettas and bugs. If you really want independant rear suspension, just chop the dam thing in half and there you go, independant!

 

uhhhh

you never put it at the limit and noticed that bizarreness that is the rear of the car?

the twist beam rear suspension is literally the worst thing on the market performance wise. Even a solid rear axle is preferrable.

in fact, a crazy idea someone could try - weld a plate onto the twist beam to close it up so it cant twist.

 

the twist beam isn't chosen for performance, its cheap and maximizes interior volume of the car.

any multilink suspension would be preferable from a performance standpoint. but more expensive and the attachment points would intrude on interior space.

why you ask?

for one you don't get the bizarre effective spring rate from twisting the twist beam
but more importantly the twist beam suspension has terrible camber curvers


and just imagining the geometry in my head
if the trailing arm bushings are just normal soft bushings

then yes youll get some toe out on the outside wheel under cornering

but that would be the case on any trailing arm car with soft bushings.

or is there something more sophisticated going on?

 

Actually, I've never noticed anything bizarre about the handling of the car. The only thing to watch is the inevitable quickness of a short wheelbase car.

That's a very broad statement. Have any data to back it up? I note that a lot of very quick VW autocrossers use the same design.

That _would_ be a crazy idea. The goal is to divorce deflections of one wheel from the other other, not lock them rigidly together.

 

jackmott- You must really hate this dam car's suspension, because all you do is talk ____ about how the Scion suspension is. You gotta remember that you choose the car and decided to come to a site that promotes the car and lets you upgrade. But for some reason the suspension is crap to you.


We are trying to help you out, but you won't let us. So I say maybe you would have been better off with a race car instead of this $14,000 let down to you. All I hear is _____ing from you about everything suspension.

 

True that Gabe! Yeah homie, you're dissing a $14k ride that the EPA classifies as a WAGON! Get a grip! Turn this in for a Supra or something...

Hopefully you're just having a bad day the somehow the suspension ____ed you off.

 

yeah really!

 

i don't think the suspension is all that bad. today i went through some curvies that said 35 m.p.h. i kid you not i was testing it out and reached 70m.p.h. with no wheel spin. there may have been little but nothing that made me concerned. i currently have stock suspension so i can't wait to see what the c/o and sways do when i add them to the mix. i must say i was very pleased with the outcome. probably could have reached 75-80 if i would have had a running start. these little cars are kick ___