Yea.. 4 Link is the way to go for Rock-crawling... Blows away IRS / IFS all day long!! All DAY!

 

I don't understand how 10" of individual wheel travel doesn't provide the best rock crawling traction. Then again, I've never used the other

 

V2 Rider,

Not for nothing.. but do you honestly think you USE 10" of wheel Travel? The answer is NO... it is a boardline lie from the Manufacturers(Yes Plural)... The front of my Grizzly 450 has a measley advertised wheel travel of 6.3" However when I removed the front shock to test out my CV boot protectors.I wanted to make sure that through the entire wheel travel that my Front CV boots where going to be protected.. Again I was mislead as I purchased the Yamaha CV boot protectors... nice design for the most part but not thought entirely through to the end... So I am going to fabricate an extension to those Yamaha protectors to provide 100% protection for my inner CV boot.. for the outer boot I am going to just have to live with the risk and like it.. unless I make some crazy brackets... So while I was in there.. I decided to measure the wheel travel, I realized that with the Shock completely removed I only got 6" of travel... now with the shock installed.... you will only get an honest 4.5" of travel as the 1.5" is the compressed spring and the more you compress the spring the hard it gets to compress it... so with that being said... I would bet that you only have an honest 7-8" of wheel travel with your AC... Maybe and just maybe if you have supersoft springs you will get 9".

It goes along with the whole Toyota / Nissan / Ford 1/2-ton pickup battle going on... If you owned a Toyota Tundra 1/2 pickup would you honestly pull a triple axle trailer with 30 twin outboard boat wieghing in at around 8,500 lbs with your 1/2 ton pickup? The answer for me personally (and 80% of the smart people out there) is HELL NO... The same goes for ATV manufactures... 10" wheel travel there, 15" ground clearance there, 500lbs for a 700cc Utility atv there.. if you really dig into the numbers... you will find they are skewed to gain a marketing advantage... Snowgoer magazine does a great job about every 2 years of ACTUALLY weighing all of the manufactures Sleds... and well NONE of the Manufactures "Claimed" weights hold true.. are they close (within 50lbs.. ) sure... but still it is not fact..

 

Wheel travel IS MEASURED from shock totally extended and with the shock totally compressed......THAT IS HONEST WHEEL TRAVEL. So not sure why you are saying its not "honest"???

 

<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: v2rider

IRS is far superior for rock crawling than a solid axle. You get way better traction to the ground with IRS. I think you are a little backwards in your thinking. The solid axle is BETTER than IRS at high speed trail riding (cornering ect).</end quote></div>

I Agree.
IRS means ground clearance,I would think that would be better for Rock crawling.I ride behind straight axle and just shiver when I see that low hanging expensive rear differential bang off the top of boulders that I just straddle over.While they zig zag all over the trail trying to find a smooth path "on the path" LOL[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img]

Thats why the Hummer (The H1 real ones) went to all that work to get rid of the Rear differential. Only the cheap H2 and H3 want to be Hummers parked at the malls use a read axle with a pumpkin differential.

P.S I like the suspension soft to soak up the bumps,you can set the shocks to rock hard ,like the pivot points are welded but it takes away the point of a IRS ride.

A Picture is worth a thousand words,if this ATV was a straight axle the seat would be on a 30 degree angle not level like this one,and the straight axel's pumpkin would be making love to ever big rock on the trail.

IRS vs Straight axel in rock crawling? Thats not a serious question is it?

 

Exactly

 

You guys are missing the idea of this topic. I'm NOT talking about the typical solid rear swing arm suspension on an ATV. I am talking about building a 4-link set up so that in addition to the axle being able to move up and down, it can also rotate side to side like any solid-axle truck. The solid axle offers many benefits to rock-crawling that IFS or IRS cannot compete with. 1) you can achieve far greater articulation because the suspension movement is not limited to the length of the A-arms on one side of the vehicle. 2) ground clearance may not be as good as independent while sitting still, but when the independent suspension compresses, ground clearance is lost. With a solid axle, ground clearance remains constant. 3) A solid axle is just plain stronger and more reliable than independent. 4) Because articulation is increased with a solid axle, traction is increased, and is actually more stable if the suspension is built correctly. The H1 is an awesome vehicle, I wont deny that. But it has one huge difference from other independent suspension equipped vehicles; Portal Hubs. The axle shaft on an H1 runs from the differential to the hub. at the end of the axle shaft is a gear. This gear sits on top of another gear which is connected to the wheel. This set up gives the H1 6" of extra ground clearance that it otherwise would not have. As good as the H1 is, a Jeep with a mild lift, lockers, and 35" tires will wheel circles around it on the trail all day. Put both head to head in a rock crawling competition and you'll be laughing at the Hummer. I've seen it, and thousands of other off-road enthusiasts have seen it too. Why do you think that the most high-tech rock buggies in the world have solid axles? Because it works so much better than independent suspension on big rocks. I appreciate the input, and I'm not trying to argue. If I wanted a bone-stock machine that was good in the rocks, I'd buy an IRS ATV, but stock sucks and an articulating solid axle would work much, much better.

 

Ok. Im not going to compare a jeep with 35" tires to an atv. An ATV with irs and ifs, IMO, will out perform another ATV with a solid axle on the rocks. And yes, with a solid axle, the whole 7" of clearance on the atv remains constant, while the IRS goes from 12 to 9, but only at the A arms, the center remains high at 12.

 

Like someone said, AC had a straight axle that could also pivot side to side on there earlier models. They quit making them and no one else copied it for some reason,that tells something.

 

OK, I'm not gonna beat a dead horse. You guys are either completely missing my point, or just aren't very familiar with suspension geometry. I do appreciate the comments and feedback, but this has gone about as far as it can go without being an argument. I've already gotten the info that I wanted here, and on other forums, so there's not much point left to this. See you guys around the forum.