As for the pushrods... every liftarm can be made into a pushrod. We don't need specialised pieces for that.

How do you make the ball-joint ends? Especially if you are not building in huge scale? Most modern suspensions I saw use ball joints as the mechanisms are not flat in those suspensions.

For the ball and socket, we have to wait until these come out in the spring of next year:

http://www.lego.com/mixels/

I can't help but notice that TLG, once again is going after making the current sockets smaller ... This has been a trend for a while now, parts made smaller, less plastic (gotta keep up with rising crude oil costs), and yet parts count printed on boxes keeps getting higher. As much as I like lego, I find these to be deceitful marketing techniques ...

How do you make the ball-joint ends? Especially if you are not building in huge scale? Most modern suspensions I saw use ball joints as the mechanisms are not flat in those suspensions.

One potential complexity here is that, most current parts are very suitable for 'orthogonal' designs i.e., all parts are within 90 degrees from each other (in most cases, not all). Once you go into more realistic suspensions, there'll be struts and pivot axes all over the spectrum ... maybe not suitable for lego after all.

Edited August 30, 201311 yr by DrJB

Very few road cars have f1 style pushrods. Lamborghini/pagani have the springs mounted transversly, not longitudinally, which eliminates the need for ball joints in the springs.

Hell, even f1 cars nowdays don't need balljoints in the pushrods, since the springs are torsion bars and can be actuated directly.

The trick is to add complexity without complicating stuff. Keep the mechanisms simple.

Edited August 30, 201311 yr by nicjasno

Keep the mechanisms realistic and they will be simpler (and therefore cheaper) I think. They are designed in real life to be as simple and reliable as possible. Like what we've been saying with the gearbox. As it is they are more complex and harder for kids to understand than a real gearbox and don't work as well. And instead of all these multiplexing gearboxes just use pneumatics, they are authentic, simpler and easier for kids to understand and if you make them the right length (this is very important) their short comings, such as an apparent lack of control and booms falling too fast begin to dissappear. Pneumatics, gearboxes, wheels and ball joint connections all need a big overhaul, which will be expensive at first with all the new molds but they will pay off big time, sets will be mechanically simpler requiring less parts (so cheaper in the long run) but be more mechanically authentic, interesting, diverse, reliable, efficient and have more play value, and because of all that kids will love it even more and remember, non of this means they have to make the sets look any less attractive. In fact with big, powerful looking pneumatics with all their hoses, big, deep wheels and so on they would be more attractive and cooler looking in general. Imagine a huge one of these:

built with these:

Now imagine one built with wheels that actually look like the ones on the real JCB (with the black hub gear reduction, yellow rims and the destinctive tread pattern) and of course these:

Now which one do you think would look more appealing to kids?

The former. Although i don't think we will get a new back-hoe anytime soon longer pneumatics would be really nice. That is probably one of the reasons people use LA:s instead. The other is remote control but that to can be changed.

Let me limit this to "a" supercar. Any supercar.

The purpose of each supercar in the past was to surpass its predecessor in the functions it had. The supercars were basically the flagship models of the technic line.

This kinda changed with the 8448, which for the first time made a few staps back from the brilliant 8880 (still the best supercar imho).

What i'd like to see, and what is entirely possible with the current crop of parts (aldough a better wheelhub and some 8448-esque rims would also be good) is realistic suspension geometry and interesting suspension designs. I'm really tired of the vanilla double wishbone setup we see in every lego supercar/offroader (except the live axles in the crawler and unimog).

Also, we need car bodies that are stiffer, like the 8880. If you want the suspension to do its work, the car body must not twist like chewing gum. And as people before mentioned, we need different sizes of clutch gears, to make a realistic gearbox. And i'd also love to see a variation of the 8880 CV joint, so we could make proper front wheel or all wheel drive cars.

I'd love to see a lego "hot hatch" with transverse engine, macpherson front suspension, multilink rear suspension, realistic gearbox and front wheel drive. If done properly, the parts count could be relatively low, thanks to panels. And the model could be awesome.

This would also spark a whole new wave of mocs and would give people the appreciation on how their actual cars are made.

Brakes are optional, since this is something, that is really hard to do without very specialised parts. I'm talking about brakes with actuall stopping power, not something that just increases the friction a bit.

Looking forward to peoples thoughts on this. :)

I just might try this...I'll make a topic for it when I do...

How do you make the ball-joint ends? Especially if you are not building in huge scale? Most modern suspensions I saw use ball joints as the mechanisms are not flat in those suspensions.

Grazi's monster truck is an example in which he made his own links with ball joint ends. You can see the links supporting the suspension under the front wheel well. He used the old A-arms as ends on a beam.

I have an 'non-purist' answer to all of us looking for a different diameter clutch gear ... It involves a sharp blade and sacrificing another Lego part ... Yes, it's the old differential. I just noticed it can accommodate clutches on both sides. In fact, if you're adept with the knife, you can get two clutches, one with 16 teeth, and the other with 24 teeth. The real question now is ... when will we see a gearbox based on such 'new' clutch?

Grazi's monster truck is an example in which he made his own links with ball joint ends. You can see the links supporting the suspension under the front wheel well. He used the old A-arms as ends on a beam.

Don't you mean she?

Edited August 30, 201311 yr by Blakbird
Removed unnecessary quoted image.

Don't you mean she?

No. Andrea is a female name in English but not in Italian.

No. Andrea is a female name in English but not in Italian.

Oh,sorry.

The part that I am most interested in being more realistic is ackerman steering.They made a speial balljoint steering piece, so it wouldn't be any more difficlt if they made it for ackerman right from the beggining. They shlould use existing elements for ackerman steering on larger models.

No. Andrea is a female name in English but not in Italian.

My old math teacher once gave a lecture to the class about this name specifically. Andrew was converted into a female name, but it uses the "andro" prefix which means masculine.

There are no special pieces needed for custom steering geometry. The real thing necessary to give you freedom of suspension geometry are proper wheels with big deep rims.