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For the current brazilian market, the available sportive vehicles are mainly a slight modified version from a current model, usually only with appearance items. A good definition for a sportive vehicle should be something between a family vehicle and race car. A race car focus only in performance, obviously without any compromise for passenger comfort and a family vehicle is orientated for passenger comfort and safe behavior, for driver only or full load condition. One thought for a sport vehicle is a powerful engine, which should translate in greater acceleration, top speed and faster speed recovery. Besides the engine, other areas should support the increased torque and horsepower, resulting in improved lateral / longitudinal grip and faster steering response. Based on a production medium hatchback, several systems were improved in order to achieve a new exciting product, aiming a pure sportive behavior.

The compromise for a race car can be completely different from a road car and these differences become even greater when this car is a light pickup. The target for a race car is to cover a determined distance in the shortest time and when this distance is a thousand miles, lap time is not the only objective. The compromise must include fuel consumption, tire wear, brake wear and even driver fatigue. This paper describes the full preparation, from the production vehicle to the final race car, which has competed successfully in the Brazilian 2004 Mil Milhas.

The suspension for a road car focuses in a good compromise between Ride & Handling. When this car is a light pickup, there is also an important compromise between driver and full load condition. For a race car, the suspension system must have a different compromise, were Ride is not considered, but it must be able to keep the tire in contact with the ground, transforming engine power into acceleration, brake power into deceleration and steering inputs in correct corner apex. This paper describes the suspension modification in a production Chevrolet Montana and the methodology used to specify springs, anti roll bars and dampers, which has competed successfully in the 32a Mil Milhas de Interlagos.

The Handling objective metrics is a powerful tool for Chassis Development. Basically, it can be divided in Linear Handling, Non Linear Handling and On Center Handling. This paper describes the parameters, targets and the subjective evaluation correlation.

The force x velocity graph is the most used tool for suspension damper analysis. This approach hides important information regarding the bleeds / spring / orifice combination. This paper describes the energy analysis, comparing two different damper suppliers, with comfort measurements using B&K Human Response Vibration Meter and MTS single channel Four Post system.

For high CG passenger vehicles the body control is a very important parameters for customer perception. The compromise between cornering (body roll) and uneven road (head toss) is the main goal. This paper describes how dampers, spring rate and anti roll bar can influence the desired compromise. Single channel Four Post system and vehicle dynamics measurements give the necessary support for this analysis.