Load transfer and why I choose zero roll in any car, only dive and rise. I want equal shock travels and all 4 planted at entry / mid / exit!
Calculating the load transfer in a vehicle is fairly straightforward. You divide the center of gravity height by the width of the contact patches, and then multiply that by the acceleration and weight of the vehicle. For example, if our car had a center of gravity 1 foot above the ground and the tires were 4 feet apart, we would divide 1 foot by 4 feet which would give us 1/4. If the car was cornering at 1 g and weighed 1000 lbs, we would then take that 1/4 and multiply it by 1 g and multiply that by 1000 lbs. This would give us a total load transfer of 250 lbs. In that 1 g turn, 250 lbs that had been resting on the inside tires would now be resting on the outside tires.
As we learned previously, due to load sensitivity, the less load transfer we have, the greater the amount of potential grip our car has. You can plug in some different numbers to see why racecars are typically built low and wide as this reduces load transfer. In fact, the CG height and width of a car are the only variables that affect the percentage of total load transfer for a given lateral g. Once a car is built, you typically can only make small changes to total load transfer by changing ride height. Other suspension settings such as springs and anti-roll bars can be used to change how the load transfer differs front to rear (altering balance), but the total amount of load transfer and therefore maximum potential grip remains the same.