What is wheel hop?

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#1
The new Cadillac CTS-V does this, what is it? I know it's one of the many signs of the fact that it's worthless and can't compete with the M5 no matter what, but what is it?
 
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#2
poor suspensino calibration, when you put the hammer down instead of gripping or lighting the tires up, they spin/hop, and you get less traction and a lot less control
 
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Dan is exactly right. However, alot of times it isn't so much suspension calibration as it is overall design. E30s apparently can suffer from it pretty bad (though I've never experienced it in mine). My Camaro will wheelhop bad if you really smoke 'em. In that case, it's due to weak leafsprings. Those cars were infamous for doing it brand new off the showroom floor. Traction bars were invented in part for this very purpose.

A suspension design may be fine for one car (like the regular CTS), but when you put a lot more power through it, it can wheelhop (like the CTS-V). It is disappointing to hear that the CTS-V has an issue with wheelhop.
 
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An example of how wheel hop occurs in a leaf spring:
As the wheel spins, some of the energy is transferred into the leaf spring and it bends. When too much enough energy is transferred to the leaf spring, it can't absorb any more energy and it wants to "rebound" and release it's energy. So now the wheel is jerked a little bit and destabilized. The wheel hops, and then the cycle repeats. In bad cases, it actually continues to build upon itself (know as a sympathetic oscillation) and can actually break the leaf spring.

As Justin mentioned, traction bars are used to limit the "wind up" of the leaf spring.
 
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#5
Kirby said:
An example of how wheel hop occurs in a leaf spring:
As the wheel spins, some of the energy is transferred into the leaf spring and it bends. When too much enough energy is transferred to the leaf spring, it can't absorb any more energy and it wants to "rebound" and release it's energy. So now the wheel is jerked a little bit and destabilized. The wheel hops, and then the cycle repeats. In bad cases, it actually continues to build upon itself (know as a sympathetic oscillation) and can actually break the leaf spring.

As Justin mentioned, traction bars are used to limit the "wind up" of the leaf spring.
I never needed any schooling....all I needed to so was hang out in this forum when I was younger and I could have learned all I needed to know. "SYMPATHETIC OSCILLATION"???? I need to get educated.[80?]
 

epj3

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My car suffers from wheel hop BAD... I think it'll either go away completely or will not be nearly as bad once I put the bilstein HD's on.
 

aNoodle

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epj3 said:
My car suffers from wheel hop BAD... I think it'll either go away completely or will not be nearly as bad once I put the bilstein HD's on.
Every one of our cars has got some wheel hop. Thankfully BMW's responsive steering gives us a chance to know when it's happening. I feel it all the time in this one place where i'm making this turn on an inclinde and the road has a cut between old pavement and new.

I still don't get how the Caddie has crazy hop. I haven't read that and I haven't driven one yet. What's the source? It seems to me the more light weight aluminum in the control arms, wheels, and all would give more hop.
 

epj3

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aNoodle said:
Every one of our cars has got some wheel hop. Thankfully BMW's responsive steering gives us a chance to know when it's happening. I feel it all the time in this one place where i'm making this turn on an inclinde and the road has a cut between old pavement and new.

I still don't get how the Caddie has crazy hop. I haven't read that and I haven't driven one yet. What's the source? It seems to me the more light weight aluminum in the control arms, wheels, and all would give more hop.
No no no no no, wheel hop has nothing to do with the front wheels. Wheel hop is if you are on wet pavement, and drop the clutch causing the rear wheels to (obviously) spin. One side effect (especially with pickup trucks) is wheel hop -- the rear wheels will spin out but they will hop up and down off the road very slightly which causes some undesired effects -- its loud and looses traction. Makes 'smoking' the tires near impossible and a few other things. It's amplified if you have a limited slip or lockup differential -- BOTH wheels spin and then hop, w/out a lsd only one wheel will spin and probably wont hop.
 
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#11
epj3 said:
No no no no no, wheel hop has nothing to do with the front wheels. Wheel hop is if you are on wet pavement, and drop the clutch causing the rear wheels to (obviously) spin. One side effect (especially with pickup trucks) is wheel hop -- the rear wheels will spin out but they will hop up and down off the road very slightly which causes some undesired effects -- its loud and looses traction. Makes 'smoking' the tires near impossible and a few other things. It's amplified if you have a limited slip or lockup differential -- BOTH wheels spin and then hop, w/out a lsd only one wheel will spin and probably wont hop.
You can still get wheel hop without an LSD - my Camaro has an open differential and it'll wheelhop depending on the pavement if you really get crazy, but it's got a lot of power, too. When it wheelhops, it's really nasty - it'll jerk the auto tranny shifter around - not a good feeling knowing that it is shock loading and unloading the drivetrain like that. That's what happens when you channel a ton more power than was intended through original 38 year old monoleaf springs. My dad's 92hp 4 banger S-10 will wheelhop like crazy if you drop the clutch, and it has an open differential. It is a pickup, though, with very little weight over the back end.
 


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