I've got no dog in the fight at all, I'm a bike guy. That said, the main problem I see with suicide front ends is the failure mode. If one of the spring perches, spring, or bones breaks or otherwise parts company, the frame drops to the ground and can dig in, hence the moniker "suicide".
The aero advantages of the design are attractive, but the safety aspects need to be addressed.
I think it should be designed with triple redundancy, so that if any 2 parts fail there is still support for the vehicle to roll out to a controlled stop.
Just my .02.
You might want to re-look at a motorcycle front end before you yell "suicide", where's your redundancy there?
A transverse front end is only called suicide if it has no structure above the axle. I've been rodding & racing since the 60's & have never actually seen or heard of a failure.
Sid.
Exactly my point, actually. I was just pointing out that he needs to make sure that he has structure above the axle to catch it and prevent the frame from digging in in the even of a failure, and NOT build it "suicide style".
I haven't been rodding & racing nearly as long as you, but I have seen broken springs, shackles, and perches in my time, in custom built and mass produced vehicles.
As far as bikes go, it's a risk that we find acceptable, and if you look at most front end designs, they are way overstressed for the loads they're expected to carry, but I've seen them fail also.