Reference — known-good MacPherson corner (LOCKED 2026-06-27)

Verified working in-game on both front corners of Chassis_D-Master (GT86): hub follows the wheel with camber, arms stay attached, strut stays joined at the tophat and turns with the wheel (kingpin), spring telescopes. This is the locked baseline — copy it for every MacPherson corner.

Hierarchy (one corner)

SUSP_LF
└── HUB_LF
    ├── Steering Rack          (mesh — no component)
    │   └── FL_TieRod          KSuspBone · Arm    Outer = FL_Steer_end, Telescopes = ON
    ├── Shock
    │   ├── Spring             (mesh — no component)
    │   │   └── FL_Spring      KSuspBone · Shock  (the whole strut — see table)
    │   ├── Tophat_mesh        (mesh — no component; the shock SHAFT/rod)
    │   │   └── FL_Tophat      (no component — Shock's Tophat; shaft pivot)
    │   └── ShockBody_mesh     (mesh — no component; strut tube)
    │       └── FL_StrutBody   (no component — Shock's Body Bone)
    ├── Hub                    (mesh — no component)
    │   └── FL_HUB             KSuspBone · Hub    Wheel Rotation = SteerCamber
    │       ├── FL_Steer_end     (no component — TieRod's Outer Target)
    │       ├── FL_Lowerarm_end  (no component — LowerArm's Outer Target)
    │       └── FL_Shock_low     (no component — Shock's Lower Mount / strut-to-hub joint)
    └── LowerArm               (mesh — no component)
        └── FL_Lowerarm        KSuspBone · Arm    Outer = FL_Lowerarm_end, Telescopes = ON

The 4 components per corner (and ONLY these)

Everything else (FL_Steer_end, FL_Lowerarm_end, FL_Shock_low, FL_Tophat, FL_StrutBody, and all the meshes) has no component.

Two placements that matter

• FL_Shock_low = where the strut bottom bolts to the hub. Put it on the steering/kingpin axis (the line from FL_Tophat to FL_Lowerarm_end). The strut’s bottom locks onto this point (aim + telescope) and the strut twists about this line with the wheel.
• Pose the meshes how they should look at rest. The mod keeps that orientation — there’s no axis/flip to pick. If a part points wrong, rotate the bone/mesh in the scene and re-bake.

How each part moves (so you know what “right” looks like)

• Hub follows the game wheel: track/wheelbase, travel, steer, and camber (no spin).
• Arms rotate about their inner pivot toward the hub point and stretch to stay attached as the hub cambers/steers (that length change is what absorbs the camber).
• Strut (body + spring + shaft) pins at the tophat, locks its bottom to FL_Shock_low (aim + telescope), and twists about the strut line with the hub (kingpin). The spring telescopes; the tophat shaft stays pinned and aims down the strut.

Build order

1. Build Rig Hierarchy → 2. Attach Parts to Bones → 3. set Car Id + Setup Name on KSuspensionRoot → 4. Bake Suspension Descriptor → 5. drop the .ksusp in kino\suspensions\ → 6. fully restart the game (the .kse loads at startup).

Mirroring to the other side (FR / RR)

1. Duplicate the whole corner group (tree + markers).
2. Mirror it: Scale X = −1 (watch for inverted normals in HDRP; use mirrored meshes if so).
3. Rename every FL_* → FR_* (names must be unique).
4. On every KSuspBone, set the Corner dropdown to FR (the baker reads the Corner enum, not the name — this is the step people miss).
5. Re-bake. The FR hub auto-follows the game’s FR wheel, so steer/camber mirror for free.

The rear is usually NOT a mirror of the front (no steering, different arms) — set it up fresh.

Locked mod baseline (find+animate only)

Backed up at build/locked/AdvancedSusp-macpherson-locked.kse. Feature set: car-local rest-relative motion · SteerCamber hub · arm telescope · strut aim+telescope+twist (kingpin) with followsHub baked into the descriptor · stock mesh_suspension auto-hidden.