rear suspension ???

[jrsfast84]

is there anybody who has the anti-roll bar on there car from Spohn or BMR., i want to know if you have the same suspension travel with and without the anti-roll bar attached, i had my car out at Island Dragway, on the 10th., and the track was some-what good and i had none or little suspension travel in the rear, so my car spun like a street car, but still went 145mph. in the 1/4 mile, short-shifting, so i'm plaged with this street car spinning stuff, any info. would info. would be helpful.thanks JR1.

[NJSPEEDER]

sounds like you must have a little bit of bind in your suspension someplace. a sway bar shoudl not dramatically effect how much the rear tries to sit down.

later
tim

[Batman]

Are you talking hte stock style or the heavy duty Drag setup? I have the stock style SPohn bar on my T/A and suspension travel is unaffceted. The Drag setup I have heard nothing but good things about. Either way a swaybar shouldn't effect travel distance of the rear suspension. If you take the front bar off or disconnect the endlinks the nose will come up more. I don't think I would try to launch with the rear bar disconnected, it would most likely get ugly fast.

[Ian]

the sway bar shouldn't limit your vertical suspension travel very much if at all. I'd start looking at other things back there like the panhard and control arms. Look for anything that may be binding up like tim said. I'm assuming you're still using the stock style suspension.

I agree with batman though, I wouldnt be racing a car as fast as yours without the sway bar.

[jrsfast84]

well, istarted out by removing the Extreme Anti-Drag Bar from the front frame. the car still has about 2 -3 inches of travel pushing on the rear of the car, then removed LCA at the rear and they were hard to get out of the brackets, the fronts of them were the same way,along with the panhard bar, so now all the bars are free and can now move. my Comp. Eng. shocks held the car up that whole time and i never thought about that, so i ordered Strange Double Adj. rear shocks, then i'm going to get rid of that sway-bar, but i'm afraid of the car slamming down on my rear tires. someone told me that a stock-style replacement shock like a lakewood,Competition Eng. koni, for the rear are not made for high horsepower cars.i'm going to leave the sway bar on for now then, at the track take it off. and i'm going to try it without it. i'm going to Island Dragway, on July 24th. Sunday to test. Thanks for the Info. maybe i'll see you at the track.

[NJSPEEDER]

hwo does teh current ride height of teh car compare to stock?
i am wondering if teh rear is off center.
having the rear off center woudl bind the control arms and torque arm throughout their range of motion. even if it is just a little at rest, as soon as the panhard created it's arc under compression it woudl be enough to lock everything up.
time to bust out the tape measure and make sure the rear is all square.

later
tim

[Ian]

What kind of panhard bar are you running? the panhard is the lateral locating device for the rear axle so if its bent (i have no idea how that could happen, but anything is possible) the rear is going to be off. Usually when the suspension doenst travel enough, that means the shocks are busted. I'd check them to see if they're leaking oil at all. My guess is that one or both of your rear shocks is broken or the rod is bent.

This is gonna sound off topic, but its not. How do you trailer your car to the track? Where do you hold it down? if you hold it down from the rear, the shocks are going to be moving the entire ride to the track and that heats them up a good bit. Eventually it could lead to shock failure. Just a little FYI for you.

[jrsfast84]

well to start off, all my bars in the rear were made by Leo Barnaby from Neverlift Motorsports, along with the Torque Arm, my rear is square,my rear shocks were new this year, there not bent or broken, i have a 28' enclosed trailer,since there is very little places to tie down the front, there are two brackets with holes in them by both sides of the radiator, the rear is tied around the housing, but if i were to tie the front and back down by using the frame with no suspension movement, i would either wreck the floor of the trailer or my car, i'd rather by new shocks. my car is about at stock ride height. another thing to look at is that i'm using iron heads with a Dart Little "M" Block. the front suspension seems to be working fine the weight is being transfered, maybe its something i'm not looking at. i'm getting my new shochs this week, i'll be testing on sunday. Thanks Again.

[jrsfast84]

well i got my new Strange Double Adj. rear shocks and i'm thinking of taking off the Anti-roll bar and having at it. hope it works out this Sunday at Island, if it does i'm going to sell the BMR- Extreme duty sway bar, i'm going to put the car " on the wood ", hope it helps the car, don't want to miss that August 14th race. anyone-----sway bar on or off.

[Tru2Chevy]

I've always heard that the best thing to do for a race setup is to get rid of the front bar, and run a rear bar large enough to help keep the car flat during launches....

I don't know how much the car would be affected by not having a rear sway.

- Justin

[jrsfast84]

i don't have a front bar,and now no rear bar because my new shocks are in the way of the rear sway bar,so sunday we will see how this works out, i need to have the car ready for the NMCA- Pro-Fastest Street Cars at Maple Grove on August 26th-28th, looking to get about 148mph. and 9.05 et. theres plenty of sbc horses to get it there. thanks for all the help. JR1.

[jrsfast84]

question on making sure the rear in the car is straight, how would you do it!!!!!!!!!!!, i'm looking for a easy but accurate way to do it. i was down at Island this past Sunday and i think my rear in the car is way!! out of being straight, i don't think my car can handle the power, so i think thats some of my problems, with the car, my chassis guy seen me go and told me my rear is not straight and i'm killing the rear tires,by spinning down the track, which is 3/4 of the problems i'm having, get the power to the ground, i'm thinking of putting in a 600hp sbc and going racing. lots of money spent- not liking this at all. Thanks. :twisted:

[Savage_Messiah]

adjustable panhard bar

[Tru2Chevy]

Depends on whether you mean it is off side to side or front to back.

First, I would go over everything carefully to make sure nothing is bent.

If it's side to side, then an adjustable panhard will fix it. If it's front to back, and everything is straight, then I dunno what to tell you. You could grab a set of tubular adjustable LCAs, but I think that would just be masking a more serious problem.

- Justin

[jrsfast84]

your right, we checked all rear suspension bars including torque-arm, all ok!, my rear on the left side seems to be ok, right side is forward, then we noticed that the LCA brackets in the front on frame were bent on both sides like taking the rear and twisting it, pushing the right side foward,thats why i had to steer the car to the left all the way down the track, plus without the rear swaybar, my left front tire barely touched all the way down the track, as for the rear being off, that was my falt by welding on the LCA Relocation Brackets, so now its time to call Steve Spohn to get the right stuff, so i will not be making the race on the 14th. still going to be there with my buddys Orange T/A. thanks for all the help.

[Tru2Chevy]

your right, we checked all rear suspension bars including torque-arm, all ok!, my rear on the left side seems to be ok, right side is forward, then we noticed that the LCA brackets in the front on frame were bent on both sides like taking the rear and twisting it, pushing the right side foward,thats why i had to steer the car to the left all the way down the track, plus without the rear swaybar, my left front tire barely touched all the way down the track, as for the rear being off, that was my falt by welding on the LCA Relocation Brackets, so now its time to call Steve Spohn to get the right stuff, so i will not be making the race on the 14th. still going to be there with my buddys Orange T/A. thanks for all the help.

Well, at least you found the problem. Sucks that you won't be able to race, but at least you can still attend :)

- Justin

[jrsfast84]

Don't count me out yet!!!!!!!!

[Tru2Chevy]

Don't count me out yet!!!!!!!!

:D - That's the spirit!

- Justin

[jrsfast84]

well just got my car fixed, new tires & shocks will get put on saturday, Island on Sunday for testing,last testing till the 14th, and on the 26th,27th,28th is the NMCA's Fastest Street Cars at Maple Grove, i need to register next week for the Pro-Stock class; hope car works for me. see you's at the track.JR1

[Tru2Chevy]

Glad you got the car back together, let us know how the testing goes this weekend....

- Justin

[84HOtransam]

well just got my car fixed, new tires & shocks will get put on saturday, Island on Sunday for testing,last testing till the 14th, and on the 26th,27th,28th is the NMCA's Fastest Street Cars at Maple Grove, i need to register next week for the Pro-Stock class; hope car works for me. see you's at the track.JR1

how did you end up fixing the brackets?

[jrsfast84]

i kept the brackets on just drilled out the stock hole and put the rear back in the stock location, then slide the LCA down to the middle hole and it lined right up, but the bottom hole was off a little to make the rear move to the front of the car, so its in the middle for now.the car got re-scaled, front end checked,just need new sneakers and shocks and ready to try it again. i'll let you's know how i make out. Thanks;JR1

[jrsfast84]

well the car works great,it still has some more in it, i'm short-shifting it,it was a little hot out, it was 2570ft. above sea-level, 97* - 77% humitiy, the car ran a 9.38 @144, did a 1.30-60ft. on rear tires,but the car wheel standed about 100ft. and my foot slipped off the gas pedal,(driver error) so the car came crashing down, and i bent the strut pockets under the hood right off of the fenderwell, so need to locate both sides, if anybody has some they want to sell, i'm going to be there this sunday at Island, i'm going to need some spares,till winter, then its going to the chassis guy,more work on chassis, parachute, new axles with 5/8" studs with nuts, and a new paint job.see yous at the track. JR1