Scaled my car is this good or bad?

[64plymouth]

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make em drink.

The RR leaf pack is probably junk, because they're junk.
Need caltrac springs.

It will get ladder bars before cal tracs

 

[64plymouth]

As tight as it takes. You can alo

alo?

 

[RemCharger]

It will get ladder bars before cal tracs

More $$, more work, for the same results.
But not a bad idea for a track only car, if that's your direction.

 

[64plymouth]

More $$, more work, for the same results.
But not a bad idea for a track only car, if that's your direction.

Same $$ money if you buy complete Calvert set up. Ladder bars do require welding.

 

[dvw]

It's amazing how easy it is to jack weight around. If there was one wheel weight that was off, then I would suspect something amis. But the fact that it's diagonally off leads me to belive the torsion bars are missadjusted. Drag cars seldom set even right to left. It's all about getting the rear wheel weights correct. Engine torque tries to unload the right rear. Thats why a open differential spins the right rear, not the left. When I first built my car all this was new to me. Wheelies into the gaurd rail are spooky. Been there. Now I can make anything go straight. Don't even need scales. I am going to scale my car next month just to see. But currently it can go on a 100ft long wheelie and stay dead straight in the center of the lane.
Doug

 

[RemCharger]

How tight can I turn adjusters? I have about 3/4 inch of threads left

What's the front end height look like? Pics?

 

[6PKRTSE]

What's the front end height look like? Pics?

Just a couple of turns will make a difference.

 

[lewtot184]

a stock all steel big block b-body will have a 55/45 weight distribution. the only way to dramatically change that is to add to the back what you take off the front, or alter the wheelbase. with advancements in tire and suspension technology i think you can get by somewhat with less than ideal weight distribution.

 

[Budnicks]

glass hood (especially lift of hood)

front fiberglass bumper

front alum. bumper brackets

battery from the left frt engine bay, to rt rear of the trunk
helps a lot to offset the weight of the driver & cleans up the engine bay
add weight where it helps, it's like doubling the weight removed from the front

aluminum heads, alum. water-pump housing, alum. radiator, alum pulleys
an electric water pump, electric fuel pump out back

(QA1 for example) tubular front suspension, all the k-member (u can still use TBs),
tubular UCAs & LCAs & adj. struts combined weight, is like 34-38#s
all that will lighten up the front end noticeably

get rid of heavy *** steel wheels,
get some alum. wheels, will help some too, rotating mass

even disc brakes can save some weight over HD drums
some don't

overall performance & handling will improve,
unless you really screw something up

power to weight ratio will rise too

if needed,
you can always add ballast where it's needed

lighter bucket seats help too

just a few things, it's not the cheapest, but it really works

for any combo

 

[RemCharger]

I feel like we're throwing darts in the dark here.
505ci?
What is the hp expectation
Et goal?

 

[64plymouth]

I feel like we're throwing darts in the dark here.
505ci?
What is the hp expectation
Et goal?

The short block is a kit from 440source. The heads are Indy EZs, roller cam( porter racing heads) original style crossram 2 750 edelbrocks. I'm aiming for 10.50s.I talked to my buddy last he said he can get scales again. So when snow melts here we will rescale it and adjust t-bars like DVW said. Thanks everyone

 

[RemCharger]

The short block is a kit from 440source. The heads are Indy EZs, roller cam( porter racing heads) original style crossram 2 750 edelbrocks. I'm aiming for 10.50s.I talked to my buddy last he said he can get scales again. So when snow melts here we will rescale it and adjust t-bars like DVW said. Thanks everyone

Good deal

 

[64plymouth]

It's amazing how easy it is to jack weight around. If there was one wheel weight that was off, then I would suspect something amis. But the fact that it's diagonally off leads me to belive the torsion bars are missadjusted. Drag cars seldom set even right to left. It's all about getting the rear wheel weights correct. Engine torque tries to unload the right rear. Thats why a open differential spins the right rear, not the left. When I first built my car all this was new to me. Wheelies into the gaurd rail are spooky. Been there. Now I can make anything go straight. Don't even need scales. I am going to scale my car next month just to see. But currently it can go on a 100ft long wheelie and stay dead straight in the center of the lane.
Doug

I was adjusting front ride height to level car. I will get scales again and try to fix the right to left weights.

 

[LemonWedge]

This has the makings of a great chassis adjustment thread. Subscribed; reading and learning.

All I’ve ever done with my car is measure the ht of all 4 corners and try to even them with Tbar adjustments. I’ve been pretty successful thus far, as my car goes straight. Hoping that I have to learn more about keeping it straight on two wheels though.

 

[dvw]

My 63 dodge won a lot of races in the 90's. As I look back on it the chassis and shocks were not even close to being adjusted correctly. The car didn't wheelie much at all. The 60fts were relatively soft in the low 1.4X range. So if it moved a little bit you just corrected with the wheel. We ran the car on a 10.50 index. Wide open it ran a best of 10.15. It would always spin a little in the afternoon sun. We had so many runs on it I knew when to add a little throttle to keep it on index. Well it's not the 90's anymore. I lost my last 4 races in 2022 by a combined total of .007. Now a days adjustments are critical. I'm still not convinced we have a 100% handle on it. What makes it tougher is that various track 60 ft clocks aren't the same. We run 7-10 different tracks a year. So it's hard to quantify if you're on the right track for adjustment. Not to metion the quicker you are the more prone you are to tire spin. What are we after? The right amount of hook with the least amount of chassis movement to get you to that point. And then there is radial and bias. Different settings for either one. So where do we start? Start a new thread and we'll are learn.
Doug

 

[33 IMP]

I was always amazed at the guys that wanted two left or two right ss springs so their car would sit level. I have the proper ss springs for my car, and it sits level. Wait, I'll prove it.....




Oops. Higher on the right side, by an inch. Gonna leave it alone.

 

[64plymouth]

Update I scaled my car again. I cranked up LF torsion bar it made huge difference. LF is 1007 RF 1012 LR 845 RR 860. Total with me and 5gal gas #3724 54.22% front 45.78% rear. The car now sits lower in RR. I think I got screwed up trying to level car. I also replaced steering box and coupler they had a lot of play. The car goes for an alignment in 2 weeks. Thanks for everyone's help.

 

[33 IMP]

Update I scaled my car again. I cranked up LF torsion bar it made huge difference. LF is 1007 RF 1012 LR 845 RR 860. Total with me and 5gal gas #3724 54.22% front 45.78% rear. The car now sits lower in RR. I think I got screwed up trying to level car. I also replaced steering box and coupler they had a lot of play. The car goes for an alignment in 2 weeks. Thanks for everyone's help.

Thanks for coming back with an update!
Have the alignment shop look at the rear axle too. If its not square, it will definitely give some spooky handling too. (Screw leveling the car, adjust it so it works...... which you have just done)

 

[64plymouth]

Thanks for coming back with an update!
Have the alignment shop look at the rear axle too. If its not square, it will definitely give some spooky handling too. (Screw leveling the car, adjust it so it works...... which you have just done)

I found a shop with an old guy (my age) I told him that it is mostly a strip car ( maybe 100 street miles a year). I really excited to get car out again.

 

[Cranky]

More $$, more work, for the same results.
But not a bad idea for a track only car, if that's your direction.

My first experience with ladders was in 84 and the car was hooking-daylighting the fronts and then coming down and unloading the rears. Chased my tail for a bit with the bars and ended up with better shocks on the front and resetting the ladders back to their starting point and bingo. Had another car later on with ladders and it was great right out of the box. A bit later on a buddy built a car and used Calvert's 'system' and we chased and chased and chased our tails some more and never got that car to hook up....and after many, many calls to John, we stuck on ladders. Did the initial install with the basic setup and hit it!

IF you have a car that has to use the factory original style rear suspension to be legal in it's class, then you don't have much of a choice but to use CalTracs but they are not the cure all end all for all cars imo. Seems like if you have a fast car with some weight and front to rear bias isn't that good, they don't work as well as say a Fox body Mustang that's light and fast and has a better F-R bias.....at least that's what it looked like to me when watching cars at the track running with them. I know racing shocks etc have improved over the last 40 years and they seem to be still improving but that's the way it was. This same buddy now has a 1st gen Dakota with a turbo small block and ladders and it's well into the 9's these days. If it gets any faster he might be looking at a 4 link setup?