additional weight ?

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j par

j par

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I'm wondering if anyone has added weight in the trunk and got good results ?
 
??? Only weight in trunk I have seen help things is a battery. And that is because it has been moved from under the hood. Generally speaking, extra weight should be avoided as it hurts all performance measurements to include fuel economy. That said, lots of folks swear by a bag of sand or kitty litter in the trunk in the winter time.
 
..... if you are looking to stop wheel spin....
 
slide your seat back as far as you can....... that's weight transfer :D
 
It is possible and has been done BUT it is under conditions your not going to follow for the needs of a race car.

If a car has to a meet min. Wt. and the lightening process has you under weight. Adding weight to the rear for a car to meet the weight is where it would help. The moving of the battery is done for weight distribution and it is to be placed over the passenger side.

The above mention of traction is one bennifit (though I would suspect it would need a lot of it to work when it comes to wheel spin!) the other would be getting closer to a 50/50 weight distribution. Should that be the need.

For a street, S/S car, I see no reason. If wheel spin is an issue, a look into better tires and suspension is needed.
 
As far as changing any suspension parts I can tell you money is absolutely no object, because I don't have any! I've got the brand new SS Springs, cheap Summit drag shocks set hard as I can get them, and a dana 60 that I made has no pinion snubber. so I have traction bars that are set with no slack in them. And my tires are near brand new Hoosier's 28 x 10.5 x 15. I'm getting serious wheel hop at the line and the car is pretty much dedicated to the Dragstrip. Also I have the Lakewood drag shocks up front that are adjusted as soft as possible. at this point I was looking at some free old school tricks or maybe trying to make the trick of my own with my Twisted thinking...
 
every winter.. I find I need 4 wheel drive a lot less and.... oh, you meant in a race car... :D
rather than add weight to the back - - maybe remove weight from the front... a fiberglass front bumper only needs 2 brackets to hold it there.. weight savings of a good 15lbs I bet..
 
Do you have the front segments clamped? No clamps on the rear segments?
 
Picked up 2 tenths throwing a pair of 906 heads in the trunk of my Demon to get L60-14 bias ply to bite.
 
If you are getting wheel hop with SS springs...usually the problem is the rear shocks are not long enough...as the tire plant down and the body lifts..if the shocks are too short..the rear will wheel hop...

we have two small batteries in the trunk..each weight about 30lbs..plus there is an alternator on the car..if it wont start you can not go anywhere...
 
ScampMike said:
every winter.. I find I need 4 wheel drive a lot less and.... oh, you meant in a race car... :D
rather than add weight to the back - - maybe remove weight from the front... a fiberglass front bumper only needs 2 brackets to hold it there.. weight savings of a good 15lbs I bet..
Click to expand...
What bumpers? LOL
 
70aarcuda said:
If you are getting wheel hop with SS springs...usually the problem is the rear shocks are not long enough...as the tire plant down and the body lifts..if the shocks are too short..the rear will wheel hop...
Click to expand...
this is exactly what I was thinking !
 
So what I hear you saying is no junk in my trunk and Size Matters?
70aarcuda said:
If you are getting wheel hop with SS springs...usually the problem is the rear shocks are not long enough...as the tire plant down and the body lifts..if the shocks are too short..the rear will wheel hop...

we have two small batteries in the trunk..each weight about 30lbs..plus there is an alternator on the car..if it wont start you can not go anywhere...
Click to expand...
 
When I had a home built 2x3 frame Challenger with ladder bars, I added weight - at least 60 lbs, forgot exactly, but the car became more consistent and and I won more bracket races.

When I first got my current car with SS springs, I tried some Mopar automatic drag shocks. Under bad track conditions, not only did it spin, but it also wheel-hopped. For stiffer shocks, I debated between the Mopar "stick" shocks and Ranchos, settling for Ranchos. It still spun on rare "bad track" days, but it never wheel-hopped again!

My theory is that the harder a car leaves, the stiffer rear shock is needed. If rear shocks that are too loose are used, I figure that the amount of separation is too much and too violent so the springs have to "spring" back. Once it starts, it can't be controlled by soft shocks and you get wheel-hop, especially when the track isn't good.

You don't want to have shocks too loose on the front either. But a lot depends on how well the rear suspension works. OEM shocks are fairly loose on extension, but I don't like the easy compression because it won't help keeping the weight transfered and can cause oil pan issues when coming down from a wheelstand. I know of one instance when hard finish line braking also crunched an oil pan on a friend's 360 Volare. He had fairly new OEM shocks.
 
I'm on the same kind of train of thought as 70aarcuda. If they're already pretty far extended and then they finish extending and all of a sudden stop on there way out before they can completely travel along with the leaf springs then it's like when I would Bunny Hop my BMX bicycle when I was a kid.
 
Locomotion said:
When I had a home built 2x3 frame Challenger with ladder bars, I added weight - at least 60 lbs, forgot exactly, but the car became more consistent and and I won more bracket races.

When I first got my current car with SS springs, I tried some Mopar automatic drag shocks. Under bad track conditions, not only did it spin, but it also wheel-hopped. For stiffer shocks, I debated between the Mopar "stick" shocks and Ranchos, settling for Ranchos. It still spun on rare "bad track" days, but it never wheel-hopped again!

My theory is that the harder a car leaves, the stiffer rear shock is needed. If rear shocks that are too loose are used, I figure that the amount of separation is too much and too violent so the springs have to "spring" back. Once it starts, it can't be controlled by soft shocks and you get wheel-hop, especially when the track isn't good.

You don't want to have shocks too loose on the front either. But a lot depends on how well the rear suspension works. OEM shocks are fairly loose on extension, but I don't like the easy compression because it won't help keeping the weight transfered and can cause oil pan issues when coming down from a wheelstand. I know of one instance when hard finish line braking also crunched an oil pan on a friend's 360 Volare. He had fairly new OEM shocks.
Click to expand...
I did notice this at the crappy t&t track..
 
I remember Someone somewhere saying something about getting rear shocks for a b body or an e body? There longer?
 
I was thinking of welding together maybe some kind of shock extension bracket? This I could probably do what stuff I have in my garage and my cheap Harbor Freight welder.
20160513_094137.jpg
 
j par said:
As far as changing any suspension parts I can tell you money is absolutely no object, because I don't have any! I've got the brand new SS Springs, cheap Summit drag shocks set hard as I can get them, and a dana 60 that I made has no pinion snubber. so I have traction bars that are set with no slack in them. And my tires are near brand new Hoosier's 28 x 10.5 x 15. I'm getting serious wheel hop at the line and the car is pretty much dedicated to the Dragstrip. Also I have the Lakewood drag shocks up front that are adjusted as soft as possible. at this point I was looking at some free old school tricks or maybe trying to make the trick of my own with my Twisted thinking...
Click to expand...


You need to make the front shocks stiffer and put 25-50 pounds AS FAR FORWARD AS YOU CAN GET IT.

Being a stick, you should have no less that Viking double adjustable shocks on both ends.

I didn't see wheel hop in the video you posted. I saw too much clutch, beating the tire into the track and the tire pushing back and unhooking. You have to control the motion of the axle with the shock. The spring is just there to hold the car up. That's why SS springs are among my least favorite things. And pinion snubbers. And unicorns.


EDIT: if you are using a steel flywheel that has to be the first thing to go. You need and aluminum wheel. Unless you have new video, you are just killing the tire. Anything you can do to manage hit will make the car faster. That is clutch tune up, flywheel weight, shocks, instant center (when you can tune for it) and launch RPM with a two step on the clutch pedal.
 
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