Re: Trying to improve consistent 60 ft times with nose heavy 71 convertable

Greg_P August 30th 2010, 11:49 am

I built a set of roller perches last year and have been running them ever since. They did help free up the front end movement.

Greg

CDMBill September 30th 2010, 9:18 pm

I took the car to Infineon two weeks ago for TnT and the Pinks All Out event there. I didn't get picked, again, but the suspension work was worth it as I hit a 1.453 60 ft. as well as several other 1.4x times and a new best ET with the car at 10.08 @ 134 into a stiff 20 mph headwind along with several 10.12's. Not fast but I'm happy given the car's weight and dual purpose nature. I ran as usual with full exhaust, floor mats and my fat carcass etc.

For the first time I was able to simply nail the gas from an 1800 rpm, no preload on the suspension, leave and the car would hook, lift the front tires every bit of five inches off the ground and go straight. I added a bit of tire pressure ending at 18 as the side walls of the Hoosier 325/50 drag radials were wadded up at lower pressures. I also tightened up the front shocks for extension which helped make the leave smoother as well.

Track photo shows almost 4" of separation at the back so I may need to slow down the rear shocks as well. When I figure out how to post video from my ancient video camera I'll post a link.

Thanks to everyone here who helped with great ideas and thinking. cheers

Mark Miller September 30th 2010, 11:43 pm

Congrats on the progress,also post some pictures if you have some.

Later Mark.

kevinlvy December 2nd 2010, 2:11 am

CDMBill wrote:Thanks for the info Ken.

Update: The car is back together with the Moog #8314 springs with 1.75 coils cut, the roller spring perches from TommyZees (F15 Falcon) http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260485218301
and my home made solid replacement bars for the Slide-a-link. The 8314 is stock replacement for a 72 Torino with a 429.

Both the front and rear ride height are lower with the front about an inch off the bump stop = 2" remaining upwards wheel travel. The rear is over an inch lower due to a much lower amount of pre-load on the bars, just 1/4 turn at the moment. The Slide-a-links required about a 1.5 turns to prevent a kind of axle tramp which seemed to be the polyurethane donut compressing and rebounding in moderately hard street driving, and occasionally at the track.

This is now a completely different car. With the front DA QA1 shocks set to dead soft for rebound (extension) and at the middle for compression I can roll into the throttle from a roll in first or second gear and nose comes up six inches, if I nail the gas the front end comes up harder and the car just goes instead of just spinning as it used to do. The differance in front end rise and appearant weight transfer is night and day. I'm going to try of few test launches at my nearby industrial park test facility but it won't get a real track test until the TnT at Infineon Sept. 15th.

I may stifen up the rebound and even reconnect the sway bar if the launch is too violent.

love the videos posted here, a very nice sound and build of your car would like to see more pictures of the car though been itching to also make modification on mine. thanks and more power to you sir!

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Trying to improve consistent 60 ft times with nose heavy 71 convertable