Ladder Bar vs. S/S vs. 4 Link ??

Lets not forget to mention soild mounted stuff in hard tail dragsters and such..... They work to.

David Willingham wrote:There are a few promods and outlaw 10.5 cars running swingarms, just to throw something else out there.

Swingarm pic

The swing arm & chassis layout in that pic is very similar to how the Auzzy chassis builder Murry Anderson did his swing arm stuff in the past. The main crossmember sweeping waaaay back to meet the main hoop base is almost the same. I think one slight difference is Anderson's setup looks to have the arm a little longer & a little narrower than what's in this pic. Driver seating position might not be exactly the same since Anderson's setup looks to have the driver sitting reclined quite a bit to make room for the swing arm behind the driver's butt (in the PM's anyway).

The PM 37 coupe swing arm car that Jim Oddy had was a different layout. It had the arm running up-inside the chassis so the driver actually sat beside the swing arm instead of in front of it. Oddy originally ordered just the swing arm assembly & rear housing from Anderson & had it shipped to the states. Then G-Force race cars (if I remember correctly it was G-Force) is the shop that took the swing arm & built their own chassis design around it.

If the stories are true Jim Oddy was able to kept the fact that his car had a swing arm a secrete for around two years before someone finally caught on to what they were doing.

[quote="cool40"]i think a ladder bar is every bit as good as a 4link in a "door car".the 4link can work better for some becouse it's more adjustable.the only problem "I"have ever had with ladder bar's is hooking too hard.it's harder to figure out how to get enough bite out of ladderbar's in a faster car.the 4link has it over the ladderbar on adjustment,but thats it.and a ladderbar setup dont need a dam antiroll bar. [/quote]


I agree to a point. I have not seen anyone mention wheelbase. A shorter car may have the advantage with the ladder bar, yes or no depending on the install. Cars like I run, big long land yachts have a hard time gettting a ladder bar to get close on the IC window you need to be in. My stuff I ran the double adj. 36" long bars. Short of cutting the back half clean off and starting over with the 4 link. A big problem too now a days is that A LOT of cars start out as street/strip and progressivley turn into all strip wether we want to admit it or not. Thats how I started on the green 65. Looking to run some 11.99's, street friendly ........blah blah blah ...... First trip to the track and 10.89's .......... then it was on. Progressed into a street looking race car. Eventually ran 9.20's and could have been a good bit faster if it would have started out as a purpose built racecar, not a street car turned race car.

Travis

TravisRice wrote:A LOT of cars start out as street/strip and progressivley turn into all strip wether we want to admit it or not............................could have been a good bit faster if it would have started out as a purpose built racecar, not a street car turned race car.

That is a good point.

You do see a bunch of "up-grading". A "stock frame" street car later converted to a mini-tub & cage, or a mini-tub later converted to a back-half, or a back-half later converted into a full chassis car. And while an up-graded car might work OK, they are usually never laid out as 100% efficiently as they could have been (such as driver/engine placement, lightest "finished" weight possible, ride height choices, etc, etc) vs selling the car as-is & starting over with a fresh body shell.

Hey, I fall into this category........

richter69 wrote:Hey, I fall into this category........

Being a hERo gives you an advantage in that catagory.....

DILLIGASDAVE wrote:

richter69 wrote:Hey, I fall into this category........

Being a hERo gives you an advantage in that catagory.....

it has its perks.............

richter69 wrote:Hey, I fall into this category........

i fall in it too,hell i fall into a lotta stuff.i change too many things at one time and have more problems i can say after friday night's tnt my ladder bar's worked very well.the 60'aint where its been but 1.27 with little to no front wheels up is a long way from where it was.i dont know what done the most good but it just takes off like a footbrake car.i changed the front clip from fox mustang setup to strange struts,lowered the front about 3" and rear 2",engine is about 1"higher than before.i also got some 70"sissy bars.

DILLIGASDAVE wrote:

BigDave65 wrote:You don't see Pro Mods running ladderbars.

Well you kinda do see a "cousin" of the ladder bar in Pro Mod since the PM swing arm stuff is really in effect 2 bigger-longer ladder bars (on steroids ) joined together.

After I posted this I figured someone would bring this up. Realistically though, nowdays the swingarm is almost a novelty. The guys using it originally were trying to make there cars act like a solid funny car type chassis. I don't know for sure but I would almost bet that at an ADRL race you won't see a swingarm set-up.

BigDave65 wrote:

DILLIGASDAVE wrote:

BigDave65 wrote:You don't see Pro Mods running ladderbars.

Well you kinda do see a "cousin" of the ladder bar in Pro Mod since the PM swing arm stuff is really in effect 2 bigger-longer ladder bars (on steroids ) joined together.

After I posted this I figured someone would bring this up. Realistically though, nowdays the swingarm is almost a novelty. The guys using it originally were trying to make there cars act like a solid funny car type chassis. I don't know for sure but I would almost bet that at an ADRL race you won't see a swingarm set-up.

The swing arm stuff is still popular with some of the down-under Auzzy PM's. They might not be running the killer ADRL 3.60-3.80 numbers, but they are close.

The reason the swing arm stuff lost favor back then here in the states is IHRA again went through another round of rules adjustments trying to even out the blower/nitrous cars for the gazillianth time . They either took away some rear gear ratio or some blower overdrive from the blown cars (I think it was blower OD, but I'm not 100% sure), and that change was just enough that the swing arm cars couldn't adapt as well as the 4-link cars did.

I think these days if someone in the ADRL was to try the swing arm in a PM again, and was able to make it work since there is no blower OD or gear ratio limitations, you would probably see a bunch of other people give it a try too since there is always that monkey-see-monkey-do side of racing when a racer has success with a given combo.

A few years back Gaylen Smith (Lenmar Racing) picked up an older Anderson Willys with an earlier design swing arm to give it a try. The car's swing arm suspension wasn't super stiff in the back like a solid funny car is. In fact watching launch video it looked to hit the tire very much like a 4-link car does with about the same amount of initial separation. But the car's older design swing arm did look to have a problem from time to time with where on the track the team was bringing the clutch in cuz it did have a desire to turn left at about mid track on a number of outings. They later converted the Willys to a 4-link, but it still never really was able to produce consistent numbers.

looking to do ladder bars or 4 link in 70 mustang fastback .

Im leaning towards the ladder bar setup .......4 link seems you could get lost in adjustments ( looking to go in the 9s not 7s )

cars from new england tourque boxes are junk so stock leaf spring setup is junk and thats why im cutting her up

5pointslow wrote:looking to do ladder bars or 4 link in 70 mustang fastback .

Im leaning towards the ladder bar setup .......4 link seems you could get lost in adjustments ( looking to go in the 9s not 7s )

cars from new england tourque boxes are junk so stock leaf spring setup is junk and thats why im cutting her up

IMO If your a little leary of all the adjustments of a 4 link then it should not be on your car. Another thing to think about is that quite a few stock suspension classes allow ladder bars if you want to go that route.