Track Handling on an OEM suspension
01-10-2014, 01:09 AM
#46
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But trust me...it worked. That car was an old Datsun 1600 and we took a season win with it.
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01-10-2014, 10:22 AM
#47
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No way. This was stuff I did decades ago when I couldn't afford better and had to make all my own. Starving student stuff. I even made my own small steering wheel out of some curved aluminum pieces I duct taped together. It was all just junk, even then, but we had a lot of fun. A couple of us teamed up on a car and called ourselves Team Zebra. For zero bucks racing association. I haven't even thought about doing that stuff in years until I read this thread.
But trust me...it worked. That car was an old Datsun 1600 and we took a season win with it.
But trust me...it worked. That car was an old Datsun 1600 and we took a season win with it.
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01-10-2014, 10:31 AM
#48
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A shock dyno? You're overthinking it. What you've described is a junkyard class and way not technical or serious enough to be worried about dynoing your shocks. Better to find some unmonitored asphalt and test your combinations. Being an autocross guy myself, I would highly recommend developing the car at autocrosses, especially practices, before putting the car on the track. Cheap, convenient and safe. Also fun.
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01-10-2014, 10:33 AM
#49
A shock dyno? You're overthinking it. What you've described is a junkyard class and way not technical or serious enough to be worried about dynoing your shocks. Better to find some unmonitored asphalt and test your combinations. Being an autocross guy myself, I would highly recommend developing the car at autocrosses, especially practices, before putting the car on the track. Cheap, convenient and safe. Also fun.
<- partial owner of a prepped lemons '72 dodge coronet, as of a couple days.
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01-10-2014, 10:43 AM
#50
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If you say so. I know nothing of that type of racing. But if you earn "bonus laps" I would think you don't need to run at the front. My only previous track racing was SCCA road racing and the cost after a few years drove me out of the sport. I would think this cheapo racing would be fun.
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01-10-2014, 11:14 AM
#51
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A shock dyno? You're overthinking it. What you've described is a junkyard class and way not technical or serious enough to be worried about dynoing your shocks. Better to find some unmonitored asphalt and test your combinations. Being an autocross guy myself, I would highly recommend developing the car at autocrosses, especially practices, before putting the car on the track. Cheap, convenient and safe. Also fun.
Last year was our first year running this car and on a stock suspension with some bolted on parts we were top 1/3 mainly due to our reliability. By the end of the season, tuned aftermarket suspension and lots of test/tuning at our local autocross and track events later we placed 5th at Road America in the non-chumpionship class.
We are looking to be consistent top 10 finishers with obvious contention for the podium. It only takes 25% of the work to finish in the top 70%, but that last 30% takes 75% more work.
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01-10-2014, 11:19 AM
#53
Want to run both series. Its a fire system away from legality. But its running lemons at CMP first without me and then VIR, hopefully it'l make its rounds up to me for the NHMS lemons race. I MAY be able to run down to SC and grab it for the chump race at limerock depending on if I can buy safety gear by then.
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01-10-2014, 11:38 AM
#54
If I were you guys I would look more into bumpstops.
Does changing or adding bumpstops have a big affect on your "AIV" or whatever? One of the race teams I've worked for use to run in the "Firehawk" series way back in the day. That series required stock dampers and springs. The team stacked multiple bumpstops on each damper and basically used the bumpstops as "springs", the stock springs had such a low rate that they basically acted as helper springs. Bumpstops have spring rates, and if they are constantly engaged, there shouldn't be a harsh transition "on" and "off" of them.
Here's what I would do. Do the DIY revalve like WAM has suggested and try to get some sort of increase in damping. Then, cut the stock springs, I don't know how much but I would say at least two full coils maybe more. Find a bunch of bumpstops, old hard ones, soft spongy ones, etc. etc. etc. Use the bumpstops to get most of your spring rate and for setting the ride height. If you can homebrew some method of "approximating" spring rate with whatever combination of coil spring and bump stops, you can find out what combination of bump stops you need to get a good ride height and stiffness.
If adding bumpstops is going to change your AIV a bunch or add more than a couple dollars in cost, then maybe just forget what I said.
Does changing or adding bumpstops have a big affect on your "AIV" or whatever? One of the race teams I've worked for use to run in the "Firehawk" series way back in the day. That series required stock dampers and springs. The team stacked multiple bumpstops on each damper and basically used the bumpstops as "springs", the stock springs had such a low rate that they basically acted as helper springs. Bumpstops have spring rates, and if they are constantly engaged, there shouldn't be a harsh transition "on" and "off" of them.
Here's what I would do. Do the DIY revalve like WAM has suggested and try to get some sort of increase in damping. Then, cut the stock springs, I don't know how much but I would say at least two full coils maybe more. Find a bunch of bumpstops, old hard ones, soft spongy ones, etc. etc. etc. Use the bumpstops to get most of your spring rate and for setting the ride height. If you can homebrew some method of "approximating" spring rate with whatever combination of coil spring and bump stops, you can find out what combination of bump stops you need to get a good ride height and stiffness.
If adding bumpstops is going to change your AIV a bunch or add more than a couple dollars in cost, then maybe just forget what I said.
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01-10-2014, 12:52 PM
#56
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Want to run both series. Its a fire system away from legality. But its running lemons at CMP first without me and then VIR, hopefully it'l make its rounds up to me for the NHMS lemons race. I MAY be able to run down to SC and grab it for the chump race at limerock depending on if I can buy safety gear by then.
Safety gear isn't that bad, if it comes to it this company rents nice setups out for something like $125 a weekend, nice people too. RACE SUIT RENTAL | HOME
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01-10-2014, 01:01 PM
#57
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If I were you guys I would look more into bumpstops.
Does changing or adding bumpstops have a big affect on your "AIV" or whatever? One of the race teams I've worked for use to run in the "Firehawk" series way back in the day. That series required stock dampers and springs. The team stacked multiple bumpstops on each damper and basically used the bumpstops as "springs", the stock springs had such a low rate that they basically acted as helper springs. Bumpstops have spring rates, and if they are constantly engaged, there shouldn't be a harsh transition "on" and "off" of them.
Here's what I would do. Do the DIY revalve like WAM has suggested and try to get some sort of increase in damping. Then, cut the stock springs, I don't know how much but I would say at least two full coils maybe more. Find a bunch of bumpstops, old hard ones, soft spongy ones, etc. etc. etc. Use the bumpstops to get most of your spring rate and for setting the ride height. If you can homebrew some method of "approximating" spring rate with whatever combination of coil spring and bump stops, you can find out what combination of bump stops you need to get a good ride height and stiffness.
If adding bumpstops is going to change your AIV a bunch or add more than a couple dollars in cost, then maybe just forget what I said.
Does changing or adding bumpstops have a big affect on your "AIV" or whatever? One of the race teams I've worked for use to run in the "Firehawk" series way back in the day. That series required stock dampers and springs. The team stacked multiple bumpstops on each damper and basically used the bumpstops as "springs", the stock springs had such a low rate that they basically acted as helper springs. Bumpstops have spring rates, and if they are constantly engaged, there shouldn't be a harsh transition "on" and "off" of them.
Here's what I would do. Do the DIY revalve like WAM has suggested and try to get some sort of increase in damping. Then, cut the stock springs, I don't know how much but I would say at least two full coils maybe more. Find a bunch of bumpstops, old hard ones, soft spongy ones, etc. etc. etc. Use the bumpstops to get most of your spring rate and for setting the ride height. If you can homebrew some method of "approximating" spring rate with whatever combination of coil spring and bump stops, you can find out what combination of bump stops you need to get a good ride height and stiffness.
If adding bumpstops is going to change your AIV a bunch or add more than a couple dollars in cost, then maybe just forget what I said.
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01-10-2014, 01:05 PM
#58
Bump stops aren't TRULY infinite rate. There's softer and harder ones. By running just bump stops, you could end up dialing in ride height exactly where you want it, and maybe ending up with an effective "spring rate" in the 500s.
I believe the PacNW guys did this with "Lazarus" for a time, and were amazed at how well it actually worked. They used BMW bumps of some kind. They were running closer to SM times than you'd expect.
I believe the PacNW guys did this with "Lazarus" for a time, and were amazed at how well it actually worked. They used BMW bumps of some kind. They were running closer to SM times than you'd expect.
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01-10-2014, 01:47 PM
#59
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If I were you guys I would look more into bumpstops.
Does changing or adding bumpstops have a big affect on your "AIV" or whatever? One of the race teams I've worked for use to run in the "Firehawk" series way back in the day. That series required stock dampers and springs. The team stacked multiple bumpstops on each damper and basically used the bumpstops as "springs", the stock springs had such a low rate that they basically acted as helper springs. Bumpstops have spring rates, and if they are constantly engaged, there shouldn't be a harsh transition "on" and "off" of them.
Here's what I would do. Do the DIY revalve like WAM has suggested and try to get some sort of increase in damping. Then, cut the stock springs, I don't know how much but I would say at least two full coils maybe more. Find a bunch of bumpstops, old hard ones, soft spongy ones, etc. etc. etc. Use the bumpstops to get most of your spring rate and for setting the ride height. If you can homebrew some method of "approximating" spring rate with whatever combination of coil spring and bump stops, you can find out what combination of bump stops you need to get a good ride height and stiffness.
Does changing or adding bumpstops have a big affect on your "AIV" or whatever? One of the race teams I've worked for use to run in the "Firehawk" series way back in the day. That series required stock dampers and springs. The team stacked multiple bumpstops on each damper and basically used the bumpstops as "springs", the stock springs had such a low rate that they basically acted as helper springs. Bumpstops have spring rates, and if they are constantly engaged, there shouldn't be a harsh transition "on" and "off" of them.
Here's what I would do. Do the DIY revalve like WAM has suggested and try to get some sort of increase in damping. Then, cut the stock springs, I don't know how much but I would say at least two full coils maybe more. Find a bunch of bumpstops, old hard ones, soft spongy ones, etc. etc. etc. Use the bumpstops to get most of your spring rate and for setting the ride height. If you can homebrew some method of "approximating" spring rate with whatever combination of coil spring and bump stops, you can find out what combination of bump stops you need to get a good ride height and stiffness.
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01-10-2014, 02:00 PM
#60
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Want to run both series. Its a fire system away from legality. But its running lemons at CMP first without me and then VIR, hopefully it'l make its rounds up to me for the NHMS lemons race. I MAY be able to run down to SC and grab it for the chump race at limerock depending on if I can buy safety gear by then.
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