Drag racing tips.....Phantom402

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Drag racing tips.....Phantom402

Postby h-bot » Tue Mar 19, 2002 10:11 am

From: cms7880_REMOVE_178235_THIS_@yahoo.com


The main reason for correct pinion angle is to
keep your u-joints happy. With a drag car with ladder
bars or 4-link, adding excess pinion angle will slow
down the rate of movement of the housing as it hits
the tire. This takes a little hook out of the car but
could be damaging to parts because of the bind your
creating. Just some thoughts on what I've read & tried,
John


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Drag racing tips.....Phantom402

Postby h-bot » Tue Mar 19, 2002 3:52 pm

From: Phantom402_REMOVE_339933_THIS_@yahoo.com


You can agree with anything but if you go back
and look at pinion angle you better rethink
that.
I have researched this and found pinion angle does
relate to tire bite.
I believe it was Bob Joysey and
his son ran a Camaro in fastest street car shoot outs
(not sure which organization) they ran 8.5 10 bolts
with minimal mods and slapper bars they carried the
wheels every time and ran low 9's if I remember corectly
and ran a nitrous'ed chevy engine and they comented
that they used pinion angle and how much they hit the
slapper bars to launch.
Now i have a project going
sisnce i cant find a good hbody cheap i am building a
late 70s Camaro for strip use right now and it will
use pinion angle and slapper bars for rear suspension
set up.
i may buy drag shock for rear if money
allows but i am going to do the "60's" drag shock trick
,,,drill a hole in bottom of the shocks in front and
adjust that till I hook by drilling the hole bigger
orplugging it and making it smaller.
It works if you are
on abudget.
I think my camaro is around 78 to 80
and I'm just throwing spare parts at it right now and
probably only new stuff I will need so far is going to be
the slapper bars and drive shaft.
See what I found
is that pinion angle,static, has a great influence
on how hard you hit the tire.
Reduce the pinion
angle and you ease the hit on the tires increase it and
it hits them harder.
When my buddy plugged in his
new 380 in screamer in place of the 355 he ran (761
hp vs low 600 hp engine) he just couldnt get down
the track fast and his 60's sucked compared to before
so we checked his pinion angle,static, with him in
car,and it was only 2.5 degrees but the 4 link was dead
on in set up so we dialed in 4 degrees and rechecked
the weight on each wheel and then he took it out and
when it came up he almost slammed the guard rail (but
he did get a rail rash by light touch of the
rail).Then we backed it down to 3.5 but it was still to
violent ,then we fired up a buddy of mine computer and
put in my chassis set up program and plugged in all
the factors and figured he needed 3.1 degrees (we had
a digital angle finder) and this car has now ran
the best of a 5.219 and keeps getting faster.It is
called a "81 Monza" but consists of an older Alston pro
gas chassis assembled and modified for saftey by Mark
Parkes of Parke's Race Cars in Bloomfield IN and a VFN
Monza Body ,4 link,narrowed 12 bolt(been together for 6
years now and only changed gears as they wear and one
set of axles in 5 years).
Anyway dont discount
pinion angle as a tuning element.
A 77 Camaro that I
helped set up had a 8.5 10 bolt,4.11 gears, spool and
Moser axles and we dialed in 4.5 degrees down pinion
angle and a set of slapper bars and it runs 1.80 60
ft's but he has some traction issues as he only was
using 29x9 slicks so he is going to 29x10.5's and we
are hoping for 1.60 60 ft times.
I hope my little
hydralic roller 350 will run good as I get my car
together.I just want a simple low 8 high to mid 7 second
1/8th mile time and be conistant.
I actually hope to
make it run good put in a screamer bullet later on and
some gears and make it fast and then sell it for
decent price and then use that money to find a decent
Hbody.
Lee


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Drag racing tips.....Phantom402

Postby h-bot » Tue Mar 19, 2002 7:01 pm

From: cliffhangeriii_REMOVE_798609_THIS_@yahoo.com


People are always telling me to use South Side
Machine lift bars, But I am happy with the cheap Lakewood
bars that are on my wifes Z. Adjusted properly they
work great in my opinion.

Cliff


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Drag racing tips.....Phantom402

Postby h-bot » Tue Mar 19, 2002 7:15 pm

From: pfjk36322_REMOVE_475306_THIS_@yahoo.com


Car Craft has a good article on drag & road race
susp engineering,along w/ 2 websites for software fro
punching in measurements to help set-up your ride.Don't
have it at hand just now,making the rounds at work.You
probably can read it on line at carcraft.com.
Frank


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Drag racing tips.....Phantom402

Postby h-bot » Tue Mar 19, 2002 11:04 pm

From: Phantom402_REMOVE_760069_THIS_@yahoo.com


Yes both work well but the South Side Machine
items will et you road race and the slapper bars wont
(trust me you may bolt them on but they dont work right
and the slapper bars will cause the car to unload in
corners,been ther done that, and they sometimes scrap on hard
coeners).
I will run cheap ass slapper bars if i dont build
them my self but i have some tuning tricks that work
and i will use them.
We may get to build an
aluminum rod,030 302 sbc and hopefully I can get a set of
492 heads from GMPP as they are used in an older 302
build up in one of the magazines and we are hoping for
500 plus hp and some wicked rpm-ability.
Lee


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Drag racing tips.....Phantom402

Postby h-bot » Wed Mar 20, 2002 12:28 am

From: cliffhangeriii_REMOVE_889494_THIS_@yahoo.com


I'll keep that in mind, thanx

Cliff


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Drag racing tips.....Phantom402

Postby h-bot » Wed Mar 20, 2002 2:19 am

From: cms7880_REMOVE_814745_THIS_@yahoo.com


I agree it's a tuning aid but there are better
ways to do it. Anyway enogh of that, what do you think
your camaro will weigh in at? Auto w/converter? What
gears? Sounds like a pretty reasonable e.t. goal.
I
just put a motor in a 86 monte ss from my friends
malibu, the malibu weighed 2800lb & ran 7.70's 1/8. My
goal is 8.69 or quicker to get the car out of street
class. His malibu had 4.56 gears compared to my 4.10's &
I know the weight of the monte is going to hurt
also.
Speaking of 8.5 rears, I've been runing a
8.2 for about 6 years now, & last year is the first
time I broke something. The monza ran a best so far of
6.71. not bad for a 8.2! Later, John


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Drag racing tips.....Phantom402

Postby h-bot » Wed Mar 20, 2002 3:47 am

From: Phantom402_REMOVE_160346_THIS_@yahoo.com


Hey I cant knock an 8.2 rear cause I have a set
of 4.88 schiefer gears in one for my 70 Monte
Carlo(i took it out cause i bent the right axle)and these
gears cameout of a 64 Tempest by machinist use to race
in the 11 1/2 lb class and he ran a 400
Pontiac(thats over 2 tons)and ran low 7's in the late 60's with
a 4 speed.
AND he used to ring 8500
launch/shifts out of this engine.
I want to narrow the rear
end and use it in my Camaro but may just keep it for
my Monte.
BUT the pinion angle is a great tuning
aid for track conditions (ie less angle for less bite
,more angle for more bite)and it works perfectly.If I
dont have the car going soon a friend of mine works in
a machine shop and we are talking about building a
leaf-link suspension buy building a rocker set up to mount
it on the springs and use adjustable arms (similar
to upper bars on a 4 link)to change pinion
angle.
My only other choice is to use a set of Jegster SS
bars.
Lee


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Drag racing tips.....Phantom402

Postby h-bot » Wed Mar 20, 2002 1:35 pm

From: jon72vega_REMOVE_247220_THIS_@yahoo.com


lee,
i built an 8.2 camaro rear end for my
vega, and alot of parts are not interchangable between
the BOP 8.2, and the chevy 8.2, including the ring
and pinion gear set.
is the rear end in your monte
carlo a BOP, or a chevy
rear?

later,
jon
<a href=http://www.geocities.com/jon72vega/my_page.html target=new>http://www.geocities.com/jon72vega/my_page.html</a>


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