tube80z

That can be a tough one. I use a lathe to hold the tube and put tap in the tailstock to get the hole centered and square. I do this after welding though as I haven't yet figured out how to deal with warping from welding a threaded insert. In something like a pushrod (think formula car) this is highly loaded and if not square imparts a bending load on the rod end, which leads to failure. You gotta love all those pre-threaded tubes you can get from coleman. I know I've used a bunch on projects over the years. Cary

Greetings, I see some pretty impressive quarter times for some cars. I'm curious if anyone can give me 0 to 60 or 0 to 100 MPH times that correspond to the quarter mile times. I don't drag race and don't have any idea how to compare that to what I know. thanks in advance, Cary

I guess there are a couple of things that could be done. An assesment of the geometry between the two (RC, migrations, track changes, etc.) and perhaps what is the difference in weight. If you had a good guess for the CG you could come up with an idea if this would be better or worse and which way to tune. Total hersay but I'm told that the stock setup has a lot of anti-dive built in. So if you don't address that you may find that you know have more power steer effects than a stock Z suspension. Cary

A friend wanted to try these on his vehicle. A number of companies were called a few basic questions were asked. Like what is the spring rate of these bags. Long conversations about pressure were given to us but at the end of the day nothing about how pressure changes the rate or any ballpark figures. So I'm not really convinced these would be useful unless you're just wanting to set the car on the ground in a parking lot 'cause it looks cool. And as John mentions they seem to be backwards to what you'd need. Cary "self adjusting my ***"

Where I built my car they often build hotrods, etc. and what they use is Ford tie-rod ends on street cars. It just so happens a standard bridge reamer has the same taper as the Ford tie-rod end. I have some pics somewhere of all this. They prefer this mehod over rodends for street cars. The Ford end they use costs about 8 dollars wholesale. Cary

Ever seen a V8 car hold the brakes and apply some torque against the rears? When you can physically see movement it probably wouldn't hurt to make the installed stiffness of the pieces higher. For a race car using reduced travel I'd mounted the rod ends so that you don't try and move the joint around the ball (bolt is up/down). If you put these in a vice and move them you'll see it takes less force to move them in this direction. And if you're tricky with how you do the mounting on the inside you have the ability to change the rear RC. And if you go down this road I'd look at installing any sway bar directly to the strut so you don't put bending loads on the arms. Cary

I hear ya. We have a local venue that would be a lot of fun but the owners of the lot claim we'destroy it. So instead they have numerous RV sales where they put down the levelers and leave marks, etc. Locally we had an event at our fairgrounds that featured a slalom between concrete light poles, which didn't count for a penalty I did get to race a long time ago on an event hosted at a drag strip. It was actually a lot better than it sounded and we go 60 foot times. The ol' timers in the club tell me that we used to have a number of street autoxes around here. Entire downtown sections were closed off so a few nuts could have fun. What was this thread about again .... Cary

We rarely use cones at our events. But speeds can be high at times and I have hit a small tree, torn off two corners of the car on a concrete drain tile, started a small grass fire, and a few other things you don't normally see at autoxs. I guess I'm just a moving disaster, Cary

Must be nice to be a perfect *** model I slid around a bunch in my Kirkey so I made a few poured inserts to tighten up the fit. This is something fairly new to me too. Bead seats are made out of beaded foam just like a helmet liner. And they are much safer in impacts than the poured foam, which is the part I was interested in. There are some kits where you sit in a bean bag and hook it to a shop vac to get the shape you need and figure out how many beads are needed. Then you mix with resin and do it again. As I get old I seem to worry more about personal safety. And since the tube frame car is getting closer I'm trying to work on some of this. I spent a bunch of time talking to Pratt&Miller about the foam blocks on the side of the vettes they run in ALMS. You may laugh but I'll be running a HANS next year, mostly to get used to it for hillclimbing. Figure it can't hurt at an autox. Cary

Have you considered adding a bead liner or poured foam insert? I was going to use one of these for my tube car but I'm now leaning more towards a bead seat that fits into a basic alloy pan to get me lower in the car. cary

Has anyone hear used the flexible TIG torch? It looked interested and I was hoping for a review. Cary

Interesting, any pics of the failures? Cary

I'm not sure this helps at all. I'm planning on doing some compliance testing. The idea is to simulate a load on the tires laterally and longitudinally by spreading and pulling on them and measuring the change camber, toe, etc. This would let you see if this design had any obvious issues. Cary

This was also done on 510s and then the TC rod is in tension. No issues with the same pieces here. Basically boxing in the TC rod and having a bolt across that the busing pivots on? The only thing I'd see being an issue would be the the axis everything moves about will twist your bushing. In the back end of a 510 this generally leads to squeaks. Cary

Hi Paul, you have a PM. Cary

In Medford the wide tires are worth about 8 tenths when you learn how to make them work. Currently my car is almost three seconds a lap faster than Kotzian in his Z0-6. The sweeper is flat in third on entry For really short runs it may be better to use the tens in back too. Cary

Paul already gave the story on his car. Mine comes from Montana and was bought for parts for my tube car project. It was an ex-hillclimb car that hit a tree. After sitting in the shop for some time I decided to make it work and try out ideas before committing to them on the tube car. Outside of the shop. At play in Medford (http://www.ssccmedford.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=15&Itemid=44) Cary

Hi John, how do you typically measure this. I've become very interested in compliance effects and friction as of late. Cary

We like to think we're fast but you live in the backyard of one of FP's big dogs. Drop me a PM if you're interested in the Oregon autox scene. Cary

No, just a general comment on a possibly easier way to do this. Unless there's a specific reason you need to mount a spherical. The rack ends offer an easy solution to making an adjustable TC rod and having a strong joint that you can boot. Cary

Why don't you use something like rack ends. Sentra ones work well. Cary

Yep, that's the one. Claude is really good at explaining complex subjects in a manner that is easy to understand. For instance, he gives an explanation of a tire as a series of springs. And when it coil binds in any direction it slides rather violently. And then tells you about how not to do this. The only issue with the seminar for me is that he's at a pro level and I'm just a lowly autoxer. So what I can use and afford is a lot different from what he uses and can afford. Aim PISTA (8 channels) versus Motec ADL2 (45 channels). Three really big things came from the class for me (among the hundreds of others). 1. Kinematic changes have a much larger influence than springs or shocks. Claude shared some stories about his days in F3 to back this up and we did some simulation that showed weight transfer etc. For me this means major changes to the front end of my tube car so this can be easily changed. 2. It is absolutely essential to have linear pots on your suspension if you want to be able to set the car up. Claude shared a number of nifty tricks that he'd used. My favorite was the use of pressure sensitive paper and trailer tie downs on one of the Aussie touring cars. They pulled the car down to match what the pots showed in a problem area. Camber and pressure were adjusted to maximize the contact patch and the car was instantly 1.2 seconds a lap faster and won the race. 3. Trying to measure tire temperature is a shot in the dark with a handheld pyrometer. Claude showed data from one of the flying lizard cars and asked us what to tune according to the data (looked like too much camber). On car tire temp measurement clearly showed it needed more. So that's 13 sensors at $250 a pop plus a system that can record all the data. What it really showed is that racing these days, even at an amatuer level, you really need data acquisistion. He uses the example of going to school and needing a report card to see how you're doing. In this case the driver has a report card and so does the car. And while expensive you can learn more with one of these systems in a weekend than most people can testing all year without (assuming you can understand what the data means). I figure this class put me about 3 to 5 years ahead of where I'd have been figuring this out on my own. I would add that for people operating at an amatuer level I learned more from the ICP seminar put on by Richard Pare and Steve Lathrop and it was a fair bit cheaper. Hope that helps, Cary

I'd have to look it up but I believe they are forced to run 52F/48R. We had a couple of the Speed WC guys in the motec seminar this year. It sounds like a number of new cars are supposed to be coming. I was chatting with one of the caddy crew in Portland and they were moaning about the reduced revs and additional restrictor they got for that race. I wouldn't buy a caddy but I have to admit they are probably one of my favorite cars at the moment to watch. Cary