Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
Moderators: dirtonly  /  dmantx  /  hosehead

Have noticed many big name teams actually greasing up their birdcages to allow the rear arms to slide on them. However, many of the local teams have told us to put the heims in the center of the bolt then put spacers around the heim so it can't slide. The local teams told us that the rear will shift over one way or the other too far and bind the w link and torque tube up-essecially binding up the whole car.

Does anyone know what the different set up theories here are?

Thanks guys!!!!

I am not a chassis geometry expert by any means, but as the car rolls to one side or the other the distance from the birdcage to the centerline of the chassis decreases slightly. The arc of the torsion arm is always vertical, so by isolating those heims that in itself would cause a bind in my opinion.

KS

JMO, leave the slugs/shims off the bolt, allow the lateral movent of the lower arms hiem, the ladder needs the movement throughout its arc, Ive had sets of birdcages that utilize a cap screw to eliminate the possibility of the 1/2 " bolt from backing out of the flag kinda the same thoery here of keeping the hiem free of a pinch, your arm offset should be correct, -check and recheck your arm spaceing so the bird cage does not recieve any unwanted binds or lateral load throughout the range of movement , #1 pull the stops off the RR&LR disconnect both shocks, with the jack and a friend, run the suspension through a cycle of movement (down on LR ect) exagerate the movement into something the car will not typically experiance in normal lap conditions , watch your hiems (on the lower arms) in relation to the birdcage lower flag , keep checking your torque ball often, when your car is correct you will literally feel the suspention work! if there is a bind you might not know it if that is what you are use to experianceing the car reacts SO much better to changes when it operates smoothly and correctly, The addition of grease tot he bolts is defietly not a bad idea, the drawback is the mess when attracting dust ect , keep in mind when you go to wash the car you will be spraying the birdcage to get the icky off , thus wettout of the birdcage and bearings now, welcome to another hour of maitinance to the carriers , I simply do a walk through on race day like a hour before I hit the track and lightly wd-40 all important components , throughout the week, and most importantly after the wash, the entire car gets the wd-40 bath , I find the wd-40 much easier to clean up after, maybe not as good ,but, the grease can be a pain if not kept up with,I try a keep a marine type lube on components (barz, torque ball, kingpins, ect) that are not experiance ing direct contact with dirt,mud,rocks , regardless ,your constantly lubing cleaning and re lubing again , although its properties (grease) are much more suseptable for long duration lubrication,there is no correct way to do it ,every wrench has a method , just keep after it !

Stop in at the Hall of Fame. You'll see the older 4-bar cars had very little movement available in the suspension. I realized engines are stronger, tires better but sprint cars are a whole lot faster now than they were back then. Maybe there's something to leaving the suspension free to move and prevent binding. I've driven a couple of older cars and they don't handle nearly as nicely as today's cars. Give me a nice, square, free, modern 4-bar over a spring front sprint or double cross spring midget.

If you put a bunch of spacers in there to sandwich the heim you are going to end up shearing a heim. It is going to move through the arc of suspension travel and if you try to keep it from moving that lateral force is going to have to go somewhere.

Ever seen what happens when a right rear arm or stop breaks going in to a corner...not pretty.

Loose is when you hit the wall with the rear of the
car, tight is when you hit the wall with the front of
the car. Horsepower is how fast you hit the wall and
torque is how far you move the wall.