Coil overs on a Ford Straight Axle

[manta22]

Geo;

A large amount of scrub radius can be felt on the street unless the street is smooth and level as a billiard table. Bumps, potholes, etc tend to pull the steering wheel one way or the other and under heavy braking it gets far worse. On the other hand, a little scrub radius is necessary to give a driver some feel as to what the front tires are doing. No bump steer gives a dead steering feel.

Regards, Neil   Tucson, AZ    Lake Tahoe, NV

[Huffy047]

I know this is not the place (we have our own forum) but I race lawn Mowers and yes scrub angle is extremely inportant, without it we could not "Jack" our left rear tire up and be able to turn.

So far no one has commented on my original question:

"Would putting coil over shocks on the outside of the frame improve the handling?"

The attachment point would go from the center of the frame (like a teeter totter), go to the outer edges of the frame and be more rigid?

[Peter Jack]

Now you've made it confusing. Picture please? 

Pete

[panic]

Outboard springs will greatly increase the roll resistance.
Is this better? Not necessarily, the chassis doesn't have much roll or yaw compared to even a street car.
It will definitely require a different suspension tune front and rear than the original bulldog center hanger.

[tortoise]

. . . putting a push rod coil over arrangement inside of it would be easy and take some stuff out of the air. How ever I am looking to improve handling above aero.

There's no reason to sacrifice aero to handling. If inboard springs give too little roll resistance, add an anti-roll bar. As long as you're redesigning the suspension, a straight (not dropped) tube axle is lower drag than an old dropped I-beam. (Easy for me to say, I know.)

[RichFox]

I was going to post s few pictures of the torsion bar front end on my roadster. Pretty clean and not complicated. But this stupid thing wont allow me to post the pictures. Says they are already posted or something. Maybe years ago. I don't remember. If you are interested email me  V4GMR@yahoo.com and I'll send them.

[hotrod]

rename them slightly this board software is not too smart when it comes to things like that.
If you have ever posted the same image it will remember but does not link to the already posted image.

Work around is to change the name of the image slightly, or do a search of your own posts for that image and find where it was posted before.

Larry

[SPARKY]

Rich  I had the same problem and I just started naming them the date and sequence  that way I don't "Duplicate"

[Huffy047]

Richfox, tried to email you and it would not go through, please send then to tdaniels@rocktenn.com and copy to huffy044@yahoo.com

We had the V4/VGCC #508

I too having problems posting pics.

[4-barrel Mike]

To give you an idea of Rich's setup, a zenndog pic from page 20 of the V4 Dodge thread:



and one from page 21:



Mike

[Bob Drury]

  Personally I don't like the shock nmounting or the lack of cross steering, but at the speed's that car is running, maybee it's not that big of issue.
  I sure wouldn't want to hit a bad rut while driving it.            jmo        Bob

[SPARKY]

looks like there is very little angularity involved with the drag link  and the rotational plane of the steering arm it appears to be parallel to the ground My guess this system  would not bump steer much

[Bob Drury]

  Sparky, my problem lies with the parallel inboard shocks which leaves only the tortion bars to dampen at the spindle, which I don't think can work as they are really nothing more than springs  in a different configuration.  Like I said before, maybe at speeds under 130 or so it may not be a problem, but I sure wouldn't want to drive it with a Blown K.B. in it........  Bob

[SPARKY]

Look closer--I think you will find the shocks mount to a "walking beam" arangement. This  which mount out board on the axle and inboard on the chassis these also have a panhard duties

[RichFox]

The car has several runs above 200 with a best of 219. Sparky is correct the shocks are driven by rockers that pivot on the torsion bars. Shock movement is equal to spindle movement. The arms are connected to the axle ends and locate the axle in the frame. In the environment it is meant to run in it works quite well. As an off road racer, maybe not.