My salt addiction

[Peter Jack]

Actually for road racing and oval track set up we don't necessarily use ackerman. The other name for ackerman is toe out in turns and it works well to prevent scrub when turning sharply. As speeds increase and tire loadings change the need often decreases and other alternatives often work better. Ackerman is probably the least worrisome item on the list of things to check for in front end geometry unless it's totally out to lunch and then there will probably some things that are even worse problems.

Pete

[Tman]

Ackerman huh? I guess that's a new one for me. What exactly does that mean?

Believe it or not the scrub is close. It was WAY worse with the other spindles that I had.

Yes, look up a diagram for Ackerman and it is easily understood.

[Peter Jack]

Trent, PM sent.

Pete

[lsrjunkie]

I appreciate the insight guys! Thank you! 

[lsrjunkie]

Well, after a quick lesson in steering geometery and a little redesign on my part, and a little more work... I have steering!  Now if I only had a steering wheel to turn the whole mess!  I guess any progress is good progress.

Special thanks to Stan Back for the lesson! 

[lsrjunkie]

And for the record, I appreciate all you "old salts" for pointing me in the right direction and keeping me from killing myself out there! Or worse yet crashing my car!
    

[Speed Limit 1000]

I hope you understand some of us "old salts" only do it because if you crash, no one can run till they clean up the mess

[DND]

Hi LRS

In my early days of racing [ 50's - 60's ] you would see a car with the wheels getting into a shimmy, i was told that it was becaure the link between the box and the spindle was on a sharp angle like what you have.

Maybe some one here on the forum can sheed more light on this subject, wether it is a ' Old wives tale ' or it is something to look at?

Don

[RidgeRunner]

     Something that should be looked at.  If the forward end of the drag link where it attaches to the steering arm on the spindle is moving in a substantially different arc than the axle during suspension compression and rebound it can lead to bump steer and handling problems.

     A co worker was having handling problems on rough roads with his mid '50's F-100, power steering box from another make to clear the SBF headers.  Juggled the steering components around to better match the arcs and his handling issues went away.

                      Ed

[Stan Back]

I saw that, too.  No bump steer -- no axle movement.  Fixed to frame.

[Stan Back]

. . . tho if it were mine -- I'd shorten the pitman arm to slow the steering down -- and make it more parallel to the ground and look more "normal", too.

[Tman]

Some of us are not that old, I only have 10 years on ya!

[Jon]

. . . tho if it were mine -- I'd shorten the pitman arm to slow the steering down -- and make it more parallel to the ground and look more "normal", too.

"IF"...... your messing with the geometry again I would try to get the pitman arm to drag link at 90 degrees so the left and right turn arc are the same.

cheers
jon

[robfrey]

. . . tho if it were mine -- I'd shorten the pitman arm to slow the steering down -- and make it more parallel to the ground and look more "normal", too.

"IF"...... your messing with the geometry again I would try to get the pitman arm to drag link at 90 degrees so the left and right turn arc are the same.

cheers
jon

Good point Jon.
Keep it up LSR junkie! Your progress is amazing!

[Skip Pipes]

If you want to slow the steering down try a Howe quickener, installed backwards. A tip from JD. I installed this in my car.
http://www.landracing.com/forum/index.php/topic,6794.0.html