Is that all?

[jaybee]

As usual I'm probably the last person in the western hemisphere to read my July Street Rodder, but I see something that raises a question.  I like the Lexus-powered Deuce track test and would love to see more of that in the mags.  Then again maybe it won't be easy to get owners to do this since numbers don't lie.

The car is quick in a straight line as you'd expect and stops well.  It's well balanced with a nearly 50/50 weight distribution, slightly biased toward the rear.  With Kugel independent suspension on both ends you'd think it ought to corner like it's on rails right?  So why doesn't it?

Now, I don't expect it to corner like a new sports car, but it really surprised me to see .80g on the skidpad.  Any new Civic can do that, and Art Carr builds a replacement frame for Tri 5 Chevs that has been tested to pull 1g on the pad.  Maybe it's because the car has relatively modest tires, 185/60x14 front, 225/60x15 rear.  Maybe there's a suspension tuning issue.  The magazine comments on heavy body lean due to the lack of sway bars front and rear.

Maybe I'm being nit picky here, but it seems to me that a car that can run in the 12s can get you in trouble quickly, it ought to handle well enough to get you out of trouble.  It also occurs to me that umpteen magazine articles have said "independent suspension front and rear so it handles like it's on rails."  Am I thinking wrong here?

[Pope Downunder]

As usual I'm probably the last person in the western hemisphere to read my July Street Rodder, but I see something that raises a question.  I like the Lexus-powered Deuce track test and would love to see more of that in the mags.  Then again maybe it won't be easy to get owners to do this since numbers don't lie.

The car is quick in a straight line as you'd expect and stops well.  It's well balanced with a nearly 50/50 weight distribution, slightly biased toward the rear.  With Kugel independent suspension on both ends you'd think it ought to corner like it's on rails right?  So why doesn't it?

Now, I don't expect it to corner like a new sports car, but it really surprised me to see .80g on the skidpad.  Any new Civic can do that, and Art Carr builds a replacement frame for Tri 5 Chevs that has been tested to pull 1g on the pad.  Maybe it's because the car has relatively modest tires, 185/60x14 front, 225/60x15 rear.  Maybe there's a suspension tuning issue.  The magazine comments on heavy body lean due to the lack of sway bars front and rear.

Maybe I'm being nit picky here, but it seems to me that a car that can run in the 12s can get you in trouble quickly, it ought to handle well enough to get you out of trouble.  It also occurs to me that umpteen magazine articles have said "independent suspension front and rear so it handles like it's on rails."  Am I thinking wrong here?

Interesting isn't it.  I do not know; but some possibilities for the numbers could be:
- advertising blurb vs actual test results.  The night get that chassis, fit it with massive stabiliser bars, fit sticky tyres etc. to get that 1g result.  That would not necessarily make it nice to drive on a twisty, and imperfect surface.
- high centre of gravity, high body roll and probably compromised geometry at the limits; reduce tyre contact area etc.  They did say stabiliser bars would help, as would shock and spring rtaes and so on; however, that may not be the best settings for all round road use.
- if they were both tested at the same place and time, under the same conditions I expect the results would not be that different.
- you wonder how hard they really push a car like this.

Good on the owner for allowing his car to be tested in this way.  It is an impressive car; it performed much better than most rods I expect.  How about some of those pro-street Willy's with 800hp engines and so on; lets see some of those handle up to their performance potential.  Or how about a 350hp V8 in a highboy with cross-ply tyres; I bet they would struggle, and be a lot less controllable on the road in an emergency than this car.

[jaybee]

Thanks for your response.  Don't get me wrong, I realize that rodders don't have all the CAD/CAM and developmental engineering advantages, and that the cool factor is invaluable.  At the same time these cars have to mix with modern traffic.  If a late model merges into your lane and slams on the brakes or comes off the on ramp across three lanes of traffic right through where you were planning to be then your car shouldn't hinder the driver in setting things right.  Poking along 10mph under the prevailing traffic speed just doesn't seem like the best answer for that, but I see a lot of it.

True that pulling maximum G on the skid pad isn't the same as real world performance as well.  What happens when the limit approaches is probably more important in real driving than the ultimate skid pad number.  Unfortunately Pro Street cars have trouble on both counts, which is probably why so many of them are trailered to events.  Nothing wrong with that if that's what the owner wants to do, but it does discourage extensive driving.

I have a friend who's background is more in sports cars and Showroom Stock and other road racing.  He points out that you can get big horsepower and excellent handling a lot more easily by just going to a dealership.  True enough, but how long is that 05 Mustang going to turn heads?  I was just a toddler when the original muscle cars came along, but suspect the new/old argument must have been much along these same lines.

[enjenjo]

In most cases, the old muscle cars were ill handling pieces of crap. They only went well in a straight line. the weight distribution was all wrong to start with, the brakes in most cases were a joke, and the things we did to them only made it worse.

On the car in Street Rodder, it doesn't have sway bars, probably because it would take away from the look he wants. Sway bars are important on independent suspension.  Another case of compromising engineering for looks.

[jaybee]

Excellent points.  The original muscle cars had WAY too much power for their brakes and suspension, which helped create the insurance crisis that eventually helped end that era.  Air shocks and long shackles so you could get those L60s under the back sure didn't help.

I hadn't thought about how sway bars are really more important on an independent suspension than a straight axle.  Camber curve certainly isn't one of the issues with a dropped I beam.  Interestingly enough, that still enters into the calculation with new cars.  Ford has defended using a live axle under the new Mustang because the extra cost just didn't bring a lot of payoff in most situations.  That's particularly true on the race track, most of which are extremely smooth compared to your average highway.

I realize it's a specialized situation, but the Sprint Car guys are still using live axles front and rear.  They go WAY beyond "spirited driving" and drive on a surface that can get much more rough than we would tolerate on the highway.