RF tie down shock?

[missile07]

After trying a tie down shock on the RF driver complains that the car is spinning coming out of the turns in tack & slick. Took the shock back hoping something was wrong with it and it checked out fine. Put a straight 45/45 Bilstein shock on and driver says it's much better.

Would the problem be driving style? Running on a very banked high momentum track and car is a tad tight on entry

Anyone have any thoughts or recommendations?

[7uptruckracer]

That tie down would hurt drive off, BUT tie down doesn't tell you much there are a lot of factors that can make a tie down shock you can run lower rebound but no bleed or higher rebound and some bleed and accomplish the same thing but it can allow the car to act totally different. You would need some dyno that shows your zero point or some build info on the shock itself.

[save the racers]

Its not letting weight transfer back to the LR

[missile07]

I will try and look at the build sheets tonight... this is the third night we have tried this shock. Both on imca and ump tires and same effect at two different tracks. Driver initially said something was wrong with car and we chased it until we changed shocks. So we tried it again on UMP tires and same effect...spinning.

Save the racers...by not letting weight transfer back would this mean the car is getting over too quick on the RF or holding it too much on the RF .

Driver is not an aggressive driver but really smooth on and off throttle...RF shock suggestions?

[save the racers]

Holding it over too much. Not sure how much a "tie down" you have, but take some rebound out until you get some forward bite back.

[missile07]

according to the shock builder we have the correct LR for it. actually have two he says will work with it....one has 150 lbs of pressure and other has 200. We have never played the shock game very much but we took a chance....I dont have the paperwork in front of me but shock comes back out (rebound) so slow at one point we thought it was a dead shock or bent.

[thinkstomuch]

my thoughts are if you use the tie down, take out some rear steer. when i switched i had to get used the the rear "hanging out" morejmo -

[JustAddDirt]

In my findings too much tie down will hurt traction off, unless you are playing with bump stops, or are running a stiff spring set-up.

You need a lot of rebound with a stiff spring to control the rate at which the spring rebounds. not enough and it will want to dribble like a basketball. too much and it will hold the RF down, and if you are already topped out of LR, it unloads LR tire.

It is a balancing act, on the LR and RF and it requires different combinations for different style tracks track to be good.

Car needs to trip on the RF on entry, and stay loaded on RF through corner for car to take corner speed at optimum level. ( at least mine does, when it is right, it is a really fast, when I miss it, well not so good)

[RRR_Products]

Get an internal adjustable and fine tune to what you need. Need more drive off? Take clicks out. Too tight on throttle put some in. Penske has a great shock for this.

[Matt49]

Having the adjust-ability really helps dial it in. As previously stated, the problem you're having is that the RF is holding all of the weight that would typically be transferred back to the LR which is where you get "drive".
I get the impression that the shock you are trying is not adjustable. If that's the case, I would increase RF spring rate until it starts to behave better or maybe increase your LR bite on the scales.

[missile07]

Don't believe we can use the adjustable kind...

JAD when you say "stiff" spring how stiff are you talking? On a 600 now.

thinksto much....we shortened the chain almost an inch from where we started to help on rear steer and had our bars just 1/4 inch back on the right side.

thanks for the replies guys....car is not horrible bad but love looking at different things to try to improve

[missile07]

thanks matt49.... those are things we can try without changing everything else too much and get back to our base if we need too.

Running 40-50 lbs of bite without driver right now.

[charcoal01]

Don't shorten your chain, you're just making the problem worse. Use the bars to take steer out, flatten the left lower. The car will usually get onto the right side faster so you generally have to start with more bite, which should help with the drive off.

Tie downs work best if you can dial the car in to where you are never really off the throttle competently, you'll be passing guys in and through the center more than you'll be drag racing coming off.if you're fast enough through the center it won't matter as much your drive off on exit.

[thinkstomuch]

missile07 - if you've adjusted the chain that much already then my suggestion isn't it. I would disagree with charcoal01 on doing the bars instead because imo that will hurt the driver were as the chain not so much.but if you've tried that then I second Justadddirt, split the difference on the two valving you mentioned and see where u stand

[drtrkr244]

If you have access to an adj. shock, I would experiment with it a few races, and then have your shock buy build you what you need.Be sure to put shock covers on both fronts, which you should be running anyways.

[charcoal01]

Your guys theory of the rf holding the weight and not letting it transfer to the rear worked great in the days of cars that squatted when coming of the corners but the 4 links we run today need to lift on the lr in order to create the drive off that tire. A tie down shock takes a whole package to run and I promise you jeff and I know what we're talking about with the chain. The answer to how to get more drive off isn't always a bigger rf spring. I softened up almost 100 pounds on my front springs and a few more small changes and I have way more drive on dead slick stuff than I did when I ran a 600 or 650 in the rf. Op, pm me if you'd like, I can probably give you some other ideas to put the drive back in the car you lost with tie down.

[missile07]

The inch on the chain wasn't an all at once adjustment. In increments...still at 45 degrees on the top bar at full drop. On the imca/usmts stuff I do feel that the lr needs lift but Im not convinced yet on UMP tires.

Again driver is not driving in as deep as others but with the 45/45 he kills them coming off the turn.

We just want to try some different things little by little to improve.

[missile07]

charcoal your inbox is full...

244=cant get away with adjustable shock... they check

[drtrkr244]

Ok, so if the RF is so heavily loaded, why don't we have tremendous forward bite! Its always been agreed upon that racecars work off of diagonal corner weights, but it doesn't work that way with a tied down RF shock!

[missile07]

Who was that directed towards?

[drtrkr244]

Anyone who posted earlier.......my "reply with quote" is not workin

[charcoal01]

Inbox cleared. Sorry.

[JustAddDirt]

missle07

you say you are on a 600 RF spring
what clip...chevelle?

[missile07]

yes chevelle clip.

[RRR_Products]

Please look at Penske internal adjustable shock. They will never know because it is "internal". Save money by having one shock and not 20.

[Duckhnter83]

What would you recommend for a imca northern sport mod for a rf shock on dry slick

[Matt49]

Anti-squat as a substitute for down force or load on a rear tire only works if you can transfer weight from front to rear. Stiff rebound front shocks are not conducive to front to rear weight transfer which is why so many people complain about lack of forward bite when running them.
The REAL advantage we get from being all barred up on the LR is that the vertical center of gravity is raised which promotes more weight transfer. More weight transfer = more grip = more speed. It's all about getting as much weight to transfer to the rear wheels but still being able to steer the car. That's the tricky part. If this stuff was easy, everybody would do it.

[JustAddDirt]

when I drove a chevelle clipped car, I could not get any traction in the car unless I had a 700lb RF spring in the car.
Had a softer compression setting, and a good bit of rebound in RF.
shock and spring have to work together.
and you may think that the 100lb spring difference sounds huge, but when you factor in the 35% motion ratio, that is a 35 pound difference at the ball joint. Not a lot, but a noticeable difference.

[let-r-eat]

I would also like to add that if the car wasn't designed to run the softer right front then it's very likely that a soft right front isn't going to be very successful.