Lift Sticks/5th & 6th coil combos

[BNaylor91s]

I have been looking at lift sticks along with having conversations with other racers about combos on 5th and 6th coils. I cannot find a lot of information on these lift sticks. Does anyone have some insight on them?

[MasterSbilt_Racer]

I have been looking at lift sticks along with having conversations with other racers about combos on 5th and 6th coils. I cannot find a lot of information on these lift sticks. Does anyone have some insight on them?

It uses a series of urethane bushings to create a progressive spring rate. Allows you to tune rate and inflection point where the rate changes.

[zeroracing]

I did some testing on them before they came out. They are tunable, and yes very progressive. From the drivers seat I felt the car got in and through the center better. The reaction of geting off the gas seemed smoother and it felt from the driver seat it kept the rear tires stuck better. Drive off might have been a little better but the car felt better and smoother in, that was the most notable change. Due to the better entry I’m honestly not sure if my better drive off was from the stick or from higher center of corner speed. I don’t think thy are overly pricey compared to many other products and worth a try. Still run a 5th coil shock.

[billetbirdcage]

So, do we want a progressive rate or a digressive rate with a spring and dump valve or just a linear spring? Seems people can't make up their minds, LOL.

^ rhetorical question ^

Billet shakes his head, then scratches it, then shakes it again, then goes on with life......

[TheJet-09]

Did I read correctly in an add for one, that they need servicing (replacement of bushings) around 250 laps?

[dirtrace09]

Zero did you choose to keep using it or go back to a 5th/6th coil spring shock combo? Did you change the bushings to a different set for rate and if so was that based off of travel or feel?

[Burke1118]

So, do we want a progressive rate or a digressive rate with a spring and dump valve or just a linear spring? Seems people can't make up their minds, LOL.^ rhetorical question ^Billet shakes his head, then scratches it, then shakes it again, then goes on with life......Lol.... bloomer was dominating with an inerter 5th coil and now the trick rocket 5th coil shock has literally no valving? Apparently only extreme opposites work on the lift arm. Run a normal shock and a linear spring and you will be giving up 2 tenths..

[Kromulous]

I "heard" Bshepp has been running one of these Liftsticks...

I like the idea because of the rebound characteristics of the poly / rubber. You just reduce the reaction of all the active coils of the spring. I had some Lucas guys tell me that they run a 200lb spring stuffed full of spring rubbers, now what rate is that who knows, and i couldn't get anymore info on it.

[Matt49]

I think the question is: Do you want to "absorb" the torque or "push back". Metal springs and rubber can do both but the rubber won't push back as hard. At least I think that makes sense.

[Doc88D]

I believe it may be more about removing the "harmonic vibrations" than anything else.

[Kromulous]

Now that's another good point, harmonics. Whole new bag of worms there.

I cant wait till i hit that Lotto, i am gonna test this stuff all day long, 7 days a week LOL. Some many things to tinker with on these cars.

[MLR19]

I think the whole idea is something else to sell, that invariably ends up on the shelf when you go back to the std shock/spring arrangement.

[MasterSbilt_Racer]

I think the whole idea is something else to sell, that invariably ends up on the shelf when you go back to the std shock/spring arrangement.

I think we have a winner.

[MLR19]

The trick is to try it and then sell it before everyone else realizes it does't work.

[let-r-eat]

Gimmicks are worth a boatload of $$$$. They are everywhere!

[zeroracing]

I only got to run it a few times,our season ended early. I ran it twice, same rate just the standard off the shelf they sent. Then went back to a traditional set up. Part of the thought process is like on the pull bars they need to be progressive, these should be also. If they should or not is a debate. With our limited run time I’m not swearing it’s the best thing ever, it did seem the car was smoother on entry and did not break the rear tires loose if you entered a little hard. That probably was due to the 6th coil effectively being back further than it was prior, and the bump stops being used not a linear spring.

Matt49 is also correct in that the bushing pull bars don’t bounce back as hard as the spring ones so the same theory was moved onto the 5th coil.

I am getting ready to debut a new car this upcoming week if everything goes as planned on the list of items to test again is the lift stick. Run traditional then it again. I will tune the feel based upon driver feel to a point but also the load curve from the spring machine. We will compare the curve to travel seen/what the driver likes or dislikes and attempt to form a good correlation.

Also I don’t remember the expected life on them off the top of my head but bushing pull bars typically have short lives.

[Mr.Kennedy777]

I think what the car wants on one way of travel doesn’t always agree with what the car wants with the other way. It’s like a lot of other areas where you gain one way and lose the other so most guys find the best middle ground OR try to eliminate the middle ground. Building a cylinder that could load like a spring and unload like rubber would be pretty good. Perhaps a cylinder?

[let-r-eat]

I have a shock for sale for XXXX$$$$$ that will do whatever you want. *vibration? What's that? Harmonics? What's that? *sarcasm off*

[sidewinder69]

is this the neuline deal?

[Burke1118]

is this the neuline deal?I think it's something else. That nueline deal is hilarious. "MORE TRACTION AND SIDEBITE!" "...how?" "Crickets"

[zeroracing]

The jdm lift stick is an aluminum bar, with a set of urethane biscuits in it to replace the 5th and 6th coil springs. Standard lift bar, standard location.

The nueline deal does kinda a pull, I have not really talked to anybody that tried it but I have strong doubts.

[Mr.Kennedy777]

I think it's something else. That nueline deal is hilarious. "MORE TRACTION AND SIDEBITE!" "...how?" "Crickets"With the more traction thing, the lift arm is able to move ahead without changing the angle between the arm itself and the pick up point because of a slider unit on the nose of the arm between the brake side bushings and acceleration bushings.The angle between the two is more stable when compared to traditional 5th coil unit. This means it’s more effectively lifting on the chassis at any given point. Using bushings instead of a spring, that force is fed into the tires more quickly. This improves the speed at which the tires gain traction from the bar. The improved side bite claim I think is directly linked to the improved rear traction. Better loading on the tires will increase their ability to grip, obviously, and with the mounting point lower in the car, it doesn’t have as significant amount of impact on how the chassis rolls with the throttle applied. Curtis is an engineer, and not just some joe blow guy who decided to come up with some random idea. I know a lot of guys on pavement who have tremendous success with his lift arm and swear by it. On dirt, I don’t know anyone who’s actually ran it because most just run with what comes on the car and try to make it work.

[Burke1118]

^^ the angle difference is negligible in my opinion.. and any efficiency gain caused by maintaining a 90 degree angle is offset by the wasted energy trying to over come the stiction of the sliding mount. As far as “feeding force into the tires more quickly”.. that depends where in the range of travel the lift arm is.. being that the urethane is progressive, initially it will load the tires more slowly. After the progressive graph intersects with the linear graph of whatever coil spring we are comparing it to, only then is it loading the tires quicker. From what I’ve seen, they also aren’t “shocked”. So any harmonics or resonance is damped strictly by the hysterisis of the urethane..not good. As far as it effecting body roll, why is more body roll good to begin with? And imo it’s close enough to the center of the car to not have a noticeable effect anyways (also remember this would be a similar effect as anti-roll or anti-dive. Wouldn’t effect amount of weight being transferred, just the ratio of weight transferred elastically vs kinematically)If “force feeding the rear tires quicker” is how it provides traction, why would it be fast on a pavement car? There is no way it works quicker than a solid top link, which is what most cars use. It’s snake oil as far as I’m concerned. Using “MORE TRACTION AND SIDE BITE” as a selling point without being able to provide any proof or reasoning behind it when confronted doesn’t lead me to believe he’s a very good engineer. I’ll stick to a lift bar and not worry about hacking up my chassis in order to run the newline expensive shiny liftbar with a bumpstop

[Mr.Kennedy777]

Are you sure??? Have you checked the efficiency of the bar comparing the two? I doubt it.And going back to urethane, one of the reasons you get a progressive load curve is BECAUSE it turns motion into internal stress which STOPS MOTION, hence the term bump stop. If you want weght to transfer quickly, then that’s the way to do it. Not deflecting through a coil. And t might not work quicker than top solid link, but a top solid link is never straight up and down a lot of that energy is lost through ANGLE. You don’t need to be a genius to figure that out. When you have a 30* angle in a pull bar you’re measuring that angle from the horizontal not from vertical. If you measured vertical at zero that pull bar would be on a 60 degree angle and less than HALF of that force is acting in a way that actually produces a downward force on the rear end. Not to mention, shorter mounting point of a pull bar to increase leverage picks up mainly on the rear of the car so it really only re distributes the weight at the back of the car. The further ahead you move it the less angle you get and the more angle you try to put in you must move it up and it loses leverage... soooo... that’s also something to consider. It’s quicker than a spring for the sake that it maintains its angle, at 90 degrees and not only does it depend on the stack, but the pre load as well. Yes some rates might be softer and offer more initial wrap up, which on very slick tracks is what you want, but when there’s grip the bushing will reach its peak load sooner than a coil. Have you actually tried to get a hold of Curtis? And ask him yourself? I’ve been working with him on a couple things here actually and he’s been very helpful. He did have to go for surgery around a month ago and hasn’t been able to keep up with things as he’s had some complications as a result of his surgery.

[Mr.Kennedy777]

And if you look at his bump stack rates, most of them will produce quicker loading curves than a coil except for the really really soft ones if you’re using a stack of three. Which is common on dirt, sometimes four depends on what you’re looking to do. Stack of two you’re looking at more early progression, and that is the more common set up for pavement.

[Mr.Kennedy777]

And let’s get honest here how much is your lift arm really? Once you factor in the price of the fifth coil and shock, which are now adjustable in almost every car, and sixth coil, the lift arm itself.... You’re probably looking at $700. $150 for the lift arm let’s say... anywhere from $300 to $625 for an adjustable fifth coil shock and that isn’t even the most expensive and tuneable stuff... then you need springs that are what 80 bones a piece, give or take 20 here or there. If you want to adjust the fifth coil rate while it operates then you’re looking at a bit more money to throw at the car in the form of a dual stage stacked spring kit with a lockout and another spring. Now if it comes with the car, then okay, it’s already included in the price. Not a big deal but to purchase all that stuff, isn’t as cheap as you might think man. Right now the lift arm at Neuline is $575 or so, with everything included. So it’s not as expensive as you’re saying it is if you compare it to the cost of going to it from a fifth coil lift arm found in most cars, to going from a car that has the Neuline lift arm in it, to a new lift arm with a fifth coil.

[fastford]

this idea may be great on a asphalt car , but on a dirt track , its hard for me to believe it is better than a system with some form of dampening ,

[Mr.Kennedy777]

this idea may be great on a asphalt car , but on a dirt track , its hard for me to believe it is better than a system with some form of dampening , I would normally agree with you, but knowing how sensitive a pavement car is to any type of input to the chassis 0.1” miscalculation on front suspension travel can make the car undriveable, to dirt where 0.1” happens everywhere because you’re trying to calculate best platform over a rough surface and need to leave AT LEAST that much room for clearance under the car, and there’s changes that large all over the place quite often. If it works good in a chassis that’s extremely touchy, I’m pretty sure it would work good in a dirt car and if you’re really THAT worried I’m 100% positive you could easily install a damper into that design for a relatively small amount of money.

[fastford]

thats what i was thinking , just put a shock behind it , which could become another adjust-ability tool in its self , by changing valving and/or moving the shock front to back, of course there is more expense , as far as sensitivity goes , just concerning the traction device , ie lift bar or pull bar , i would think dampening would be more important on dirt because of the many transitions the car goes through when compared to pavement.

[Mr.Kennedy777]

thats what i was thinking , just put a shock behind it , which could become another adjust-ability tool in its self , by changing valving and/or moving the shock front to back, of course there is more expense , as far as sensitivity goes , just concerning the traction device , ie lift bar or pull bar , i would think dampening would be more important on dirt because of the many transitions the car goes through when compared to pavement. And let’s say that’s the case because you can see even on asphalt with this thing, the braking and on gas had weird spots it seems like, where on throttle the brake side bushings have zero load in them, and as the brakes are applied the lift arm comes down, unloads the acceleration side completely and compresses the brake side. Controlling that will NEVER under any circumstance be a bad thing. Is the design better? I think so. When it comes down to how it works and the theory behind it, absolutely I believe in this product. But like you have said, it’s not perfect. What would be interesting would be to combine methods that would keep pre load in the rubber bushings on both compression and rebound sides, and like you’ve said.. adding dampening to it. Combine that with the stuff on the market. Now I would almost put my money on it being much better than the stuff out and about right now. That’s one thing I’ve been working on and talking to Curtis about actually is changing how the bushings are pre loaded in order to make the entire device keep some stored energy in it when it would normally be unloaded... I never talked to him much about adding dampeners though. But between those two changes, I think that will help make the transition much better, and like you’ve said adding a dampener would probably improve it even more. Then compare it to current fifth coil and 6th coil applications.

[fastford]

if you could preload the bushings both ways , then it would probably cut down on total travel of the lift arm in relation to mounting point on chassis , so you would probably need a pretty stiff shock mounted closer to the rear end to have a good effect , were just getting around to trying the digressive set up with springs , i do think this stick might be something to try as well , because i have always been one to try things out side the box , how do you contact this curtis guy?

[Mr.Kennedy777]

if you could preload the bushings both ways , then it would probably cut down on total travel of the lift arm in relation to mounting point on chassis , so you would probably need a pretty stiff shock mounted closer to the rear end to have a good effect , were just getting around to trying the digressive set up with springs , i do think this stick might be something to try as well , because i have always been one to try things out side the box , how do you contact this curtis guy? I just went to the web site and then went to “contact us” and started talking with him that way. Haven’t heard from him in a little bit. I know he did have surgery recently and was away for a bit. Another thing I’ve been trying to work on is to get away from springs and rubber entirely. A hydraulic cylinder with check valves, control valves and pressure relief valves to control the speed and pressure of the fluid. Set up properly you could make it progressive, linear, digressive, or even have it progressive and then turn digressive. Have it fully adjustable from under the car. I know a lot of guys who do hydraulic work and instrumentation controls on gas wells so they have a lot of know how. Still in the drawing up stages but hopefully I can make it real eventually here.

[MasterSbilt_Racer]

^^^Sounds illegal. LOL

[fastford]

I have saw a shock , basically a hydraulic cylinder with no spring or rubber of any kind on it , a few years back , he was very good when track was smooth and slick , but any rough or tacky , and he was terrible , I can see where what you are talking about , if designed to be adjustable for any condition , would be great , BUT , as MSR stated above , with every one focusing on cost reduction as being the answer to all the DLM problems now days , it will be banned by the time it hits the track ,

[Mr.Kennedy777]

^^^Sounds illegal. LOLPossibly illegal to show up to a race with. Not illegal to test with lol.

[Kromulous]

The Lift stick i seen on a LM had the stick and a shock in front, not sure of the valving of course but a good DA there you could have the whole realm of sustainability.

[erm11]

Just put a reese bar on and be done with it....

[MasterSbilt_Racer]

Just put a reese bar on and be done with it....

What I was thinking...

[old17ford]

Anybody got any pictures or web site ?

[keeks]

Just google JDM lift stick. $400!?! No thanks.

[billetbirdcage]

People acting like bumpstops or something other then a spring on the 5th coil is something new, We won MLRA championships and tons of races on it 10 years ago. Now I'm not saying that was the sole reason or that is was even much of a factor but something we was doing clear back then.

I know people where doing it way before me, least back to around 2005 or so.

[billetbirdcage]

I guess I should add this: Just like anything it's another tool in the tool box, not that it's right or wrong to do it but just different. You can maybe help some situations and just as likely hurt yourself in others and there is no super magic there it's more of a tuning/timing deal then anything.

Sure separating/combining the 5th and 6th coil may have some advantages but also has some disadvantages, racing is a series of compromises. You pick the situation/adjustment that gives the most of what you want with the least compromise or bad side effects.

I'm still a believer that there isn't any real serious gain in the whole 5th spring set up, but you can tune with it for sure but don't expect to find much of a gain with a good handling car. Now if your fighting always tight/loose across the center or something, then sure you can get a reasonable gain but it's cause the car is now handling good not that you created this tremendous amount of traction all of a sudden.

I'll get off my soap box now, lol.

[Mr.Kennedy777]

I guess I should add this: Just like anything it's another tool in the tool box, not that it's right or wrong to do it but just different. You can maybe help some situations and just as likely hurt yourself in others and there is no super magic there it's more of a tuning/timing deal then anything.Sure separating/combining the 5th and 6th coil may have some advantages but also has some disadvantages, racing is a series of compromises. You pick the situation/adjustment that gives the most of what you want with the least compromise or bad side effects.I'm still a believer that there isn't any real serious gain in the whole 5th spring set up, but you can tune with it for sure but don't expect to find much of a gain with a good handling car. Now if your fighting always tight/loose across the center or something, then sure you can get a reasonable gain but it's cause the car is now handling good not that you created this tremendous amount of traction all of a sudden.I'll get off my soap box now, lol. I agree with you on that. But there are times when the track just isn’t there. Doesn’t matter how well the car is set up, sometimes the track is just slower. In those instances, I believe it does a lot. I think that’s really where the entire idea came from originally. And then, where is bad on the track because sometimes the surface itself is good in one spot and a little icy on another? If you had a digressive set up, it might be good on a track that has some good grip in the middle but loosing grip on exit.. you could fine tune the timing of the rate change and the pre loads to build a little more mechanical loading on the tires sooner, and then operate on a lower rate after a certain point where you need it. Or if it’s glassy in the middle where you’re running but there’s a bit of spot you can hit and pick up throttle harder a progressive rate might be better... What does entry look like compared to the middle or exit? How do you want this thing unloading? I think it’s not really going to push the car over the top like you said when conditions are optimum. Probably doesn’t matter what you have in there it could probably (not a nice word)(not a nice word)(not a nice word)(not a nice word) near be solid if the track was good enough. But the thing is, it is inconsistent not just from one race to the next but from one part of the track to the next in the same race at times. Or during a race even it changes quite a bit. That’s an entire other variable right there.