No Fwd/Side bite in the dry

Cant get my buddies 08 Hughes (Jasons Personal Car from 08) to hook up when the track goes dry. He half tracks the best cars in the heat ( 5 weeks in a row) weather tacky or a little dry as long as there is a little moisture. Start on the front row in the main sometimes he can run up front for bout 5-7 laps then car goes backwards fast. Last night went straight to the back looked as if he was racin backwards. I would put up all his numbers but he asked me not to ( Sorry, I know it hard to help without). We have done everything we have been told to do from Hughes shop. It seems no matter how much we change things it makes very little difference. IE, bar angles, percents, shocks, ect... We have went from one extreme to another and back even with small changes and nothing makes a good difference.. The rear tires are so hot you almost can't touch them, the RF has a good amount of heat also... No coil bind or shocks bottoming out. new tires and all....

So my question is does anyone think the chassis is all used up? We are lost, no matter what we do he dominates the heats and races for last in the main. Thanks for the help kinda hopin someone has had the same problem and can point us in the right direction.

just thought about something we havent messed with.. would the traction/brake bar off the Q/C with the chain. Could it be unloading the rearend somehow?

Hughes cars are underslung?I wouldn't think flex would be a big deal unless you have alot of hairline cracks around pullbar mount and etc.and as long as you don't have a shock mounted on your 5th arm that shouldn't be a problem,now if your running a 5th coil that could be your problem my experence with them is it takes constant adjustment to keep the car hooked up,sorry I don't have more to offer but your kinda limited on info.Has the motor been in another car and been good in the slick?

yes underslung, on pull bar changed biscuits,no 90/10, new motor (385 creted block light weight everything, cnc'd heads, USMTS open motor) driver is pretty good with his foot. I was also wondering if maybe the RR is hiking up? I've usually only experianced that on tacky tracks. Maybe I should chain the RR? Has anyone done that?

Make sure your lf shock rebounds fairly quick and the rr shock has low compression and slow to rebound, had that problem earlier this year. Lf shock was bad, but your shock pkg might be different. Also we don't have a Hughes, just trying to help. Good luck.

Is the driver saying the car feels loose at all or the the back end is just hanging out all the time?

Check your wheel base. Sounds similar to what my problem was after a big crash. After the crash my car had 1.5" of RR trail. Absolutely anything and everything I did seemed to have no effect until I evened it up.

We are not a fan of biscuit pullbars as they always work good when some tack in track and not so much when dry. However, I agree with TCMod, we were way loose early this year and pulled the RR forward a couple turns at a time until the car started working in slick. Then you can lengthen it back out as needed. This adjustment seems to works when nothing else does. Less stagger, all the way to even up on both sides will help also. In fact our car is not so good in tacky, but real good in slick. We just leave it setup for slick as that is where the track goes for feature.

John

We are trailed half an inch on the RR.

We are running integra gas shocks. We changed the LF still the same..

Pretty sure RR is a 94 with 100 psi.

Car was driveable just no bite..

Thanks guys.......

Put some harder tires on the car? Sounds like tires leaving the scene to me. That soft stuff won't work long/

Might be the drivers right foot, or driving into the corners too hard?
May have to tune driver instead of car, since nothing with car works???!!!

Might try the lead in the rr. shorten it up a bit.. I had to square up my car, and it really helped.
Also as stated earlier, tire compounds? I do not know USMTS tire rules, are you all too soft on tire selection?

It also helped us when we took the trail out of the rr and evened up with lr. Good luck.

we are running the american racer KK7?? We tried running tires that have been used a few times last year and have set awhile (they were harder).. Still no luck. We video taped it last week but not very good.. I'll see if they got it uploaded yet....

What about raising the rear ride height to get the car to scotch up in the slick?
maybe lower gas pressure in RR shock a tick to help get car over on RR.
Both should help sidebite, which will help forward traction

Well another heat race domination and failure in the main. no bite and car was tailing out pretty bad on the straights. It seems as soon as the tires heat up, straight to the back we go.... but this week the LR was hot and right side was just warm.. but yet car still not tight. Driver did say he was shutting off the RF brake. I think that may be most of the problem. He wont drive with all 4 brakes.. We threw the book at it this week. bars/rf spring/bite/cross The only thing we havent done is change the driver or pull the RR fwd.. (I forgot) We did find we were measuring our ride heights wrong in the front. But that didn't help either. Back to endless hours on the scales and goin through the car...

One of the local guys came up to us last night... We almost lapped him in the heat, but he has finished top 2 in the main all year(2011 Hughes)... he had an 08 Hughes and he said we were doing everything right for that track... He is going to give us his set up sheet for his old car and I guess we will try that for the dry....

Have you tried calling Jason Hughes? I would think since you have have his “personal car” he would be very helpfully?

yeah, we have talked to him and Brian. I talked to a few other local guys that are running hughes cars and they said they were able to get them in the right direction but not real close if you know what I mean. Jason has ran here and won with the USMTS races. he won last year in the tack but struggled a bit here in the dry this year.. We will hopefully be closer this week. I think one of the biggest issues we have is that the driver isnt willing to change his driving style to the set-up... We will try again and again till we get it right.. Just hope its before the end of the season...

Something I've learned this season, for us, it was to match the set up with the driver and we got faster. He has to be comfortable with the car. JMO and best of luck.

Get him off the 3 wheel brakes in the slick. Don't get me wrong sometimes there is a need for it, but not if the car has no traction in the slick.
I bet the car goes in the corner loose, and from there there is no traction, cause he is sliding sideways instead of going forward.

Are you on a liftarm instead of pullbar? If so you will never get it to work with the driver on 3 wheel brakes, and sliding the car. Have to keep car loaded on liftbar setup. (wheels always pulling forward, and not letting car come off LR bars.)

We are on a pullbar. I keep telling him to run all 4 but he won't.. He will try it but says he doesn't like the way the car "feels". I have been trying to change the car to his driving style but no luck...

We will see this weekend.. I'm driving his back up car for the rest of the season. I know he's going to be pissed if I beat him in his old car...

Like was said by others" PULL THE RR Forward" to square then another 1/4 in at a time until it gets tight. Jmo Good Luck.

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Originally Posted by Kojak_9x

We are on a pullbar. I keep telling him to run all 4 but he won't.. He will try it but says he doesn't like the way the car "feels". I have been trying to change the car to his driving style but no luck...

We will see this weekend.. I'm driving his back up car for the rest of the season. I know he's going to be pissed if I beat him in his old car...

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have you tried cutting up the rf brake pad? i hated the way a car felt with all four brakes, but loved the way i could get it to turn in with the rf cut off but couldnt use as much brake as i wanted in the slick. i cut my rf pad down to about half its size and found the happy medium for me. i never used the rf shut off again unless i was crazy tight in the mud.

RIDE THE BRAKES... I was watching a bunch of the Hughes cars this last week and they are riding the brake around the whole track. I know it keeps the car on the bars putting side bite and creating forward traction for you. I talked to a few people who have hughes cars with the same problem and Jason told them to start riding the brakes.

are you gear restricted and are you carb restricted ? if not start with 10 points of gear out,or start with the throttle as slow as you can make it or get a slick track carb,,,when track is tacky gear up when slicks off gear out .thats the quickest way to get it tightend up if you are that close on set up,,,,,,,one last thing are you scale or rear %% restricted ?? add rear%% or try it buy fueling up

I have a 4-bar/ swing arm car not a hughes. For tacky, I put more rear steer in car and for dry slick I put less rear steer. I also don't use the RF brake anytime. Is he driving the car in on dry slick or going in sideways ?

What are you angles (front to back and side to side) on your rear springs. And are you running on bump stops . And what springs are u running sorry if u have already posted it

Sorry its been a few weeks. I finally got my car to the track and running 2 mods makes for a busy week. The car has seemed better but he has been at the wrong place at the wrong time for the last 3 weekends. We did however find that his Left % was to high. We brought in back down and add some rear% when dry but unfortunatly hasn't been able to finish a race lately.

We take the rear steer out when dry, and take some gear out. We did finally start messing with the RR bars by pulling the trail out and man... That makes a huge difference in the car. I tried it on mine and wow.... I feel that just messing with the RR trail makes the biggest (single adjustment) difference I have ever felt in a car. Thats what I get for not listening to you guys earlier......Thanks for all the help. Hopefully he can stay out of trouble this weekend so we can actually see where we are at....

Thanks again to everyone.

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Originally Posted by TCmod

Is the driver saying the car feels loose at all or the the back end is just hanging out all the time?

Check your wheel base. Sounds similar to what my problem was after a big crash. After the crash my car had 1.5" of RR trail. Absolutely anything and everything I did seemed to have no effect until I evened it up.

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I had this same problem earlier this year. I had the rearend squared up to the mounts. WE CHANGED EVERYTHING...springs, bars, pull bars, shocks...no matter what we did, no side bite. I drop a plumb bob from the front ball joints to the rear mounts and the front of the car was bent 1.5 inches. The whole time I thought I was squared up but the RR was back 1.5 inches. I was good early but as soon as the moisture went a way, I would wait and wait and wait to pick up the throttle.

I seriously thought it was time to hang up the helmet! I brought the RR up 1.5 inches and BAM! I was back baby :)

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Originally Posted by Kojak_9x

I feel that just messing with the RR trail makes the biggest (single adjustment) difference I have ever felt in a car.

Thanks again to everyone.

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I agree 100%