Effects of Adding Bite

I was wondering what adding bite would do to a car that is already tight in and loose off would do to it. I am running ~155lbs of bite right now. We built a new car last and really dont have a lot of seat time in it yet. Last year it was loose off and still this year it is the same. Pretty much no forward drive, getting to the flagstand before I can really get into the throttle. I know when you add bite, it increases your cross %, which to me and my dad (car owner and crew chief) will tighten the car up. But I think that we need to add more bite for more forward drive. We are running stock metric suspension all around, with the exception of tubular uppers in the front. %'s are 56.4 L, 58.9% R, 48.4% C. Our cross should make us loose in, right? The car is built like a modified only with a full frame underneath it. The car is 100% built by me and my dad, so we dont have any chassis builder set up sheets to go off. Thanks for help in advance.

You have to much rear and left % in it. Get left and rear down to 54-55% range. I ran with 216lbs of bite with a 53% cross.

What springs are you running?

With that much left and rear weight in the car, you should be running 400+ on bite. I calculated it at 436# guessing the car weighs around 3250 based on the numbers you gave.

More bite should loosen going into the turn off the gas, and tighten you up when back on the gas. You better make sure you have your stagger pretty close if you try this or it will push bad in the center.

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Originally Posted by speedbuggy

With that much left and rear weight in the car, you should be running 400+ on bite. I calculated it at 436# guessing the car weighs around 3250 based on the numbers you gave.

More bite should loosen going into the turn off the gas, and tighten you up when back on the gas. You better make sure you have your stagger pretty close if you try this or it will push bad in the center.

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I would agree with this statement. The single biggest thing you can do to aide Fwd Drive is add rear weight. The high rear weight will make you tight going in, so you need to up the left% to loosen you up going in. Your problem is you dont have the LR bite to drive you off. If you want to run it this way, it all has to work together. So up the left to 57.5 and crank at lease 400 LR heavy into it. The extra cross along with tightening you off will also loosen you going in off throttle. I have a lot of experience running this type of setup, so make the changes and post a reply on how it drives.

Dave

I appreciate everyones opinion. I had a buddy that drives a modified tell me that adding bite would loosen me in and tighten me coming off. It just went against what I thought I knew about adding cross weight. Unfortunately we are at the mercy of a machine shop at the moment. First night out this year, blew the motor. Once we get a motor back in it, and I convince my dad that this is what we need to do, I will report back to how it went.

How far back is your weight mounted. 58.9% rear is a big number for a stock car?? Without knowing all the facts, I would guess swing weight is the loose out.

Depends on how you drive. Adding bite or crossweight. Tightens my car but I keep the rear end tucked under me most times and drive the car straight. If you hang the rear out in corner then adding cross may feel like it loosens entry as there is less weight on rr. It will for sure be tighter off

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Originally Posted by DaveBauerSS6

How far back is your weight mounted. 58.9% rear is a big number for a stock car?? Without knowing all the facts, I would guess swing weight is the loose out.

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We have the majority of the weight mounted directly behind the rear end on either side. We also have some in front of the rearend and over top of it. The car is built like a modified, the only thing that wasnt scooted back was the motor. And the motor is set to #1 being in line with the ball joint. The only floor pan is just as wide as my seat and tapers down to allow a little more room than my feet. Hopefully that clarifies a little bit on how we got our numbers.

so you have weight spread all over

put all the weight in one pile in between the 4 springs so it can actually transfer

Its been set back if #1 plug is in line with the ball joint.

Well I realize that this thread is a little older, but we finally got it all lined out and working pretty decent. Once we got the new motor together we had issues with it running correctly, ended up being a bad coil. I believe the bad coil is why the other motor blew up, but anyway. I leveled the front lower control arms, set ride hieghts with 1/2" of rake front to back, took some rear % out, and dropped the bite down to in the 80-90 range. Car handled the best that it ever had. We can still make it faster. This past weekend got our first feature win in this car. I appreciate the help everyone.

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Originally Posted by hot_rod

Well I realize that this thread is a little older, but we finally got it all lined out and working pretty decent. Once we got the new motor together we had issues with it running correctly, ended up being a bad coil. I believe the bad coil is why the other motor blew up, but anyway. I leveled the front lower control arms, set ride hieghts with 1/2" of rake front to back, took some rear % out, and dropped the bite down to in the 80-90 range. Car handled the best that it ever had. We can still make it faster. This past weekend got our first feature win in this car. I appreciate the help everyone.

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Thanks for the followup. Good to know there was a solution.