Lift Sticks/5th & 6th coil combos

[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.