FED bounce problem.

[Scott Krieger]

Your trying to use her as a rifle and not a hand gun, using only one hand to hold the gun to hit the target

Flex fades away over time. eliminate any flex from front motor mount to rearend.

Top rail in front of motor likes a slip joint to plant the rear tire, while forcing the fronts to stay planted in the beams every pass never lifting out.

Slipping the top front rail allows the car to eat up the track and hard top end breaking.

A lot of arch makes the front tires pull to the right on the launch. no give in the steering rod. we use clamps on the chassis to control movement.

She will be happy

Enjoy

[Curly1]

New Tires are in going to try that and see if helps before I start welding in more bars. Right now I think tires are only a small part of the problem but anything helps and I think chassis needs to be stiffer. I am trying to get this car to where it will go down any track under any conditions and be competitive all the time.

As for bounce in the shut down I find on this car it stops best if I just let off on the gas and then let it slow a little before I ease into the brakes. When I do that it stops faster and smoother. Sometimes that is hard to do on short tracks with rough shut down areas. If I try to hit brakes hard same time I kill gas it does not like it at all. Also I have been using the parachute more and it helps. For stopping once again I think it would stop better if chassis was stiffer.

Problem here is not many people have a combination like mine so what works on your car may not work on mine. A typical Rear Engine Four link dragster has a much stiffer chassis and suspension to make it work. FED are more flexible and no suspension so we have to work with weight, tires, chassis flex, engine angle etc.

[Scott Krieger]

Curly,
My daughters car is a 174" fed, triple slip joint top rail, BBC 600 HP, turbo 400. Runs 5.60 at 124 & 8.75 at 150 mph 3000 rpm launch in 2nd gear nice and calm bracket mode 4000 D.A. Chassis has 6.00 cert

I will try to get my daughter to post a run or two, watch over the tops of valve covers & see how much the of front tires come & go from sight under launch, settling down and hard braking on the top end, all controlled by amount of slippage at each joint to let car run free & easy. I do not like chassis flex as it goes away, I have some that will show itself over time and I readjust the slip joints to raise her back up.

Enjoy

[Curly1]

My new tires are here will mount them tomorrow and then try to test soon. Still considering a way to "Tie" the chassis down to make it stiffer to test before I start welding in more diagonals. I do feel part of the problem is this chassis is too flexible but hard to prove with out taking a chance and welding in more bars.

[jeff/21]

If really think that just make some bars that will clamp-on, make collars and weld or bolt bars to them( bolted you could move them up and down the frame)

[afaulk]

You beat me to it...I was going to suggest the same thing.

[BK]

To expand on Jeff/21s idea.
Clamshells on the end of a tube and hose clamp them on.
Should be good enough for a test.
Especially if you could come up with aircraft style clamps.

[jeff/21]

clamps could be  simple tubing that is cut length wise, into two halves  before cutting you weld pieces of tubing across so you could insert small  bolts to clamp  i would use 4 bolts for better clamping and they could be smaller, there are so many ways you could do it keep it simple

[Curly1]

I will try to pull the body off soon and see if there is a way I can do that.

[Curly1]

Okay for an update. I changed rear tires to the MT 10.5Wx33 and they seem a little better but did not completely resolve the issues. So I took car to my chassis guy and added in some braces in two compartments in front of motor. Car works pretty good now and Won me my 4 th NE2 Championship. Car works good now and is fun to drive. By just moving a little weight I can do huge wheelies or barely any wheelies. As much fun as it is to drive I am going to sell it soon, prefer driving Altereds and bought me a nice 4 link Altered with Strut Front and four wheel brakes. Much easier to load and unload and can go back to shorter trailer with bathroom package so I can make some long distance races.

[THE FRENCHTOWN FLYER]

Congratulations on your championship season. I too prefer an altered as you describe (except I do not use front brakes so I can still burn out across the starting line and get a "read" on the track) for the reasons you mention. Altereds have a reputation of being squirrelly and hard to drive, but with the application of modern Pro-Stock-like suspensions the chassis are easy to tune. Good luck with your new car.

[Curly1]

My new Altered handles really well and is easy to drive. I am going to make a bunch of changes in the off season and will run her next year.  The "Long Shot" has been good to me and is fun to drive but the "Short Fuse" is the new ride.