rack and pinion in FED ?

[wideopen231]

Ok purist calm down. LOL Looking at doing something different next winter and researching parts.  I want to build suspension for front of dragster. One prblem would be drag link. I can make a pivot at same point as chassis, which may or may not work. I can use a rack and pinion set up, running steering rod down side similar to drag link and thru tube in tank to a rack and pinion which I think will eliminate the problem all together. We are not talking oving 2 inches or nothing I figure inch at best for chassis. I have tested it on FED and it does move wheel ever so slightly and may or may not be issue. 150 or so is not were I want to find out.. I know it is not period correct or anything like it. I am bracket racing and driving the stripe and hitting brakes is part of it. Not to mention cpl local tracks suck on top end.

Question have any of you had a fed with rack and pinion and thoughts on ratio. Asking about ratio because i seem to remember that was issue that Garlits changed that made rear engine drivable.

[wideopen231]

One thing I was concerned about my not be issue. Ratio. Funny car style box is 10:1 and rack and pinion is 12 :1. I thought bigger difference.Rereading with second set of eyes corrected that. NOT LOL.

[JEFF/21C]

The ratio  is no biggie you can change the lenght  of the steering arms to speed up or slow down  and will make heavy or light to steer

[Paul New]

One of the FED’s I race against has a rack it seems to work fine 6.80’s 202

[wideopen231]

Thanks for replys. Would like to think I could run 200 plus,maybe tipping the jug with heavy dose of go fast juice.LOL

[fuel749]

Just out of curiosity, what's the reason you'd like to put front suspension on your car?

[wideopen231]

Same thing. Curiosity. If I was a cat I would have died 5 times using 9 lives at a time and curiosity  would have killed me all of them.

Seriously. Being a bracket car and at times having to be on binders I am trying to make car more stable and remove some of the top end bounce. Plus If I can make it keep the front wheels in beams a little longer and no pulli ng up It might keep a -001 from  being red too early button release.

 I have talked with two guys who have Diamond built RED with similar front deal.They both say best car they have ever driven. I am trying to make this a  easy swap back if it does not work and doesn't scuff my paint job,LOL

[fuel749]

Keeping the tires in the beams was what I was thinking.  Before I started building cars ( I started with bracket RED's)  I spent a lot of time watching them on the starting line just for that reason.  They tended to snap the front tires up real quick and set them down just as fast which seemed to cause erratic lights.

The first couple RED's I built were pretty typical and had similar issues.  I played with letting the front half have some sag on a couple of them hoping to give it time to go forward while it was taking the sag out of the front half and it seemed to help.  The last 2 I built i freed up all the uprights and crossmembers in the front half and those cars would leave the starting line with the left front 4" off the ground and the right never leaving the asphalt.  They were dead consistent on the tree after that.

[tcoupekyle]

My car is a slip joint chassis and it leaves similar left front up right front down. Also it's pretty much a Cadillac on the top end. Know it's not the same as suspension but that's the idea.

[wideopen231]

Kyle,

 What I am trying to do is incorporate both. Going to try slip joint with shock for control.  Question does slit joint being loose effect steering at all that you can tell?

[tcoupekyle]

I've only adjusted one slip.
But I couldn't tell a difference in steering with it loosened.