I've been working too much lately and have to get out for some fun this weekend.

Saturday morning I am heading up to Fontana for the Vintage races festival weekend day two of a three day event- if you have never been to one of these- wow, what you are missing. You will never see a collection of unique, rare, exotic cars gather and run on a road course- even F! cars dating only a few years old, to old CanAm cars, sprites, bugeyes, Vettes of all genres, vintage nascars, million dollar museum cars (wealthy people banging fenders in them- unbelievable to see). Eveery ticket is a pitpass and you walk into and through the gasrages while racers are wrenching on the cars-up close and personal stick you head into their fenderwells and most everyone is inviting- not like a CART of NASCAR race where the peasants have to stand behind the ropes.This is racing last secret event- no crowds at all- mostly drivers and teams.

Saturday night I am heading up to Irwidale. This kid Nick I am coaching has been invited up there by Jesse James and he and I are going to help out in his pits alittle. Nick actually was welding on Jesse's car for him last weekend when Jesse himself and is crew could not sqeeze under the rear of the car to reattach the bumper in a quick pinch- Nick was skinny enough. Jesse called him this week and told him how impressed he ewas after later inspecting the welds nick did upsidedown and hurried- Nicks known him for several years informally- Jesse has taken a real liking to him and it may be another open door for him- I am so proud of him.

Anyways, anyone else heading to either event? Look out and say hi if you do.
Pics of Fontana last year:

 

Well, HSR West was a big disappointment today. They just did not get the car turnout like years past- only about 1/4 the normal showing. Only stayewd about 2 hours and helped a friend through his race , then Nick and I split to Irwindale.

For trivia fun, I want to see if anyone here can tell me what this is on this car? I was testing Nick and he guessed correctly to my amazement- never thought he'd guess.

 

Then over to Irwindale where Nicks getting very good exposure working in the raceschool and starting to learn setups. They want me there with him if possibble to help him progress along in his learning and are trying to taylor him into a latemodel ride once he gets enough seat time and suspension translation/needs skills. This kid can weld like you can not believe. We have tenetive plans to start own own line of suspension products in a few years once I get some free time on my hands in life. I would like to manufacture a few of my exotic designs I have for 3rdgens also in that venture. Mainly high end very custom more one-of-a-kind orders to the distinguished spirited driver.

Jesse James has given Nick some info today on who he wants Nick to get in touch with to assist Candice (poster girl and Latemodel racer for Jesse's womens racing attire called "Jesse's Girl" race gear) on her race team. He is looking for a good fabricator to work on her team and she really has taken a liking to Nick. He's getting so much exposure I may loose a future partnership if doors keep opening for him like this- He isn't going to need my dead weight-
I'm proud of him though, he's the son I never had. And at that note, my family legacy remains in my daughter's hands at the wheel of a racecar only if she can talk on her cellphone.

 

Hmmmm, car number 46. I wonder if that is the same one I raced around the track.

 

No one going to take a shot at it huh?

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/atta...g?d=1151225166

 

I'll take a stab. Since I can't really see enough of where on the car it's located, I'll hazard a guess and say it's part of the braking system?

 

I think it looks like a nitrous thing.

 

paddle shifter

 

Without seeing the rest of the car it is difficult.

Looks to be some type of cantalever suspension link.

I can not tell from the photo if the hydrolics are conected in some fashion. I see an accumulator and cant determine what it is used for either with the t fitting and 8 an lines and no check valve?

Does not seem it would carry much load since pivot is mounted in single shear.

I see lots of high dollar light weight fasteners, but the item in question is steel.

Looks to be mounted on transaxle?

Give me a bigger picture. I'll tell you what it is.

 

The bigger picture. The yellow **** is part of it for adjusting tension- That hint should do it.
edit: I will add that the car is a state-of-the-art Lola B06/40 chassis like what currently just ran in LeMans- this one in particular is fitted with a Roush Ford V8 and puts down about 600hp. The part in question has been used for many years now on F1 cars also.

 

an electronic steering box? Looks like it's something to do with steering and I could only imagine that it would have to be electric or have some other kind of tech.

 

it is quite simply the rear swaybar. Very light unsprung weight with both its design and the inboard Penske 4-ways.

 

Well, How long before you have a setup like that on "The Wifes" car

 

I was right. It is a pivot for a cantalever suspension. Whats the prize?

Looks like the suspension is designed so that it must move independently. The ride height would not change in equal loading of both tires unless there was deflection.

Looks to me that the geometry is designed to load the inside tire in the turn and behave oppisite of a sway bar. Compression on the outside tire would result in pushing down on the inside tire and try to add load to that side in an attempt to counteract weight transfer.

It look like a way to run softer spring rates without worring about areo download compressing the suspension.

So whats your interpretation?

 

It just works as any regular swaybar would. It is an independant rear suspension when you remove arms A & B which are in essence the endlinks of a swaybar. They can be adjusted with preload just as a longer link on a conventional swaybar setup would set preload.

The fore and aft swing has no tension at all (Red arrow). The yellow **** controls the torsional stiffness of the swaybar. In reality, just by tightening the **** will tighten the delrin bushing which increases twist stiffness of the pivot so both independant sides become closer to one unit the tighter it gets- or in other words, tightening the yellow **** is equivilant to putting a larger diameter swaybar on a car.(green arrow)

They will pretty much entirely remove the A & B links and the "green" part of the swaybar for Oval racing when the are merely setting up the car with different spring rates on every corner of the car and using crosswedge sometinme up as high as 60/40 to get it to rotate into the banks only upon lifting the throttle slightly and no braking (thus very minimal weight transfer- the high wedge then cuases the loose entry "If under hard braking " to then transfer into a more stable car exiting under power.
High wdge will make a car loose in and push out for the most part- Now by altering other adjustments of the car you can set that range to very loose in and steady out, or steady in and very push out if the driver had to get hard on brakes then hard on gas- but in high speed oval you never really touch the brakes to get any transfer in-thus high wedge is sometimes needed on a very low profile car such as this.

You local guys come out to the track I can teach you this in person. Suspension setups are facinating when you grasp the knowledge of how things affect eachother.

 

i keep going back to someday I will definately want to build that trick rear locator setup I designed. And then I will install a cockpit adjustable torsion swaybar with aluminum arms leading forward to the axle (with the weight of the torsion swaybar itself monted to the underneath new locator chassis support crossbrace. Very light unsprung weight compared to a factory setup- especially after I someday also cut off the spring perches off the axle and go to rear coilovers withthe plate design I gave to Steve Spohn- And he never offered to give me one for free or at least at cost for the idea. He never returned my couple of repetitve e-mails about your defective crossmember either. I still think he makes very goods quality parts (most of the time) - but I'm not endorsing him anymore on those two points alone.
We talked on the phone a few times- Thought he seems like a person with ethics- guess not.

 

His first weekend/race with them went well. Candace got t-boned though on about the 10th lap and lost the driveshaft when they rocked her rear axle in the hit. She's fine and the car's not bad. Nick's already got the chassis section cutout and replaced that night before we left. Minor tubing repair. and they'll get the body panel fixed and painted for next week. Nice he's on a team backed with a deep pocket owner.He's under the expert watchful eye of Del Dalrymple who is a master chassis fabricator. These guys hopefully are taking Candace to the Nascar Busch Series in 2007.
Thats Nicks father, I took him to the track to see his boy in action- Proud dad!
The second shot is Nick trying to keep from laughing as I sneak a shameless tourist shot of he having a final powwow with Candace before we left. the kids still in H.S. and wants a few tourist shots to show his friends the chick he's affiliated with- We were all 16 once.

We are getting in very tight with the guys in the Irwindale Racing Center and I am getting alot of connection there. I'll have to arrange a club gathering so we can all show the cars and cruise the track one day before the races. Maybe by the end of this year? I'll have to check on availiablity, but want to see first if there is interest. Then we can have all of our faces painted- Mimi the Irwindale Clown one of my Mother-in-Law's best friends- Really, no joke