I'm using a ladder bar kit on my current project. I got to putting it together today and looking at it, and definatly thought I saw some areas I could improve to make it handle better without giving up any straight line traction. Never gonna be a canyon carver, but it IS a street car after all.

1. The coil overs are mounted very far inward, on a crossbar inbetween the frame rails. I can fab mounts that will move them outward very easily. I can make ~8" further out per side without any interference problems. Should give them alot more control over the rear in cornering.

2. I can get them out a little farther if I angle the shocks. Say maybe 10-15 degrees (top inward, still straight front/back). I can make the mounts to compensate and keep the same ride hieght. I've seen setups that do this, but I havn't a clue if it's good or bad. What would the effect of this be?

3. The track/panhard bar is mounted at a very steep angle reletive to the axle. Roughly 45 degrees. It seems to me that such a member would be most effective if mounted as close to paralell to the axle centerine as possible. I should be able to get it close, at least as good as say a thirdgen panhard rod.

4. The track bar is pretty thin. 3/4 thick wall steel tubing. Think I'd benefit from making a thicker one?

 

dont know about the rest of it but i think that moving teh coils farther out would make it handle beter with less sway. well i dont knwo but jsut an idea.

kolby

 

The trackbar should be parallel. You can eliminate it and use a ladder bar diagonal link instead.

 

Thats what it has. It welds onto the rear right at the back of one ladder bar, and goes to the front of the other one. Just doesn't seem liek it would be all that effective of a design handling wise.

 

45 degrees on a horizontal plane is fine. All it's designed to do is keep the diff from moving sideways. It triangulates the ladder bars so they don't move sideways. Ladder bars are never a good choice for a street car because of the way they're designed. When one wheel goes up over a bump, the other wheel is forced to go up also or else the suspension will bind. Ladder bars should only be used for the drag strip. They were never designed for handling on the street.

A better choice for a street suspension is a 4-link.

 

hense the title of the post

I know the existing design limitations, thats not what I asked.

 

If it were that easy, it would have been done a long time ago. A ladder bar setup is like a door on hinges. No matter how you open it, the entire door will open. The differential is the door and the ladder bar is the hinges. Trying to redesign it for better handling means making it more like a 4-link system.

 

If the brackets that hold the ladder bars to the axle were wide enough you could try using spacers on both sides of the spherical rod ends - like

I=O=I

I - side of the bracket
= - the spacer
O - the rod end

that eliminate some of the hinge effect
good luck either way

 

call jegs and ask them about their SS bars....thats what i got......they have a removable link that will allow one side of the axle to move up without taking the other side with it on the street......when you go to the track you bolt it back in and its instant ladder bars. soon as i can i will get pics....they rock and are good for 10sec cars.

ps.......they will fit anything but roger at jegs engineered them specifically for an 86 iroc that they were drag racing. they are excellent for low ground clearance street cars. no channeling the rear floor pan for a actual ladder bar.