i have an 89 firebird with approximately 420 hp....right now it runs 12.3's in the 1/4 mile....everythign is new or aftermarket except for the suspension....i have not put a dime in the suspension....and as you can see from my picture when it launches the front end jumps way up and the back sink almost hitting the tires....what do i need to get this thing to launch straight instead of up and losing all the time....i know i need to tie the frame that the first thing....but in order to to get it to quit squatting so much would a set of shocks and struts do the trick?....and what else do they offer to help get these cars to hook up...cuz i heard ladder bars are kind of pointless and im definitely not going to 4 link....any and all help is appreciated

 

New rear springs & shocks will help but won't fix it. It also needs subframe connectors, LCAs, and LCA lowering brackets.

You might end up needing an air bag in the right rear, depending on how hard it hits the tires with the other things done. An aftermarket torque arm that takes the TA off of the transmission might also make a big improvement. Do the cheap things to start with, and see where that takes it.

 

weve already got it fabricated where the the torque arm does not connect to the tranny....and ive heard alot about lca's but i dont what they are lol....and with addign on subframe connectors adn springs should this pick the car up...i heard it could knock off a couple of tentsh...especially in my case

 

LCA = Lower Control Arm

The thing that hooks the rear end to the body

LCA lowering brackets weld to the rear end, and correct the defective suspension geometry that produces wheel hop and causes squat. Some people call them anti-squat brackets. They act to drive the tires INTO the ground, instead of trying to COME UP OFF the ground. They can be adjusted so far that they'll make the rear of the car LIFT up off the suspension when it launches instead of squatting.

 

yea get some tubular LCA's with poly bushings, LCA relocation brackets, panhard rod etc and subframes, springs and drag shocks will help, air bag in the pass side spring will help too. but the LCA's, and LCA relocation brackets will help u hook harder, panhard rod will keep the rear centered and idk what u did to the torque arm but a nice set up from BMR/UMI etc will get u outa the hole quicker. use poly where ever u can if u want to keep it streetable still, if not spherical ends will allow zero deflection.

with all the upgrades u should get close to 12.0 in the 1/4 and ur 60ft will drop a good amount

 

sofa's on the ball

Subframe connectors should be first on your list, that way you don't end up with a junk pretzel instead of a car. Then shocks, lca's and relocation brackets. Then a good adjustable tq arm.

The design of our suspension system is fine, it just needs some aftermarket components to perform great.

 

i think the suspension is the weak wink the stock LCA's and panhard rod u can actually twist in your bare hands.... i would replace them first the car twisting isnt as big a problem yet bc the rest of ur suspension is crap... SFC would help but i would do them after the rear suspension upgrades.

 

ok i plan on getting the shocks and subframe connectors for sure.......and jegs has an lca for this car but now lowering brackets......i heard you need to weld the lowering bracket on....how hards is it to do....how important and where does it weld too

 

they are not that hard to do just remember to leave one lca on then set up the other it keeps the axle from swinging back alittle. i think you need a adjustable torque arm to they are nice.

 

the bolt in LCA relocation brackets are beefier than the weld ins and come sexy powder coated(weld ins are bare). do them one at a time and they fit where the stock LCA bolts to the rear but u will need to remove the rear shock base where it bolts to the rear end(only for bolt in's bc they are beefier) they are important bc they lower the angle of the rear LCA and help with antisquat and how the car hooks up and they are adjustable for different angles that u will need to find out which work best. id get them from UMI(summit/jegs dont have them) they are a really nice peice and i hope u got a copper mallet or something thats not steel to wack them on bc they are a tight fit. u can bolt them in and then go test it if u want then weld them in at a later time. they weld to the rear bracketry of the stock LCA and shock base. not hard to do at all. the reason ur car is twisting is bc the spring/shock combo not the car twisting, the car wont twist until ur rear suspension is soild enough (unless u have ttops) also the subframes wont do as much in the 1/4 as the rear suspension upgrades will help u subframes also add weight to ur car and ur 1/4 will drop slightly, dont waste u money on subframes yet get the rest of the rear incheck first.

 

these cars twist HARD and subframes should be the first thing on the list. Ever seen a hardtop with the crack on the back corner of the pillar? Exactly...they are needed. Regardless of the suspension being flimsy they are a requirement.

 

although id like to get the ones from spohn or umi but im tryign to get this done fast and fairly cheap....i looked them up and they take over a week to ship in .....lakewood has some rear control arms for 99$ is that the same as lower control arms?....they look the same and they re bolt in and come with poly bushigns.....they sounds like a good piece.......id rather not have to put on any weld in lowering brackets....my car only has 3.42 so i really dotjn need to beef it up all that much i just want to make it stronger not jump up so much when you launch and a little bit easier to control as im gon down the track....its been sideways too many times lol

 

Just do a short tq arm like Jegs offers. Everything else out back is in stock location including the LCA angle, the shorter arm will change the IC and you will notice the rear end staying level and depending on the rest of your combo wanting to seperate. If you want to get really cool, get a heavy duty anti roll bar back there, no more body roll. Makes air bags seem like a waste of time/effort...literally

but since you said fast and cheap, try the LCA relocation brackets and see what that does. Guess this is the first I've heard of it changing IC and producing a +AS....suppose I should probably make some relocation brackets that get the rear of my LCA's higher than the front mount so it'll put more hit back into the chasis???? and leave my jegster tq arm in place...would save me a bunch of money over buying a long bar.

I dunno about the relocation brackets doing all of that to be honest. I did use them when everything I had was stock, but even then my rear end would squat like a sum beeotch, it was'nt until I installed the shorter tq arm that the body all about quit wanting to hunch down on the back tires, and now it literally seperates (meaning body goes up and away from the rear tires on the hit as opposed to squashing down onto them) Just my experience with them though, if guys area installing the relocation brackets and it's producing a bunch of anti squat, more power to'em...I was just never lucky enough to see that happen on mine....too quick, cheap and easy.

 

yea if the lakewoods fit out car which iknow they have a piece that does, they are a good peice. i kno they where less than 100$. the relocation brackets will increase the angle of the LCA so that when u stab the throttle and the rear squats it changes the geometry, as the body lowers and the rear compressed the springs it brings the rear mount of the control arm with the rear(rasising it so its not lower than the front) in turn causing wheel hop, the lower angle of the relocation brackets will increase the angle so when the rear compresses it helps keep the rear lower, bc the LCA is set at a lower angle...this is a must for lowered cars, but is the same as a car that launches hard. just get the bolt ins relocation brackets, and bolt them in, they will be fine for u to test it out and the LCA's will help ur rear bite, also the shorter torque arm peices are a nice peice and do wat IHI stated.

 

ok so ive decided to buy the lakewood lca's....but where can i find a set of bolt in lca relocators?...and how much.....and this lakewood version is not adjustable ...does this matter?.........i just put in a new lunati cam 295/.534 today.....(from a .510) ...takign it down the track tomoroww wish me luck!....im hoping to pickup 2 tenths but well see

 

Click on Spohn, one of the advertisers here, that's where I got mine yrs back for the 1st of 4 stock rears LOL, fit good and reasonablly priced...I will be interested in hearing your results with just the LCA and LCA relocation brackets.....I have my own opinions but I will bite my tounge for now until I see what you come up with for first hand info.

Non-adjustable LCA's no big deal, mine are tubular, but stock length, never had a problem, so long as the rear end is square. Your not making enough power yet for the chasis to want to steer the car standing on two wheels, so having the adjustiables is kind of pointless at this point, put the difference in price to better use.

 

|H| I'm sure you've probably seen these pics before...

Before LCA relocation brackets


After the brackets


Only other difference between those two pics are lack of white paint and switching from QTPro 26x11.50 to a 28x9 slick. I did run the QTPro tires with the brackets and it improved my 60' a little bit and didn't squat like in the first pic.

 

Do you happen to have any pics of the driver side after the relocation bracket install? I'm seeing the "jist" of it, but comparing one side to the other without having a stiff stiff anti roll bar is still apples to oranges, even with air bags since even after i did that my body would roll over on me to the pass side like they always do. Was trying to find reference points to compare squat, but it's hard going one side to the other since the pass side always twists "up" so one could confuse increased anti squat with the natural tendencies of chasis movement....

I'm not saying fake, it did'nt work, etc...I would just like to see the other side and how much it helped reduce the squatting. Where I'm at with mine, I'm needing to find a way to get some -AS, the short tq arm really started putting stress on my tires with the last motor, and my sidewalls were literally shot by the end of the month, so for those 2 yrs I raced with the 388, I literally had new slicks by the end of every month to stay competative....I need a way to deflect all this new power the 427 will have and put it back into the chasis so I can maybe get 1.5 months of racing on a set of stickies and not be scared in the heat of summer on a less than perfect track my 60's might vary...big hp + small tires= stupid, since everything has to work together, and one little variance will put you on the trailer. So with my stock located LCA's, short tq arm, it really started making my tires work...was thinking about robbing parts off my jegster arm, fabbing a new longer arm, and maybe trying the relocation brackets, try to get the best of both worlds, or at least a happy medium....going to go out first part of June if motor holds together and see where I'm at first and make descions from there.

 

Josh, put on some stiff sidewall slicks and you should be alright then? Everyone local to me is pushing the stiff sidewalls now that I am running the camaro and is has the jegster adj. torque arm, relocation brackets, and chro moly double rod end LCAs and panhard bar. Seems to launch level enough with the 2 bags, but I'm sure the ARB for the rear would be the next step.

 

I don't have any other pictures to show the after pics on the passenger side but I can tell you from what my friend said that the back end doesn't squat down like it used to. The 26 inch tires would rub on the fender lip and leave a mark on both sides, the 28 inch tires have never touched the fender lip on either side. Next time to the track I'll have my friend take a picture.

 

ok so i figured out what lcas to get .....but not sure what coils to get......i want somethign that can hold about 500 hp and still not let it squat too much...what size do ya suggest

 

I was laying down between 525-550hp with the last motor, and expect this new one to be around the 650-675hp range, and I have been using the factory coils since i got the car, dead hooking and winning rounds....factory form is pretty good, dont try to replace stuff just for sake of replacing stuff. Most of the things I ran are in my sig, all very basic, affordable stuff that are proven race winners.

 

i have a feeling what your talkin about is just the bracket you buy to put a 3 speed in one of these cars and still mount the TA. It still in effect is attached to the trans. Spohn makes a real nice torque arm with the right crossmember. you should check it out.

O and as long as your on spohn's site, check out a rear drag race anitroll bar. helped my dads 94 leave straight as an arrow.

 

no i now have a th 400....and we had a suspension guy fabricate a torque arm bracket.....im not havign much problems goign straight just problems with the car dropping so far in the back end it almost hits the tires adn the front end jumping about a foot from the tires...what woudl be better to replace ...coils or shocks...im not worried about how it comes back after launching..i just want the car to hook and go and not just shoot straight up

 

Thrilla,

You don't under stand how anti-squat works, that's ok but take it from the folks that do know. It will completley elminate any squating if you add enough. There are two ways of increasing anti on these cars, the cheap and quick way is wiht relocation brackets and the expensive way is with a shorter torque arm.

You could almost get rid of your springs once you get enough anti-squat. Anti-squate is why guys use 4-links, you can tune both sides to even out the axle torque and get the car to launch perfectly strait.

 

If you dont do anything at all to the car and want to help stop the severe squatting, you could get some new struts, I have no idea what your running now or how old they are, but if they're stock/old chances are you have little to no rebound valving and the front end is popping up like you said. One fix wold be a set of adjustible struts to control the rate at which it allows the front susepnsion to droop, slow that down and it wont react so violently.

But like BMmonteSS is telling you, and like we've been saying, once you achieve + AS (anti-squat) your car will not launch like what your experiencing...you can get it so the rear of the car lifts up when launching...that is what anti squat is, hence the term since it's not allowing the car to squat anymore, and now that it's not squatting, it's driving the tires into the pavement instead of -AS trying to push the tires off the pavement and up into the car.

 

yeah everythign from from bushings to struts on this car are stock...that means theyre over 18 yrs old....the car is hooking up fairly well..and i am getting the lca's too
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if i just boght lca's without the brackets would that be pointless....and how much are the brackets...i dont think jegs sells em

 

There's nothing wrong with upgrading existing LCA's, it's an investment into the future, but if you have a limited budget, definately overlook them for now and goto Spohn and order some relocation brackets first, then at a minimum replace your stock struts with new stock struts....some 90/10's would be better IMO, but without ever pricing stock stuff I can only imagine the drag struts being twice the cost of stock struts...sucks to spend money twice for a piece your going to replace soon, but a new strut will give you better performance/chasis behavior than the worn out stockers you have now...Im willing to bet you can move the piston in the strut in and out freely, so it's popping your front end up in a hurry, and letting it come down in a hurry too, only adding to the problem of the rear of the car unloading soon after the hit.

 

I'd agree. Get the lower control arm relocation brackets, then have a friend MIG weld some 1/8 inch steel plate along the bottom of each lower control arm, effectively boxing them in. This will stop them from twisting and get you 75% of the way there. I think that if you look around, you can actually order the polyurethane bushings and press them into your low-buck (but fine performance) boxed lower control arms for a whole lot less money than the fancy schmancy LCAs. (I personally use fancy-schamancy Spohn LCA's with QA1 XMR-series rod ends)

One note on LCA relocation brackets. They help with anti-squat. However there is a tradeoff. They also mess up the rear roll center, and although this isn't a problem on a drag car, it can be an issue if you will be autocrossing or road racing. LCA relocation brackets for lowered corner carvers like mine require a drop of only an inch or so: Any more and our ultimate handling in the corners begins to suffer. Most LCA brackets start out with a two-inch drop. But for your purposes, it'll work.

 

ok so all this time ive been tryign to get the back end from squatting so much ive been focusing on rear coils but you say front struts will do the trick...i have the money to buy drag ones...might as well by them now ...i basically have about 350 to spend