Technical Quarter elliptical Wheel hop.

WAIT!! I just realized.......I am not sure if it is the dragster, or the engineer, that never worked.

Depends on the answer to that question as to whether or not any of this applies.

But I'm guessing it must be the dragster you are alluding to, because if the engineer never worked, how did he build the dragster?

Ray

 

You can run without shocks on leaf springs reasonably successfully, but it will be a "show pony" and not a road-racer.
The leafs need to be cleaned to the bare metal and coated with "Dacromet" paint [this is a controlled friction paint made by DuPont]

Trailers have Dacromet coated springs on them.

But if you're going to all this trouble, why not engineer shocks into the design
There are plenty of ways to hide them [look at Formula cars]

 

Very common to find an engineer that never worked. They're lazy *******s

 

I resemble that remark

 

I just never wanted to work..Fixed it though..Retired at 56...Wasn't an engineer though, toolmaker..Just as bad...

 

I added a brace to mine due to my shocks mounting off them

 

Not every engineer knows what he or she is doing.

 

Okay let's clear something up. Firstly, I did not build my car, I bought a work in progress for basically a song- and as received, Had no shocks ad no provisions. You guys want pictures? Good me too. But I am one of very few I know without a cell phone and don't have a digital camera either,I'll try to get my brother to take some. I'd rather spend the money on paying off my schools loans from my extensive career in school. I'm 26. And guess what guys I am a Mechanical Engineer. From SUNY Farmingdale In New York, I'm also currently enrolled in a Facilities Engineering degree at the same School . AND have a previous degree from Five towns College in audio engineering. I work for an Electrical component manufacture.I engineer. Ok what does that mean here? Nothing,because I still don't know what to do here. I have taken tons of cl***es. and Absolutely none of which had any books with any chapters about split wish bone suspension and 1/4 ellipticals. I am asking for help because I am trying to learn. And admit I will never know everything. I am humble in that regard.

You can be an engineer and not know everything, in fact I find way too many engineers think they know everything. And everything is set in stone-if everything always stayed the same, things would never change. You have to break tradition to innovate.

Experience, trial and error have been my teacher in regards to Hot Rodding.
I started with wide 5 drums brakes from an old ford, a blown up transmission, an old 307 SBC with a rounded cam and a blown head gasket. I learned how to change all of these things in the process of building it. I learned about residual pressure valves, how to properly adjust proportioning valves based on braking, How to rebuild a ford 9 inch. I learned that I just paid 200$ to have a drive shaft cut that I could have very easily cut and welded myself. I took a pontiac distributor and made it work in a SBC because it fit against the firewall better.
you guys might not have done things the way this car had them done. but If I did everything the way I was supposed to I'd be driving a 2008 accord instead of a 65 Chevelle. Or we'd all have identical cars.

I'm just hear to learn,not to accuse or start a flame war. So if you want to help then I appreciate it. If you don't you just don't have to say anything.

 

Defiantly tube shocks are the way to go. The f1 ford truck upper shock brackets are available from many sources, as are the weld on lower shock studs. Good luck with your project, hang in there! There is a lot of talent here! Gary

 

True/balance your tires. Then add shocks. If in doubt, add a steering dampener.
That seems to be the consensus of this site. (no matter what)

 

To start with , in my opinion, 95% of the I beam/ quarter ellipticals are set up wrong. You need to have the proper spring rate for the weight of the front end and the suspension must be able to go up and down, through it's motion, with out binding and changing caster.
As stated before, without pictures, everyone is just guessing.
I had a old work pickup I bought and it drove around town fine but once on the freeway, I could hardly keep it in the lane of travel and after hitting a big bump, it would change lanes . After a few years, I noticed that the left front tire was a bias belt and the other three were radials. Changed out the bias belt and it would travel down the freeway at 80 mph with no problem.

 

Here ya go Troll, this is the only video of my car at some kind of speed I have. Oh yeah its got a tube axle with hair pins too. I never said it's OK to build cars without shocks, all my other cars have shocks, I said I don't have a problem until 70mph. My car also handles great and is 80lbs off 50/50 weight bias. So watch this video of a car with no shocks going into death wobble or what ever else you think should happen.

 

Overbiter, do what you can to get some clear pictures posted. Then we can all understand the set-up as it is and help you find a suitable solution.
In the mean time; how would you describe the symptoms? Does it bounce up and down or is it more of a wobble or shake side-to-side? Bouncing up and down would probably be tire/suspension issues and/or the lack of shock absorbers. A wobble or shimmy may be simple alignment or slop in the steering components.

 

One point does not a data set make.

Traditional?

 

Would radius rod angle exaggerate the lack of damping ?

 

Yes, it does, but it would need to be more extreme that would be found on a HAMB appropriate vehicle.

All vehicles equipped with leading link front suspension are predisposed to uncontrollable front suspension oscillation.

A cl***ic example of the exaggeration is a Jeep product with leading-link front suspension. They are prone to uncontrollable oscillation (death wobble) even with shocks. If you change nothing but the link angle, with a lift, it exacerbates the problem, even with shocks. Those vehicles have links (and short ones, at that) that are not horizontal, and lifting them makes it worse.

If you have leading links that are at an average 0º (horizontal), like on your average hot rod, during normal operation, normal dampened suspension cycling, a single-side effective wheelbase change on compression, or over-center rebound will be minimal, as both extremes in the cycle are never reached. Damping prevents even approaching them. Damping also prevents wheel hop.

If you have leading links that are at an average 0º (horizontal) during normal operation, un-dampened suspension cycling, a single-side effective wheelbase change on compression, or over-center rebound will be allowed to reach maximum, as both extremes in the cycle can be easily reached. Any and all wheel hop induced is allowed

Every so often you will find a single obstinate soul that has the suspension joints cranked down so tight that they can barely move (creating torsional damping, mimicking an actual damper), and/or have springs so stiff that they do nothing but move back to center (minimal, if any compression, and minimal, if any over-center rebound) if they move much at-all (TL;DR: the suspension either barely works, or just does not).

If you examine a lot of these builds, you might also find rear suspension with links set outboard at the frame, effectively attempting to set up the entire rear axle housing as a giant anti-sway bar. This renders the rear suspension unable to do anything but compress equally on both sides. This can very inadvertently deter oscillation in the front suspension, as it is harder to disturb an entire ch***is where one end just has a giant wide swingarm.

But hey, hot rods are supposed to ride like ****, right?

 

6 years later and up again, I wonder how the ops project finished up?

 

I can only ***ume that he has p***ed away.

He disappeared over 4-years-ago.

 

Probably not all that thrilled with his HAMB experience….