Go get a Ranger Twin-I-Beam front suspension! Ford used 'em on trucks for ages! They do like Bruce suggested though and they're long, not split in the middle like Fatman's.
The fatmans design requires a spring 4 times as big and stiff. It is a leverage thing. The spring is now pushing about halfway out an arm. The wheel will have a 2 to 1 advantage on load and also rate. The spring has to be twice as strong just to hold the load and twice as strong again to get the same wheel rate. This sounds crazy but look at the springs used under the Allards.
The Deuce Club has rules against this!!! Stick with the I-beam or Henry will rise from his grave and smite you from earth!!!
Allards ?tested? WTF? Allards may have had a strange ,to modern eyes, front end set up but i challenge any of you have never driven one in anger to race against one with a contemporary car and beat it.Allards have been TESTED in more competitons than any mII front ended rod ever will be. Today the system is Still used very successfully in the UK on all sorts of cars in everything from historic racing to hill climbs to trials( the ultimate chalenge!) unlike the average rod which only gets driven to saturday morning donut meets. The System wasn't invented by Sydney Allard but by Leslie Bellamy who patented the idea. Fat man has merely taken advantage of a lapsed patent with an attempt at copying someone elses design. The Allard in the ditch is Sydney Allards first V8 special, built from a 35' Ford with a bugatti type 51 body and as I said before,it may look strange but just try beating it in competition. [FONT=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][/FONT][FONT=arial,helvetica,sans-serif].[/FONT] [FONT=arial,helvetica,sans-serif] [/FONT]
Certainly not with a Mustang II IFS, but a well designed and optimized double A-frame IFS will out perform the Allard design under the same circumstances. If the swing arm split I-beam was the bee's knees as you seem to think, development of other more complex systems would not have been necessary (and wouldn't have been undertaken). As it stands now, every top end racing car in the world that has to deal with high speed cornering sports a highly optimized double A-frame IFS (and in most cases, a double A-frame IRS as well). The only race cars that run I-beams and/or split beams competitively anymore are running in classes that force them into it via the rule book. Look at Formula1, NASCAR Cup & Busch Cars, IRL Indy Cars, SCCA Trans-Am, and any other of a myriad of well known road and oval racing classes, and you will see every one of them running some kind of double A-frame IFS for the simple reason that it works the best of all the systems currently available for controlling the tire through both body roll and bump/rebound travel. If you like the old split beam systems better, that's fine, but don't expect people to believe that they are inherently superior to all other suspension systems. History has proven they are not.
Maybe...BUT would the now perfected design still fit inside the close tolerances of a stock early Ford frame? The Fatman design has "easy installation" as the prime goal...not maximum grip at 10/10ths on a hillclimb. Certainly split beams can be made to work if modified to meet the requirements of certain vehicles, but changes to the Fatman setup/intended vehicle would be required before the comparison would be realistic. You won't be seeing a Fatman kit tearing it up with the Lotus' and Caterhams any time soon...but the swing axle Mallocks have done it many times! Don't have a vid of a Mallock available...but it was competitive with these cars in hill climbs etc...so heres an IFS Caterham showing just what a "Hillclimb" is to the old country. This is a 4 cylinder, licenced for the road, enthusiasts vehicle BTW...think a Fatman deuce will keep up!?!? <object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/0XAn0lPXxDw&rel=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/0XAn0lPXxDw&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>
What Bill said... Here are some pics of my Mk6 Mallock U2. Swingaxle IFS, and it was able to compete with the best Double A-arm IFS' of its day... The Street Rod Kit and the Mallock Front Suspension are both Swingaxles. But thats about all they have in common....
Yeah, and they still suck, I won't go into it since some others have already covered it, but if I were you, I'd stick with an axle, if you ever read up on suspension design, you'll see why it's a bad idea. I can't believe that a company would still produce these, it's been done before, and it doesn't work.
Thanks to everyone for their response. It seemed like a good idea but then booking passage on the Tiatanic probably seemed like a good idea too. "A picture is worth a 1000 words", and the pictures or the Allards spoke volumes. I will be sticking to the tried and true "I" beam. Thanks again to all Keith
At it's best, a twin I-beam setup (with it's pickup points being at the extreme opposite sides) will always have the issues inherent with it's design. But when the beam's pickup point is less than half way across, I wouldn't imagine you'd want your suspension to have any more than an inch of travel and if you have such limited suspension anyways, why bother?
Because you are taking a proven SIMPLE design and adding a bunch of Monkey-motion that doesn't improve its performance.
And--I wasn't saying the Allard was no good...I would like to see if it would have been better with a normal beam from its donor car! Allards won races...but they also lost some to Ford beam axle home builts and some to moders sports cars with real IFS of various sorts. This was an age of experimentation, and many IFS setups of the day did horrible things to wheel position under deflection. Detroit had not gotten past the ride benefits yet, and most early fifties cars handled badly in comparison to a '48 Ford... Racers too were just learning how to have IFS while still keeping the tires happy...and the beam axle was still superior overall to some of the experiments at racing IFS.
Very true! I remember looking at some of the early IFS systems and wondering how in hell they ever got off the napkin they were first sketched on!!! MUST have been a great time to be alive though. Nobody knew for sure what they were doing...experimentation was the rule. Having stuff fine tuned to the point it is today just takes the adventure out... Kinda like how high strung early Hot Rods evolved into high class Street Rods when you think about it. The FUN with Hot Rods was based on what you DIDN'T know!!!
I have driven a 53 allard, olds powered it surprized the shit out of me as to how quick and responsive it was ,handled like it was on rails.
Hey Keith, before this year I had only driven rods with mustang IFs in them. I built a 32 highboy sedan with cross steering, an Ibeam and hairpins and I honestly feel no difference in drivability and I put 4000 miles on the car this summer.By the way I'm also running radials.So My recommendation is to not do it because it is just plain not necessary. Alot more money for no return and more problems. But it's your car and if you want to try something different good luck. I hope whatever you decide works out for you.
I read an article in street rod builder a while back about an ifs front end that used a 3 part tube axle(could be replaced with a beam) and torsion bars and shocks for damping...looked just like a dropped tube front end, with only the top links to give it away. It looks way better and safer than the fatman setup. When I get home tonight I'll see if I can scan it and post it up....I don't know if the shop ever sold any of them..
EGGZactly! Most folks that consider these things have never driven a well setup Early Ford front end! That and this is the HAMB, remember trad.
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