gasser guys, how long can ladder bar be????

I am starting a 41 willys sedan g***er project and wanted to know how long I could go with ladder bars,and still have them work. I would like to build this car like mid 60's style with the nose up a little but i plan to run around 600HP, I want to run 10.0 the car should weight around 2900 lbs

I like the looks of these cars below and the ladder bars are much longer than the 30" bars that I have.
so could I build something around 40-50" and still have a car that will work????
I know that back in the 60's they were very long but now most are 30"-32" what do you think??? thanks in advance. Ron...



I think these are longer than what I want:




these are more of what I think would look right...





MY JUNK as of now

 

Glad that you like the looks of the ladder bars on our willys truck. They are 48" long. I built them out in my shop. I have the same one's on my coupe. They have a floating link on the front that allows the suspension to work.

 

I "DO" like your(her's) willys truck and its nice to know that 48" bars will work do you have any pics of the front floater setup????
my son might be doing a henry J and we might use leaf springs on his, my plan was to use coil overs because I all ready have them just laying around
thanks for the info, Ron.....

 

Ron,
That her in the truck is a friend of ours. She was driving it around at the willys home run this year. Alot of people took their turn at the wheel. That's what it was built for. I have a tech article on the floater setup that i can send you and i can try to get a few pictures of the way that i did it. Send me a pm with your address and i'll get it out to you.
Thanks
Larry

 

we put on a set that extend all the way to the front of the frame and then have tow hooks on the ends...just kidding

we took our all the way to the cross member where the trans mount is. The car hooks HARD

 

Thanks Larry, PM sent...

48" sound good to me and it sounds like they will work good too Ron...

 

There used to be a rule NHRA, or AHRA or someone..That the ladder bars could be no longer than 1/2 the wheel base...My `40 ford has a 112" WB so in the old days, I would be limited to about 56". I think The 48" mentioned would look good on any old g***er.

Tom T

 

You laugh. The swing arm on our C/altered Rambler American has its pivot point right behind the front spring mount/cross-member. It was built in the late 60's....hooked HARD. Its restoration is almost done.

 

Could you post it here on Tech Week??

 

I cant wait to line up against that Rambler! My ladder bars are like the ones in the first example, they work but I don't go 10.00 either. Don

 

Hey Big Chief do you have any up to date pics of the rambler???? Ron...

 

Don the ladder bars on your car seem to work ok!!!love this video

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OH Man I would love to leave and run like that, very cool...

 

I did 60 inch on my 60 falcon. fixed mount. Im going 63 inch on the 65 Comet Im building parralel with crossmember. These I plan to shackle so as to have some axle movement. Cal

 

Me neither. Its gonna be GREAT!

 

Have you seen "new" pics of it yet?? I thought I posted some up a while back..... White/blue stripes, fresh aluminum inside, etc, etc? If not let me know and I'll post them up.

 

ME.G***ER-is that the famous "Filthy Forty" in your avatar and do you guys own it????
-Dean

 

Hey Carkiller, on your 60 Falcon, how did the ch***is react with that long of a bar? My 61 Falcon may be getting some bars, and i want to make sure i still have separation of body/rear axle at launch to plant the tires.

I've heard that too short a bar will bounce the rear from too violent of upward thrust on the body.

The 61 Falcon g***er i'm building will be about 2900lbs and i'm hoping for 10.2s on the bottle, 11.0hs off bottle...

 

I am awaiting more info on this as well. We are gathering a few parts together to build a 62 Falcon nose-up.

 

The bars we put on the pickup I had at the pileup were 4', we made them out of 1" square tube. Nothing fancy but they work

 

I would like to see your Falcon when your done. I am friends with Don H. that you got it from. I have a 66 Mustang that I used to race with a 289 and Jerico 4 speed. Many of the parts are in Don's Mustang now. I ran a 28 inch homemade ladder bar/floater set up and it hit way to hard. Right now I am turning the car into a s/fx, g***er style with a supercharged 390 backed by a four speed or a clutch turbo or similar, not decided yet. I plan on running about a 40-44 inch bar or going with a setup similar to the 64 Thunderbolt setup that was a lift bar. I believe they were around 36 inches. Still trying to find that info. But the longer the bar the softer it hits the tires, which helps save parts and actually makes it hook more consistent. You also need good shocks that are adjustable and a good set of springs. It's not just the bar that makes your suspension work. Good luck with the Falcon. When it's done we will have to see if that Mopar small block can outrun a real Ford. Ha Ha.

 

These are off of Eric's 55, 70" long .... worked good enough for 9.90's with leafs & floaters

CC

 

Dirty Don's "Filthy 42"..... 10.10 / 10.20

BBC / Glide / 4 bbl

cc

 

Check the NHRA rule book if you plan on running the car. If it's going to be street driven, the longer the bar the better! Short bars will ride choppy as well as violently load the rear. I built a set of 28" bars for my Rambler before I installed the Jag axle.

I used 28" because they would neatly tuck inside the body rails (unit body car) in the rear and be hidden. Not gobs of power, but it would easily spin the tires due to quick loading. I-10 between the MS/LA border and New Orleans is a bit "wavy" due to the soft ground it was built on. Man did the car bounce at high speeds!! Had to run no more than 55-60 or it looked/felt like I was running with no shocks, or a couple making out hard and heavy in the back of the wagon! I've been told that 36" is the shortest that should be used... after I made mine, of course!!

Chevy/GMC pickups with fixed arms had the pivot point right at the end of the transmission. NASCAR style "truck arm" suspensions do the same. For street use the longer the better! If NHRA was limiting arm length there has to be a reason... I bet loading is it. Longer bars should perform much better than short ones.

 

Geometry must have something to do with optimum LB length... WB and/or location of trans U joint.... I'l bet there is such a thing as too short or too long - depending on what you want to accomplish.

 

There definately is an optimum point to hook your front ladder bar mount (instant center).
There are books and computer programs to help determine the point. And it is the main reason for 4 links on race cars. A 4 link has unlimited instant center adjustment, while ladderbars have few limited adjustments.
That being said, you can work around ladderbar limits with spring/shock settings, moving weight around, etc. Erik's 55 and Don's Willys are probably real good examples of this. The long bars probably don't have perfect geometry, but the cars run REAL well.
Larry T

 

Larry -

When you say "floater", is that the same thing that's also called a "slider"?

I'm wanting to use a ladder bar (and leaf springs) for a street car and have seen a couple "sliding" front mount setups that look pretty good.

If you get pix of your "floaters", any chance you could post them here?

Thanks-

Stan Weber
aka stan292

 

Rules of thumb related to ladder bars -

Shorter bars plant the tires harder

mounts farther front lift the front more

Higher mounts react more violently

Lower mounts lift the front more

higher mounts help keep the front down


These are relative terms, there are no absolutes.

1/3 to 1/2 the wheelbase length is 'normal' for length.

If it ends up too violent you can calm it down a bit with stiff shocks.

 

Dean,
No our avatar is our car that we did as a tribute to our good friend pork zartman and charlie hill. The original filthy was totaled in a finish line crash at maple grove after charlie had sold it. That was the greatest car.
G***er Girl

 

Okay for those of you who are interested in my ladder bar setup. This design is better suited for street cars. I'm not sure how it would work on a race car. It is designed to allow the springs to work. Basically the back of the ladder bar is mounted solid to the axle. I did use heim joints so that i would have some adjustment. The front has a verticle link that is mounted to the frame using a single bolt. On my car i used a piece of 1" and 3/4 round stock through the boxed frame. I drilled a 5/8" hole through the center of the round stock. The top of the link has a piece of tubing going through it that holds urethane bushings with a 5/8" hole through them. I used a grade 8 bolt and lock nut to secure the two pieces together. The bolt is just snugged up. The bottom of the link is fastened using a bolt through the link and through a heim joint at the front of the ladder bar. It looks like its mounted solid but its not. This allows the bars to travel toward the rear when the springs compress. It still keeps the rearend from rotating under hard acceleration. This is my version of a tech article that was in an old g***er magazine. I have a copy of that article. Its a little hard to read but if one of you guys can scan and post it i will mail or fax it to you as i'm not able to do so at this time. I hope you understand my description and it helps. I will also mail copies of the tech article to anyone who needs it just pm me your mailing address.
Larry