Anyone ever tried using sprint car torsion bars/springs for the front springs? Seems compact and cool. Drawbacks??? Anyone got pictures?
I do not have any pictures of them with me but it has been done many times. Steve Panaretis here in Jamestown IN has done it quite a bit as well as Lee Osborne, now in NY, just to name a couple that sticks out when I think of these set ups.
It has been done as long as there have been torsion bars and hotrods. My friend has a 26-27 roadster built in 1947-48 with torsion bars.
Here's what I'll be using....vintage sprint car stuff. 1 1/2" Dia. X .120" wall tube housing, bronze bushings (that fit the housing I.D.) with an end flange and 1 1/8" bore, 29" long torsion bars with 1 1/8" Dia. shoulders, steel arm with 1" splines, and steel adjustable stop with 1" splines. They will be mounted parallel to the centerline of the chassis with the arms attached to the split 'bones via some kind of shackle. A panhard will center the axle in the chassis.
i would make sure to use grade-8 bolts on every thing, and maybe back up what you can with a poly lock nut, use good beefy steel stops, and last but not least id get me some threaded inserts from speed way motors and make me some steel torsion arms, going down the high way at 70MPH you dont want a piece of aluminum giving way on you
johnny, what is the rating on the bar you have?? the number stamped on the end?? just wondering how stiff you are going with them?? I've often thought of doing this as I ran them alot on midgets. I would imagine that the 1" midget bars would work just as well. the real determinate of the stiffness of the torsion bar is the length of the arm you attach to it. If you can, I would set it up so that you have multiple holes in the arm that you can use to play with the spring rates in the beginning.
Speaking about what kinds you can use, can you use ones out of a VW Bug? Don't mean to high jack, just a question.
Torsion bars are rated just like springs. Determine what length and diameter you want and then get the correct spring rate for the weight that each will be carring and ride quality desired
It would be kinda clean to also have the torsion arm serve as a friction shock by incorporating some friction material between the torsion arm and whatever it's mounted to. Anyone ever try that?
I have a large pile of bars of different diameters that are left over from my racing days so I can select the size that works best. Midget bars would probably work on a light car. There are formulas for determining spring rates based on effective length in the T-bar and the length of arm you use. I'll post a link if I can find it again. Found it : http://www.proshocks.com/calcs/torsionrate.htm
dont use midget bars, use sprint car bars, the bar rate is on the end, you can find a calculater on the web some where that will tell you what are you need with what bar to= what spring you would of ran johnny
Moal bros in Oakland Ca area build hot rods with Torsion bars lenghtwise.I have also seen themmounted cross ways like a sprintcar, Contact any Sprintcar , midget shop or contact Mpd,Sander,or DMI. Wheel rate changes with Arm length. Example 30" 900 bar at the end of the 10"arm is 309 pounds per inch, 11"arm is 255 pounds per inch and so on. There are solid bars and hollow bars. Length varies from 18" to 31"s s Follow this link http://www.sanderengineering.com/cat12.htm
Ok my Nickel.. I love sprint cars and I love torsion bars but.. Its a ton of work to make em look good . I dont give a rats ass how many calcuators there are on the net they are designed for race cars not for street cars.. They will work but id bet your gonna spend a lot buying extra bars to make it work.. Dave
Thanks for the replies...You guys are the best! New to rods, but lots of racing experience...I will try to mount my torsion bars inside the box tube frame rails and have the adjusters peek out on the inside of the frame rail. More work but should look real clean when done.
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