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Gasser questions


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I'll stick with the injected set up.

I will start a new thread once the build begins. I'm just collecting opinions and educating myself here before diving into it. Still have to finish up a 4 banger rail job on the workbench first.

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IMG_1093.jpg

Can someone please explain this front suspension to me? I'm not seeing any springs. I see a tie rod and what I think is some sort of panhard bar, which might make sense in a racer that expected to bring the front wheels down hard with some regularity.

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Can someone please explain this front suspension to me? I'm not seeing any springs. I see a tie rod and what I think is some sort of panhard bar, which might make sense in a racer that expected to bring the front wheels down hard with some regularity.

I blew the photo up and had a good look...though it gets pixelated and is still hard to interpret. I'm pretty sure the axle, which is entirely straight and made of tubing, is suspended by coil-overs mounted to the axle just inboard of the brackets that the radius rods mount to.

You're right about there being a Panhard bar, which would be absolutely necessary to control side-to-side movement of an axle suspended by coils. Upper and lower radius rods, which are present, would control fore-and-aft axle movement and resist braking torque...though if front brakes are fitted, they're tiny.

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I blew the photo up and had a good look...though it gets pixelated and is still hard to interpret. I'm pretty sure the axle, which is entirely straight and made of tubing, is suspended by coil-overs mounted to the axle just inboard of the brackets that the radius rods mount to.

You're right about there being a Panhard bar, which would be absolutely necessary to control side-to-side movement of an axle suspended by coils. Upper and lower radius rods, which are present, would control fore-and-aft axle movement and resist braking torque...though if front brakes are fitted, they're tiny.

Something like this then. Thanks Bill. I've never seen this before. I'm going to have to build a model with this setup now. :D

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Something like this then. Thanks Bill. I've never seen this before. I'm going to have to build a model with this setup now. :D

Yes sir, that's the general idea. That's not a particularly well thought-out example though. It would benefit from having a straight axle if possible, as those dropped ends have a way of introducing odd twisting forces into the whole mess under braking loads. They act as lever arms that tend to try to rotate the top of the axle forward more than a straight axle would (and yes, dropped axles that we love on old street rods do the same thing, but are pretty much necessary to get a car down low).

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It's a tough looking and sounding Goat, but I prefer the leaf springs up front aesthetically speaking.

Just about any gasser front leaf-spring setup will benefit in stability if a Panhard rod is added.

Stability and predictable steering response are your friends when the front end is getting light at 140 MPH or more. :D

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Stability and predictable steering response are your friends when the front end is getting light at 140 MPH or more. :D

And that's just about the speed at which, as they reached it, the various classes abandoned the nosebleed stance and went to a nose-down rake. Happened with the funny cars, and then with the gassers, pro stocks, MPs, super stocks, and right on down the line.

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