rear suspension designs on Salt Flat racers??

[fiatboy]

I am scratch building the chassis for a salt-flat racer that would, I estimate, do 200 mph.  Do you think I could go with no rear suspension like the Top Fuel dragsters?  Solid mounted engine/trans./rear axle?  Thanks

[Muncie]

A 200 MPH car would have full front and rear suspension - better handling and traction - lots of tech information in the build forum at landracing.com. One of the best web-sites out there.

edit - added link to the landracing.com build diaries - http://www.landracing.com/forum/index.php?board=12.0

Edited July 13, 2017 by Muncie

[Ace-Garageguy]

A 200 MPH car would have full front and rear suspension - better handling and traction - lots of tech information in the build forum at landracing.com. One of the best web-sites out there.

While a car with suspension will be more desirable for the reasons Mincie stated, rather a lot of 200MPH+ cars have been built with no suspension whatsoever.

One kinda famous one was Mickey Thompson's Challenger One. Solid suspension, 406.6 MPH in 1960.

Thompson failed to make the return run required for an official record due to mechanical problems, and when he returned to Bonneville to try to clinch the record, the salt was rough and in such poor condition he gave up on running that particular car. Had Challenger One been provided with suspension, the situation may have been different.

The racing class and time period your build is supposed to represent will have some bearing on the specifications and setup.

Due to the lack of space, many belly-tankers were built with no rear suspension. This car obviously has no cutouts for axle movement, so no rear suspension. Cars like this were in the 200s in the early 1950s.

Partial rear suspension was sometimes achieved on tankers by pivoting the front of the engine, and allowing the engine / trans / rear end to swing as a unit. Hardly ideal, but better than nothing.

Edited July 13, 2017 by Ace-Garageguy