If knobbies are a 7 on a scale of 1 through 10 ,a pro wedge would be a 10 for drag racing.

J Ross

 

You guys that are running struts on the rear, do you run the rearend
higher or lower than with shocks?
I am assuming that the struts were homemade or is there someone who markets them?
I have a pair of blaster shocks on the shelf, they are about an inch shorter in length than banshee's, maybe the front end will be too low.
If I can get them mounted, I'll try them before fabricating some struts.

Thanks for sharing some input.

 

I use a tie down to compress the rear & it's a little higher than the front.
If you look at My strut You can see that I made it from a strut I got from a place that builds sprint cars. You can build the same thing by welding a nut in the end of a tube (1 left & 1 Right hand thread) & putting rod ends on it. I have about $45 in my struts $12 each for the struts & $5 each for the rod ends. I still need to make spacers so they fit snug in the shock mounts.

 

The strut idea is great, But what's the idea of strapping down your rear suspension, wouldn't that excelerate the wheel lift problem. Back in my Drag Racing Days(68 Camaro 540 c.i. BB Chev) we would limit the front suspension travel to under 2 inches in order to make a clean launch and cross the finish line with the rear bumper still bolted to the car. A cheaper alternative to "TheMoose" idea with the strut would just simply be to tie down or strap down your front suspension instead of the rear. In my opinion I think that this limit the front end travel but still allow for rear squat which is inperitive for a clean launch. I would start with the front suspension completed compressed with no travel and lossen it in increments of .5" until I was happy with around two or three inches of wheel lift sustained and allow for some stiff rear end suspension which will help plant the tires upon launch and keep traction for the duration of the run. Remember, all the power that is used to lift the front end and hold it up could have been used to propell your quad forward instead.

Just my thoughts

 

Wannaride,Yes your correct that the tied down rear can make it easier for the front end to come up but the struts compisates for it & with my wheelie bar it doesn't matter any way. The reason I tie down the rear is to get more consistant reaction times. with the rear tied down as soon as I dump the clutch I move forward, I don't have to wait for the suspension to compress. Also in sand I want quick weight transfer & the tied down rear helps there too. On pavement or hard pack it may be better to have rear suspension travel but on sand solid works best.

As far as using the tie down on the front, that'll work also. However it's hard to find a place to attach the tiedown on all quads & unless you have a straight pull you are still going to get flex in the suspension on launch besides the strech of the tiedown. It's also difficult to get both sides of the front end compressed the same amount.

With my struts I have no movement & I can set the ride hight the same every time. I race ET style drags & being consistant is very important. With the struts I get repeatability & complete adjustability. Doing everything the same is important to me in my style of racing & I get that better with struts than tiedowns.

 

The wife is actually VERY competitive on her DS, and I think most of it was due to the suspension set-up. It was really quite easy and required no money. All I did is to completely remove the front springs. This put the front in a nice low stance and greatly reduced wheeling. As for the rear, I removed the small red coil and took almost all of the preload out of it. She races on hard dirt, and with snowmobile studded radials, she has to sit all the way back for the front wheels to juuuuust... start to come off the ground. I like about a half inch of air under the front wheels at the launch so I know she has maximum traction with minimum wheel spin. And with the front BARELY raising its not enough to scrub off any forward motion. Just in case you were wondering she goes about 145lbs.

 

one of the dirt strips we run is pretty hard packed and we all strap the front end.you can always tell if a guy breaks a strap he will stand straight up off the line.i started useing huge plastic tie straps on the front and haven't had any more problems and their cheap at lowe's, but i'm slaming mine to the ground for the drag strip.

 

Forcefed,

When you take the springs off the front shocks, aren't you allowing the piston to bottom out,
thus damaging the seals?

How low is the front end to the ground?

Unique concept.

Thanks, Oldmanracing