My action pics from the Silver State Classic....

the car is without a doubt riding lower in the most recent pic's... but didn't you lower your ride height after your rebuild/revamp of the front shock mounts?

more importantly.. how did the car feel around sweeping/faster corners compared to last year?

I'd also be curious about your fuel consumption compared to the slower class run last year.

 

the car is still a leaf spring car, I have double adjustable shocks in the rear and double adjustable coilovers in the front ....
actually, the car probably got raised up a little after I rebuilt the shocks, I didn't install them properly the first year so they were sitting a little lower than I liked, so it's great to see that the air dam was giving me the down force I wanted....
fuel consumption didn't change much, I don't have an accurate enough gauge to know for sure but it wasn't noticeable....
Hi Ward, thank you for the great compliments, hope to meet you down at the shop some day, it's a great race to do and I hope I can keep doing it, I really enjoy the experience and Bryant has been a huge help...

as for the turns, the rear wasn't as stable as last year...by that I mean that the front was planted pretty well into the turns but I felt like when I tried going faster that 107-110mph into the turns the rear wanted to break loose...simple oversteer problem. Still have to figure out the solution....I can't complain too much about 110 into the turns but I'd like to be around 120...

 

Really love the pictures and your car looks like it fits in with the SSC crowd.
One suggestion, if you get the chance, have the car weighed on all four corners..................they do this at most SCCA events and if you know any dirt track guys they would probably have the scales.................but that would tell you where the weight is on each tire which would give you an indication as where you far for weight distribution..............which should give you a good indication of weight bias, and should give you an idea on how to correct to oversteer. What size sway bar do you have in the front and rear? Going with a little larger (or adjustable) front bar should help neutralize the oversteer, but taking a look at how much weight you have at each corner will help also..IMHO

 

Any photos of that suspension set up ?

 

sweet images!

 

all good ideas there.

in my experience.. the best poor mans leaf spring negative-rise tool is just a good old fashioned.. "too big" rear sway bar. But it will likely have to be custom built for these cars since most say that the Mustang stuff won't fit. With those smaller diameter coil-overs you may need to increase front spring weight a bit more too.

Basically just amounts to economically built "tractor style" leaf spring suspensions never being intended to do 140 around sweeping corners. With leaf springs and a bit of higher speed torque.. it's easy to power slide these old Fords around mid sized sweeping corners at more than 90 mph due to the inner leaf spring rising opposite of the planted front tire. With a "fatter than typically required" rear sway bay on the rear.. you get a poor mans "rise limiter with built in anti-dive technology" all rollled into one. lol

I'm betting once you get front springs on the stiff'ish side(for traditional Ford springs, I like 650's cut down a bit but you'd probably need at least 550+ lbs/in even for that light car).. along with some overly large(1+ in) sway bar in the front with a 1 inch in the rear. Then the cars ass end will stay down better.

Overly large rear sway bars also help with heavy/panic stops around corners like you wouldn't believe too.

And if everything can't be made perfect with those leafs.. and they won't.. just add ballast at the rear of the car to keep the rear down and planted. Just remember that the further back you go = the less is weight needed to give proper effect. 40 lbs or so right behind each wheel well should'nt affect speed performance at all.. but may do wonders for the rears planting in the corner and the overall balance of the car. Ideally you would add it to both corners of the rear frame rails to keep the weight added as low as possible for maximum effect.

 

Nice!! Looks like an excellent time.