1985 Monte Carlo SS known as Barney

[Ron Sutton]

Hey Lance,

It's not necessarily accurate that the rear sway bar to too stiff for Autocross. But it is too stiff relative to your front sway bar & spring set-up. What the video is showing is "too much diagonal roll angle." I cover diagonal roll angle quite a bit in my chassis threads on here.

When I calculated your set-up using the new Ridetech Muscle bar with .250" wall thickness ... to keep the FLLD/RLLD correct with your trailing arm mounted rear sway bar... required 250# rear springs. Obviously, as the video shows ... when you tested the new chassis mounted sway bar ... it is simply too stiff for the rest of your set-up. That means you're not allowing the car to roll on correctly front & rear. You could say it's rolling too much in the front or too little in the rear ... but in reality ... it's simply the front to rear roll angle difference that is too much.

Diagonal roll onto the outside front tire is critical for proper handling. All cars need to roll over onto the outside front tire "to a certain degree." There is an optimum amount, which I find to be about .35-.4° degree more roll angle in the front when compared to the rear. But the set-up in the video is creating too much diagonal roll. So the front end is rolling over onto the outside front tire "too much". This can happen from too much rear spring rate or too much rear sway bar rate. The results differ. Too much sway bar rate lifts the inside rear wheel. Too much rear sporing rate does not lift the inside rear wheel.

To everyone following along, Lance & I worked out his set-up with the trailing arm mounted sway bar & it handles correctly. Lance got this different rear sway bar to test ... and obviously ... it is too stiff. So going back to the set-up we worked out with the original rear sway bar is the correct path ... for now. If ... if you ever go to a stiffer front sway bar than you have now ... like a .375" thick wall version of the sway bar you have now ... then you will need either a stiffer rear sway bar or stiffer rear springs to keep the FLLD/RLLD balanced ... which is what makes your car handle so balanced & neutral now.

:Cheers:

[SSLance]

I suppose an update is in order here to catch everyone up on things I have done with the car. Since my last post the car has competed at the SCCA CAM Invitational and also at the SCCA Solo Nationals both in Lincoln Nebraska. When I got to Lincoln on Saturday, we had an hour of test sessions on the practice course in which I got to make 4 runs on my first autocross course on a concrete surface. I've learned that no matter how you practice in a parking lot, nothing really resembles actual on track performance. The car was loose, I spent some time adjusting on the shocks to try to tame the looseness and thought that I had it okay. There were a lot of different factors involved (new surface, new front sway bar and new rear springs) and with only 4 runs to dial it in, I did the best I could. Mental note to myself for future reference, don't make major setup changes to your car right before big National type events!!!

Early Sunday morning we lined up for 4 practice runs on the Pro Solo courses we'd be racing on later that day, two on left course, two on right course...all consecutively with no chance for adjustments other than tire pressures between runs (I never even got out of the car). The car was still a bit loose, enough so that I actually spun it near the start of my 4th run. I was trying to figure out if it was the tires and the new surface not playing nice, driving style, shock adjustments, basically I was at a loss and had no time to make any changes nor did I know exactly what to change to fix it before the challenge round. In the challenge round, after it rained, I spun the car again near the start of my first round effectively ending my day. Here's the video of my 4 practice runs and 2 challenge runs.



I did some soul searching that afternoon as well as talking to some of the regulars that run high horsepower rear wheel drive cars up at Lincoln regularly and came to the conclusion that I needed a softer spring in the rear. For some weird reason, I had stuck the 200# springs I had in my truck before heading North. I texted Ron Sutton to make sure he agreed and when he did I took the 250# springs out and put the 200# springs in. Thankfully with the Ridetech setup this is about a 15 minute project total start to finish in the paddock parking lot.

I had an hour of practice time scheduled for Monday morning at 8 am to finish dialing the car in before the Solo Nationals races started on Tuesday morning. Before the start of the practice runs, I put my GoPro under the car again pointing at the inside of the driver's rear so I could see exactly what the rear was doing in between runs and adjust on things accordingly. On my first run I could tell immediately that the car felt better. It was still a bit loose in the roll through zone but not edgy, I could still put power down and it would slide, but not enough that it would just step out and spin like before. Ever since this setup was put in and initial shock adjustments were made, it was always a bit loose at times in the roll through zone. I'd tell Ron this and he'd make a comment like "Really?" like there was no way it should be loose. I then watched the GoPro video of my first run...and noticed right away the inside rear tire was STILL lifting off the course a bit mid turn. I'm convinced now this has been going on all year long. You can't tell from the driver's seat, you can't even tell from the videos I ran with the GoPro on the fender looking down at the rear tire, but when you run the camera looking at the inside of the rear tire during an actual run, it becomes clear as day what is going on. I had 3 more practice runs to fix this, so I started taking rebound out of the rear shocks. It was the only way I could figure to keep the body of the car from lifting the inside rear tire mid corner. It started working...-2 clicks, tire just barely lifts. -2 more clicks...tire appears to stay on the ground, just the bulge at the bottom of the tire stretches out. The handle starts to change a bit also though so the next run I add two click of compression on the front. This caused the car to push just a bit so I decided to take the compression back out of the front and take 2 more clicks of rebound out of the rear and race it like that. I was out of test runs so there was no way to be sure if it was going to be perfect or not, but I knew that with the lighter springs in the rear and the adjusted shocks...it was going to be WAY easier to drive than it was in the Challenge on Sunday. Here are the 4 practice runs taken while I was adjusting on the shocks.

[SSLance]

Tuesday was race day... Man, what a spectacle this place is...200 acres of concrete, 1200 racers, two courses, all running like a well oiled machine. It is impressive what the SCCA does to put this event on and if anyone ever gets the chance to go, I highly recommend it. My class is working heat 1, running heat 3...which is perfect for me, feels just like home. I do my work stint on the East course then I have an hour or so to warm the car up and get it to grid before heat 3 starts. I'm feeling pretty good, have walked the course for the 4th or 5th time earlier that morning and when the starter tells me it's time to go, I'm ready. I take it pretty easy remembering how many times I've spun since being up there. First run was pretty clean, set a decent time and most importantly the car felt very settled. It was back to being my old car that I love to drive. So for the second run I decided I needed to get after it...and on the second element it got a bit loose sliding the rear out the exit of the turn. But it stayed in control and I kept after it. On the back slalom there is what I called a "gotcha" cone, it sneaks up on you if you aren't ready for it and on this run...I wasn't ready. I had to make an abrupt move to get past it and this abrupt move upset the rear of the car (probably lifting the inside rear tire once again) and I had to save it two or three times before settling the car down again while at the same time costing me a lot of time. The good news is, I could drive the car again, even with it upset like that I was still able to hang on to it and gather it back up again. On my third run, I scaled it back and trail braked a ton trying to keep the car settled yet maintain my speed. I think I picked up a half second over the second run but was still slower than my first run which ended up being my fastest on the East course. We were then done for the day even though I thought and really wanted a 4th run, apparently you only get 3 runs at Nationals...

On Wednesday the schedule was the same only we were running on the West Course which was more tight and technical whereas the East course was more open and flowing. I felt that tight and technical fit more into my wheelhouse and was ready to make up some time. I was sitting in 3rd place of 9 drivers in my Class and had been informed by Chris in 4th that he was coming for me. That didn't bother me though as I was gunning for 2nd place. The car felt GREAT on my first run, I hadn't changed a thing on it since the practice course on Monday but it just did everything I wanted it to do. Maybe the driver was finally figuring the concrete out, maybe the surface was better over there...or maybe it was just my day...who knows but the run felt great. On my second run I really let it all hang out and I picked up almost 2 seconds...I was starting to feel it. We were all calculating between runs where everyone was and Mike in 2nd place had just eeked by Keith in first and I was still in 3rd with a decent lead on 4th. As I was rolling off the course after my 3rd run I heard on the radio that Keith had picked up 3 tenths and secured the class win, I had picked up a couple more tenths and felt pretty good that I'd finish 3rd which was the last trophy spot...which I did. I brought home a trophy on my first trip to Solo Nationals...how about that?!?!

Better than that though was my car was back and better than ever. Watching the videos and pictures back, it now corners much flatter with the new Ridetech MuscleBar up front and really sticks to the track letting me wheel the wee out of it while still maintaining control. My cousins drove down from Edmonton, Alberta to watch and my business partner came up from Florida as well and it was cool having them there during all of this. Jim even took my camera and got some great sideline videos of me running the car on course. This is my second run from both the East course and the West course.



And here are my in car videos of all 3 runs from both days.



This picture was taken during my Challenge run on Sunday, probably right before I spun



These were taken early Sunday morning our practice runs before the Challenge











This is me lined up against Robbie Unser in the Speedway Motors prepped Nova for my second run in the Challenge







To sum it...it was an awesome adventure that I'll remember forever. I can't wait to go back and do it again and next I'll be better prepared for what to expect and will be in a better position to finish even higher.

[SSLance]

After we were done racing on Wednesday, I booked an hour of practice time on the practice course again and took my partner and cousins for some fun runs...

[Ron in SoCal]

That's awesome Lance! Congrats on the podium

[Ron Sutton]

That is awesome Lance! Especially in light of how stock your 3600# grocery getter is.

Did you have the air conditioner blowing & a soda in the cup holder?

[Ben@SpeedTech]

Congrats on placing!!!

So I made a bunch of changes to my suspension that put it a little closer to the parts you have, including a frame mounted rear sway bar, and was experiencing the same deal at my SCCA event, the back end wanted to come around. Being the first race on an entirely new suspension I didn't want to make a lot of changes all at once, so for this race I focused only on shock compression and was able to tone it down by bringing the rear compression down and the front compression up. By the end of 9 runs I dropped 3 seconds and could keep the back end right on the edge of staying put and sliding out. There's a lot of room (and need) for further adjustment and reading your experience and results is great.

Thanks for all the details. Just to recap- For this race you finalized with-
600 lb front springs
200 lb rear springs
arm mounted rear bar (Size again?)
1.5" dia front bar
a little soft on the rear rebound and a little harder on the front compression?

How about rear compression and front rebound?

Do you think you'll stick with the arm mounted rear bar or try to step up to get the frame mounted bar to play nice?

At the track I compensated with more front shock compression. I ended with rear compression adjustment at 6 of 19 and front 11 of 19 and 10 of 19 all around on rebound. On the way home it rode pretty rough, too much for even me. I can't imagine what it would ride like if I keep adding more front compression. On 4 compression on the rear it felt very loose and like being in a boat on the waves so I think 5-6 is the max I want to drop to. I'm running 550 lb front and 200 lb rear springs. My rear bar is on the lightest setting. So (chime in here too Ron) what's the best generic way to better match front parts to the frame mounted rear bar to keep the rear half of the car following the front? Bigger front bar ? More coil spring rate? ...? I was thinking of starting with swapping to 600 lb front springs like I had before...

[SSLance]

Originally Posted by Ron in SoCal

That's awesome Lance! Congrats on the podium

Thanks, I was pretty stoked...

Originally Posted by Ron Sutton

That is awesome Lance! Especially in light of how stock your 3600# grocery getter is.

Did you have the air conditioner blowing & a soda in the cup holder?

Yep, along with a 24 Pak of Bud Select on ice in the trunk and some classic rock blaring on the stereo!!! Couldn't have done it without all of your help Ron. Thanks.

Originally Posted by Ben@SpeedTech

Thanks for all the details. Just to recap- For this race you finalized with-
600 lb front springs
200 lb rear springs
arm mounted rear bar (Size again?)
1.5" dia front bar
a little soft on the rear rebound and a little harder on the front compression?

How about rear compression and front rebound?

Do you think you'll stick with the arm mounted rear bar or try to step up to get the frame mounted bar to play nice?

Thanks for the congrats, it really is cool to do well with a G-body against all of the other muscle cars in our class.

I put the 1" solid LCA mounted bar back in place and it'll stay there for a while or at least until I get the front roll stiffness a lot firmer.

I wasn't soft on the rear rebound by any means. I don't have my notes in front of me, but I think I started out my shock tuning on Monday with the rear rebound at -2 clicks out of 24...almost totally stiff (I start at full stiff and count clicks as I soften, so -2 is 2 clicks counter clockwise from full stiff). I think they ended up at -8 and I might try going just a bit softer with them next time out as I think they are still picking up the inside rear tire under hard abrupt maneuvers.

I've always run the front rebound between -6 and -8, just little changes there make a big difference. If I need front grip for a bit longer, say for a long sweeping turn on an autocross course, 2 clicks firmer will fix that right up. 1 more click though and I'll start loosing rear grip on exit. It's a fine balance.

Front and rear low speed compression are both at -15 I believe, on the soft side of the middle, same with high speed compression. Only thing I do to drive on the street is soften the rear rebound all the way up, the rest stays the same and it rides great.

Ron will probably explain this better than me, but I think the saying goes "increasing rebound adds grip and increasing compression takes grip away" or something like that. What do I know, I'm just the driver (and owner).

As you know, the hardest part with this is replicating the track like conditions for testing and tuning. Just 4 runs during an event is NOT enough time to tune on shocks properly.

[Ben@SpeedTech]

Originally Posted by SSLance

Thanks for the congrats, it really is cool to do well with a G-body against all of the other muscle cars in our class.

That's the plan!... CAMAROS


I wasn't soft on the rear rebound by any means. I don't have my notes in front of me, but I think I started out my shock tuning on Monday with the rear rebound at -2 clicks out of 24...almost totally stiff (I start at full stiff and count clicks as I soften, so -2 is 2 clicks counter clockwise from full stiff). I think they ended up at -8 and I might try going just a bit softer with them next time out as I think they are still picking up the inside rear tire under hard abrupt maneuvers.

I've always run the front rebound between -6 and -8, just little changes there make a big difference. If I need front grip for a bit longer, say for a long sweeping turn on an autocross course, 2 clicks firmer will fix that right up. 1 more click though and I'll start loosing rear grip on exit. It's a fine balance.

Front and rear low speed compression are both at -15 I believe, on the soft side of the middle, same with high speed compression. Only thing I do to drive on the street is soften the rear rebound all the way up, the rest stays the same and it rides great.

Thanks, that clarifies a lot.

Ron will probably explain this better than me, but I think the saying goes "increasing rebound adds grip and increasing compression takes grip away" or something like that. What do I know, I'm just the driver (and owner).

Makes sense.

As you know, the hardest part with this is replicating the track like conditions for testing and tuning. Just 4 runs during an event is NOT enough time to tune on shocks properly.

That's for sure!

[SSLance]

So, on the morning of the last day of racing in Lincoln, I heard a familiar noise when the clutch pedal was pushed all the way in...the old clutch fork against the pressure plate grinding.

Everything still worked though and I made it through my 3 runs plus 4 fun runs after, but after the last fun run it was getting to the point where the clutch wouldn't disengage before the fork hit the PP. I had a pretty good idea of what was happening but all I wanted to do was get the car on the trailer and get home.

Once back on the lift and after a few days rest, I pulled the slave cylinder off and my suspicions were confirmed.



This is the bolt that holds the Tee-block that the cluck fork pivots on. It had worked loose allowing the clutch fork to travel further forward eventually hitting the pressure plate when the clutch pedal was depressed.

Problem is, one has to remove the transmission to tighten the bolt.

Exhaust, drive shaft, inspection plate, starter, crossmember, and eventually the trans have to come out to get to the bolt head.

So I did all of this, soaked the bolt real good in blue lock-tite and reinstalled everything. Right before I put the slave cylinder back on I snapped this picture and started banging my head against the rack...



It appears that the reason the bolt came loose is because after I shortened the Tee-Block to keep the fork off of the PP the first time, the bolt now bottoms out before the Tee-block is tight against the trans housing.

I let it sit like that for about a week before deciding to go ahead and button it the rest of the way up and drive it like it is until it starts to happen again. If it comes loose again I'll pull it all apart once more and shorten the bolt.

Aren't cars fun...