Hey J-body community. I race a 95 cavalier on a 1/2 mile asphalt track. And I have heard If you take all of your bushing out on the left side of the sway bar and tie it up then leave it normal on the right this will make me turn better? Bob will probably know haha.

Thanks,

Jo Brown #25


Remember when sex was safe and racing was dangerous .

Bob does know...

take all teh bushings out of teh left side and keep teh ride side normal and tight... you need to be in the car race ready all set to go. pressures set and everything and you want the bar neutral so someone should be able to rech in and spin the bushings or the bolt a little...

that will give a nice LF tug into the car

Okay sweet thanks. So right before I am about to go have someone tighten it up and make sure it's set?


Remember when sex was safe and racing was dangerous .

ya and you will probably have to tweek it every time you go out

I may seem like an idiot here, but I have some more questions and what not I am new to racing and want to get this right when I do it. So is it infinitely adjustable how slammed down you want the left side of the sway bar? # 2 People told me to take out all the bushings and what not and put it back together and leave it saying that I dont have to touch it again, but your talking about adjusting it and tightening it up after every time I go out?

Thanks,

Jo Brown #25


Remember when sex was safe and racing was dangerous .

it changes very very easily it is one of those adjustments that is a fine tune thing...

you lonly leave the bushing belows the cotrol arm and above the sawy bar. you might need to take a die and put more threads on the link to get it to the right point

OKay sweet thanks! How much should I tighten it all the way?


Remember when sex was safe and racing was dangerous .

until it is neutral, you just want to be able to spin the bushing not loose but not tight

Just finished doing it turned out well! Thanks for the help Bob appreciate it.


Remember when sex was safe and racing was dangerous .

Can someone explain the concept of why this works better? I have thought about it since I read it a few weeks ago (and will most likely try it once I get through some other adjustments). I just can see why. I thought that the sway bar controlled roll and weight transfer? Just want to learn.
thanks
j

it works because on initial tunr in the ccar settles and cmpresses teh springs of the car, then when you get into the corner a bit more the sway bar ( which is bascially a spring from side to side) will increase the spring rate of the front end and transfer weight onto the inside tire (in the case of circle track racing, the left side) and pull the car through the bottom of the corner...

if you leave teh sway bar tight you will get the added spring rate on any amount of body roll and not have the pull of the weight transfer after initial spring set

if you havent followed along ro dont understand just remeber this... IT WORKS try it in a whole bunch of variations, some cars liek it more neutral than others

This week I have new tires (g-force 9.5" wide 225-50-15 out side and 205-50-15 inside) less weight, new CAI setup, Light battery (9 lbs), new fuel cell (3 gal as opposed to 8 gal), toe out adjusted to 3/8", no radiator fan, and stagger in the tires. I'm going to see how all this handles this week. I will try the sway bar tuning next. thanks for the info.

I got me one of those roll cage cameras to tryout. That should be neat watching the heats and feature races from inside the car.

3/8"? toe out OMG.... yuo should never go over 3/16" we run about 1/8"... doyu understand what toe does... waht are you running for camber? you really should get teh car on scales to see where corner weights and overall is at... also what kind of stagger are you running? 1 inch should be good inthe front... and if you want ti really really loose 2.5" in the back will get it there

The guy that had the car before me had eyeballed the Toe out and it was 1.25" on the P side and .75" off center on the D side (Toe Out)

Camber
FL 1.5" FR 1.75" Not sure if this in positive or negative. I get confused.
RL 1.0" RR 1.5"
205/50-15 23" on the D side
225/50-15 23.9" on the P side but the tires on the side side have more pressure which would increase the stagger. So by the factory figures it is .9" on both front and back but it really will be about 1.5" stagger.

well for one you cant guess out stagger like that... an 1/8" will make or break teh car, and EVERY tire even teh same manufacturer adn size will measure a little different... play with stagger first... set your LF wheel dead ahead and your RF 1/8-3/16 toe out and see how that goes...

where do you race?

I am in Mid Missouri, Columbia. I changed the cv shaft on the P side (long one) last night and will be doing a trial run tonight for the camera. Everything should be ready for Saturday night. The FR wheel bearing had a little play in it so if I have time I will change it out tonight as well.

I still have the front bumper on the car which inhibits air flow to the radiator. I would like to remove the fan assembly to reduce weight but I tried it out last night and the temp got up around 200*F without the fan on. Of course I was only in second gear taking it easy. I have removed the t-stat and went to a plate with a 1" hole to hold the t-stat gasket in place.

I also want to remove the ABS module to reduce weight. The master cylinder looks as though it is the like one of the first styles and they just bolted teh ABS to the side of it. I may take it off and do some research to see what it will take to hook the brake lines up directly. That ABS module must weight 15 lbs.

Stagger- yep I know I will need to try different things. My car is mostly stock (including the Manual Transmission) so there is slipping from side to side. Not sure how the stagger will effect traction with out the transmission locked. We will see.

I am pretty happy so far with my place in finnishing. My last race (my 4th race ever), and I finished 2nd in my heat. My R tie rod broke on the 4th lap in the feature. The race before that i finnished 6th in the feature out of 25. I am 14th in the points standing (out of 30 plus cars) but i missed the first 3 races this year.

My car is really fast and I do well on the straights but need to learn how to get in and out of the corners without loosing too many RPM's. I'm about tapped on the money I can put in it for this year so I will be working on adjustments and skills.

Any advise would be welcome.

the biggest thing to help the car get into the corner a lot freeer is to get a rear sway bar but they are like $175 for tthe addco unit i prefer