Weight transfer

[Floyd Staggs]

How do these stock and super stockers get so much weight transfer to stand up as far as they do?

[Frank Castros]

Stock; Clatracs and Hoosier radials.
Super Stock; Holt Chassis, or?

[e vassar]

Build the car light as possible. Then add back necessary weight over back wheels. 3 speed trans, 5:13 gear, stiff sidewall radial slicks.
There I've given away all the secrets.

[SSDiv6]

Originally Posted by e vassar

Build the car light as possible. Then add back necessary weight over back wheels. 3 speed trans, 5:13 gear, stiff sidewall radial slicks.
There I've given away all the secrets.

Except, if you know what you are doing, you don't put weight over the rear wheels...
3-speed trans don't have anything to do with wheel stands either. There are lots of cars out there with a powerglide that will drag the bumper during the launch.

[Rusty Davenport]

The best reply I know of is simply ......POWER-POWER-POWER. You can play the converter games, the traction experimentation and fooling with people that think they are racecar gurus but usually do not know much more than you do. If you have the proven power all the other stuff will come with some work.

[Mark Yacavone]

400 lbs. in the back sure helps...even with a 4 cylinder.

[e vassar]

Originally Posted by SSDiv6

Except, if you know what you are doing, you don't put weight over the rear wheels...
3-speed trans don't have anything to do with wheel stands either. There are lots of cars out there with a powerglide that will drag the bumper during the launch.

Really? Sure we've all seen cars with powerglides doing impressive wheelies but there's no way you're going to convince me that a 1:76 or 1:82 first gear would work better than a 2:52 . As far as the weight......unless the laws of physics have changed...adding weight to the back is better than adding weight to the front

[black88coupe]

Physics. Get the car setup right and it will work well. All the power in the world won’t help if the car isn’t setup right. My car pulls the front wheels and I have a grand total of $600 invested in my shortblock and heads. Plus I’m running an AOD trans which has a horrible 1st gear ratio. Spend your money and time on perfecting your chassis setup.

[SSDiv6]

Originally Posted by e vassar

Really? Sure we've all seen cars with powerglides doing impressive wheelies but there's no way you're going to convince me that a 1:76 or 1:82 first gear would work better than a 2:52 . As far as the weight......unless the laws of physics have changed...adding weight to the back is better than adding weight to the front

The problem of many is the lack of understanding of physics.
Physics is more that the laws of leverage or fulcrum and that is were many miss it. The center of gravity of the car has to be considered the same as many other factors. Just because a car has a very high wheelstand, it does not mean the car is fast.

One item people have to understand the concept of wheel speed. Hitting the tires hard on the launch, you hurt the wheel speed.

About transmission 1st gear ratios, the selection depends on the engine powerband. You have to optimize the recovery of the engine Going from a 2.52 gear ration to a 1.00 high gear ratio, due to the RPM drop, is not for all engines. You also optimize the launch with the rear end ratio and torque converter flash and lock RPM's.

By the way, I wrench a Stock Eliminator small block car has does pull the wheels off the ground, carries them without losing wheel speed and the 60's are better than many of the big block cars in the class in the mid 1.30's. None of the weight is on top or behind the axle. I also wrench a Comp Eliminator Super Modified car that has all the weight ahead of the rear axle and 60's are in the low 1.10's and I know that at the right track it will got high 1.0's.

[Race Clean]

Originally Posted by e vassar

Build the car light as possible. Then add back necessary weight over back wheels. 3 speed trans, 5:13 gear, stiff sidewall radial slicks.
There I've given away all the secrets.

I was at the houston National race in 89 and saw Randy Heer do crazy wheelies in Stock back then,remember that was 15/20 years before light wheel brakes and 10 years before light weight seats, no other Stockers really lifted the wheels back then..well RJ's Fairlane did to some extend but not like Randy's..
I crawled under the car to find basically stock leaf springs and nothing fancy at all..
In a A/SA 427 with steel heads back then it's hard to believe he had a good front to back weight ratio....
So my conclusion 30 years later is that if you find the sweet spot(for wheel stands in this case) nothing else really matters..not that all thing suggested help,ofcourse they do....but sometimes it just works... other ways!

p.s. Randy's Camaro did not looked worked on at the time...it was kinda rusty below..like left alone for 10-15 years..(I could be really wrong here) and I remember James Caro getting better et's with his Challenger but not looking quiet as exiting down the track!