assymetric ladder bar adjustment

gnicholson · 02-05-2014, 03:43 AM

besides preload on the springs or ladder bar to equal tire loading at launch i was wondering if anyone has ever tried different pivot points on the front ladder bar mount from right to left.in other words; in an effort to counter act the housing rotation at launch and try to apply equal torque to both tires has anyone put the right ladder bar in the top hole in the front mount while putting the left in the center hole for instance.seems to me this would allow more equal loading of the tires without preload so you dont have any handling issues down track

Mark Markow · 02-05-2014, 09:24 AM

I would think that since it is a single pivot up front and fixed at the housing , that you would experience some bind . that being said I have had cars in the shop before where someone had made a 4link adj. and wasn't paying attention, and had the bars in different hole positions from side to side. and when I pointed it out. they said the car handled just fine? I would not recommend it though.

Tom Goldman · 02-05-2014, 05:04 PM

I've had ladder cars and 4 bar's come into the shop with unbelievable stagger in the holes, and amazingly some of them actually went straight , although they had ridiculous amounts of preload in the bars and springs.
By their very design most ladder bars actually twist the rear if you use the adjuster link for a preload adjustment , they are actually intended to ease pinion angle adjustment not preload.
Bottom line is that if you needed to have that much stagger in the bar to achieve proper preload, there is something drastically wrong with the way the ladder bar crossmember or shock mounts were installed.
One thing for sure ,there wont be much housing yaw rotation since everything will be in a bind.

gnicholson · 02-05-2014, 09:33 PM

i was just thinking that since the housing tries top plant the driver side and pull the pass side up at launch maybe there would be some merit to using a different anti squat adjustment on the left and right relative to each other.on a ladder bar that would mean raising the right ladder bar to a higher hole than the dr side to plant the tire harder .just thinking the different geometry might help load the tires more evenly dynamically than using a static solution such as preload

02-05-2014, 03:43 AM	#1
gnicholson Member Join Date: Sep 2011 Posts: 100 Likes: 13 Liked 4 Times in 3 Posts	assymetric ladder bar adjustment besides preload on the springs or ladder bar to equal tire loading at launch i was wondering if anyone has ever tried different pivot points on the front ladder bar mount from right to left.in other words; in an effort to counter act the housing rotation at launch and try to apply equal torque to both tires has anyone put the right ladder bar in the top hole in the front mount while putting the left in the center hole for instance.seems to me this would allow more equal loading of the tires without preload so you dont have any handling issues down track

02-05-2014, 09:24 AM	#2
Mark Markow Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: east hartford ct. Posts: 539 Likes: 1 Liked 9 Times in 3 Posts	Re: assymetric ladder bar adjustment I would think that since it is a single pivot up front and fixed at the housing , that you would experience some bind . that being said I have had cars in the shop before where someone had made a 4link adj. and wasn't paying attention, and had the bars in different hole positions from side to side. and when I pointed it out. they said the car handled just fine? I would not recommend it though. __________________ Mark Markow 171 ss/tb

02-05-2014, 05:04 PM	#3
Tom Goldman VIP Member Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Allentown,PA Posts: 2,436 Likes: 776 Liked 700 Times in 204 Posts	Re: assymetric ladder bar adjustment I've had ladder cars and 4 bar's come into the shop with unbelievable stagger in the holes, and amazingly some of them actually went straight , although they had ridiculous amounts of preload in the bars and springs. By their very design most ladder bars actually twist the rear if you use the adjuster link for a preload adjustment , they are actually intended to ease pinion angle adjustment not preload. Bottom line is that if you needed to have that much stagger in the bar to achieve proper preload, there is something drastically wrong with the way the ladder bar crossmember or shock mounts were installed. One thing for sure ,there wont be much housing yaw rotation since everything will be in a bind. __________________ Tom Goldman 1500 SG , 1506 STK

02-05-2014, 09:33 PM	#4
gnicholson Member Join Date: Sep 2011 Posts: 100 Likes: 13 Liked 4 Times in 3 Posts	Re: assymetric ladder bar adjustment i was just thinking that since the housing tries top plant the driver side and pull the pass side up at launch maybe there would be some merit to using a different anti squat adjustment on the left and right relative to each other.on a ladder bar that would mean raising the right ladder bar to a higher hole than the dr side to plant the tire harder .just thinking the different geometry might help load the tires more evenly dynamically than using a static solution such as preload