Forum: Racing From The Past (go)
Moderators: Racing From The Past

Okay, let me start off with saying this,

DUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

The centerline of the (rightside) kingpin has to be inline with the centerline of the mounting hole on the steering arm(parallell to the lengthside of the car) when the wheels are pointed straight forward. The left side is in towards the car a bit.

The arms I've got on the car I'm working on right now are the old steel ones before Ackerman was an issue everyone was worried about. All of my newer rightside arms seemed to have this item corrected.

We used to have a horrible push with this car and yet we were new (ran what we had). Wonder though if that one scrubbing right front tire was upsetting the cars ability to 'dig in' and turn? Don't matter either way, they's commin' off!

Once again, I'm confounded on this issue. The car outside has this setup already. The toe-in is not equal throughout turning radius though.

Yet my Nance sprinter chassis outside has the right side mounting point for the steering link inline with this centerline. The left side is in towards the car a bit.

To All,

Bkcr, No I never worked on the #65 CL BOYD car except for 1 time and that was the Hemi powered sprint car. we were running the #10 at Springfield on the mile at a USAC Champ car race and the WOO had a sprint race there at the same time so Buzz had taken the sprint car up there to run, that thing was a beast it would fly down the straights but MP couldn't hardly get it through the corners. I'll never forget the biggest tracks MP & I had ever raced were Big Tulsa track, OKC, Knoxville etc, we were talking to LaVern at Tulsa and told him we were going, he said you boy will be fine there it's not much bigger then this place. Well when we went through the tunnel to get into the infield and came out on the inside MP & I looked at one another and said HOLY SHIT!!!! that place was BIG!!!!!!! Blew a head gasket out in the Hemi and didn't finish, in the #10 we ran about 13th - 14th.

That #65 Super & Champ cars were fast MP won alot of races in them and afew Championships. I liked Buzz he seemed to be a good guy, Louis McConnell that CC for them was a good guy also, John Wells and I never got along to well never had any issues just somebody I didn't like, funny thing is he's my neighbor to the SE now at my current house and I still don't really care for him. Joe "Tube' Houck was a great guy who CC for them and he and I got along real well.

Brian, I don't know about what steel arms you have but all of the Parson steel arms were built correct. The steel arms on the 2 #01's 1-Walker & 1-Jelly were built correct. I never tried shortening up the tie-rod hole on 1 side, When we ran the steel arms we steered off the top LF and ran the steering arms off the bottom of the spindle. 7" from the center of the axle boss to the P/U point at the drag link and 7" from the center of the axle boss to the center of the steering arm P/U point, used a 7" to 9" arm on the manual box's and a 14" to 17" arm on the Profile iron or Lee Mag units. One of the nicest steel spindle steering arm set-up's that I ever saw was on the Weikert #29 when Wolfgang drove it, they had welded CM tubing right to the steel spindle with a boss for the tie-rod and drag link it was neat and compact, however they broke a RF off the spindle on Thursday night battling for the lead in the A-FEA at East Bay, they were fighting for the lead on Saturday and broke another RF off, I just don't think they had it profected welding wise, welding the CM tubing to forged steel is a trick even today and it looked like the piece I saw was 1" .058 or .065 that broke off.

Brian, This diagram looks correct to me. The left wheel has to turn sharper when turning left and the right has to turn sharper when turning right. This is supposed to do the correct turning radius. If you use one set of steering arms on cars with different length front axles (king pin to king pin) the arms would not be correct and likewise if the wheelbase was longer or shorter, they would not be correct. When I used IHC spindles with IHC steering arms, I heated the IHC steering arm & bent it to align. When I used Ford spindles, I made the steering arms from 1/4 steel angle iron & cut off the excess steel. In the 60s you had to make any special parts. ..You would get a big laugh if you saw the jigs I made for front axles using Ford & IHC spindles. I never had power steering on any of my cars either but that is another story.......Luther

Brian,

Luther is giving you a KEY piece of info here, WB & Axle Width will make or break you!!! You will be able to fabricate the correct piece's to fit your combination.

I'm slowly going to wrap this mild steel brain of mine around it, thanks guys.

Does this Ackerman thing work on mini sprints?

TW97A.....Yes it will work. Use the red, green, black & blue diagram Brian posted above. You might be able to use a lazer beam to check the green measurements. I have a tape with a lever & lazer beam on it. That would be cool. Just for fun, jack the car up at the track & shoot you lazer beam. You will start some hot rumors especially if you win! You may need to put small round stakes in the ground under the car directly under the the 3 pivot points on each side of the car & shoot the lazer below the floor boards.

You can have some fun with a lazer at the track even if you dont's use the setup. Luther

Speaking of playing with peoples heads at the track, How about throwing a blanket over the right rear RIGHT AFTER you change it for the feature. Then make sure no one, no one looks under it.

My favorite head trick I've heard of came from Junior Johnson as told by Darrell Waltrip, and I think it sounds familiar to someone out there somewhere.

Let's say for example it involves a piston manufacturer,

- A certain piston producer sells bad product, everybody that's been around knows it. Hanging by a thread, they still stay in business.

One day Junior calls them up and says "Uh'd like sum 'o them pistons, you got any"?

The seller recognizes the voice and says "Is this Mr. Johnson"?!

"Yes this is Joohnyur. Say uh'd like to get some pistons off 'o you".

"Well Mr. Johnson, we'd be glad to just send you 2 sets as a complimentary trial basis just to see what you'd think".

"Naw, Uh reckon uh better buy me 12 sets if you got 'em"

By this time the salesman is going nuts! "SURE THING Mr. Johnson, they'll be out tonight!"

Salesman walks out to the warehouse, spouts off "12 sets to Joohnoir, overnight, PRONTO"!

He turns right around, goes straight to the phone thinking "That Junoir has found something don't know what it is, but it's there".

Salesman gets on the phone to EVERY shop in town and the response at first is always the same -"Would you like a set or 2 of the pistons we have"?

Shop manager answers "Naw, we got some of our own from soemwhere else".

Salesman indicates "Junoir Johnson just bought 12 sets"!

After a moment of silence, the shop manager says "Yeah, send 3 or 4 sets".

It goes on like that all day long.

Meanwhile the next morning the pistons arrive at the Johnson shop. They get unloaded, and placed in the corner to collect dust.

Raceday comes and not a word is said about the hottest piston makers in town. Those pistons Junior bought are still collecting dust in the corner, he never even thought of using them in his engines. ALL down the row there are a lot of primary and backup engines loaded with these junk pistons by now.

Half way through the race, people are blowing up, losing power etc, yet Junior's car is doing just fine. -One of the engine hounds from another team comes up and asks "Junior, did you really buy some pistons from XXX pistons"?

"Yep, shur did. Bought me 12 sets".

"Well,........how are they working out for you"?

Junoir turns and looks him straight in the eye and says "They're workin' jest fine. In fact, I may just have to buy me some more"!

Duct tape over the end of the Torsion Bars seemed to make people really look as well as tape over the shock numbers or something I am going to try this year that I learned from going up to Central Pa. last year that some of the URC guys were trying , I am hoping it makes some wonder what is it's function on the car.

Always fun to make them wonder WTH?

Brian,...Sounds like you would make a great crew chief. I liked the one when Smokey Unick had his gas tank removed by NASCAR officials at Daytona after a race to check the capacity. He had more laps than any other car without refuelling.

After the tank was removed, he started the car & drove it back to his shop, about 5 miles from the speedway. Turns out, he was using the frame for extra capacity. ...Luther

In 1975 we were in a heated competition with 2 other teams for the Tulsa modified championship. Withe the 6 cyld. modified engines the gearing was very important, thy had a very narrow power range. Norman and Mike would tell me what gear they would want for the feature. Since Norman had 3 care he had 2sets of the gear that we would use. There were always somebody behind me when I changed the gears, well we thought we would mess with them. I would take out the gear and lay it on a rag on the trailer and go to the gear box and get the same set and put back in it. We noticed that the same person would just try to glance at the set I took out and then go to his pit and start to change gears. We had a lot of laughs out of that . Mike was very particular about the gear, one nught I changed the gear 7 times.When we went to the Supers in 1976 the V-8 had a larger power band and we did not have to change as often.

Ray

I learned this from watching Bobby Allen when the WoO would come through this area , he would get every LR and RR off of his trailer and spread them all around his pit area and keep his competition confused on what tire selection he was going to make at the last minute.

ok sounds like a start,thank you very much.

Rob is doing here, what I'm trying to do in Ada and Wichita Falls. He has been a big help in getting a nostalgia drag racing event right outside my doorstep. I'm into circles, always have been when it comes to racing.

But here in southern Oklahoma at Ardmore raceway, they have a nostalgia drags that pulls nearly 100 cars. Keep in mind every drag night there is always a camaro, nove 55 chevy etc. BUT, when '32 Ford roadsters,coupes and Halibrand shod front engine dragters show up in the area, along with a line of enthusiasts that get backed up on hwy 77, I tend to take notice something special is going on. The rigs line the track in an unheard of fashion these days for this area.

THAT, in combination with what I've been seeing out there, as far as the kind of cars we talk about here, got me to thinking...................People love an old supermodified, sprinter,midget etc, every bit as much as a front engine dragster with candy paint! SOMEWHERE in this whole mess, is a successful story to make.

Brian,

I have been a victim, I know a boat load of other racers who have been victims, it is part of what racing has been and always will be about unless we get into spec chassis & motors. Part of what made racing fun in the old days, when you built it you had it until somebody figured out what it was that you had!!!! I go back to what Jim has said about working out of the box, when we had to build our own motors, chassis, parts etc. your imagination was only as big as what you were not scared to try.

One time when the Old Man was getting started on the BB/SS combination he talked to "Grumpy" Jenkins about some things to try, well GJ told him Manley had this nice piston pkg all ready in stock for this combo so Pat ordered 2 sets. We unboxed the pistons and man they where nice, light weight not much skirt short pins, so we put them in the first motor and went out here to the Fairgrounds, motor was fast Emmitt took off in the heat and was leading by a straight when BOOM motor blew up!!!! When we took it apart every thing looked ok except for 2 different pistons had the pin bores broke out, we fixed it, as we waited on parts we put the 2nd engine in and went to Dallas leading the heat going away and BOOM same results. Pat called Manley they had a long discussion and told us they had a ton of people running this type of piston, well we put the 1st motor back in and went back out to the Fairgrounds and we had another BOOM!!! At that point it was go back to the TRW & Speed Pro blanks and send them to Nix or Bill Miller to get them built. Later we were able to buy pistons straight from Diamond ready to go like we wanted and they were nice and lasted also!!!

JD,

We used to sand the #'s off the end of the bar and stamp differant #'s on them, we had Sanders make some bars 1 time that were marked 25 smaller then what they really were but that is before we had tester's that told us what they really were, never messed with changing #'s on shocks.

One of my favorites involved Bob Brotherton it pretained to a set screw that he could take out when the motor was being puffed, I don't know how big the motor was but every time puffed it it was legal!! I think Jim has a story or 2 about a couple of tricks that Johnny and Horace had!!!

I have cobbled up some nasty looking junk a time or to that was fast and if it wasn't it gave people something to look at so they didn't see what was really making the car fast!!!!