Quote Originally Posted by Henry Rifle
Agreed. However, if we don't get the static right, the dynamic will eat our lunch. The charts and graphs don't tell the whole story, but they give us good starting points. With hot rods, geometery is our friend. Without it, we die.

Absolutely Jack!!!! The suspension on a car is probably the most important factor in the build, and getting the geometry correct is the most important aspect of the suspension!!! The pic Uncle Bob posted is the correct way to do a straight axle with transverse spring, your own coupe shows a deviation in the spring used, but the geometry remains intact... On this and most all forums I frequent the most discussed topic is horsepower, IMO nothing is more scary then a big horse, ill handling car and nothing is a bigger waste then a car with big horse and junk suspension that won't allow it to hook or handle!!!!

One of my pet peeves over the years has been the clowns that come in the shop with the car either on the chassis table or the scales and the suspension being tweaked and tuned, and ask "Have you fired the engine yet?" All the horsepower in the world doesn't mean poop if you can't apply it to the ground!!!! In the real world, both on the track and on the street we've managed to put a whoopin' on many cars with considerably more horsepower then we have, but little if any thought given to the suspension and handling characteristics of the car. In '78 with a really first rate hired gun in our sprinter we won 14 of 16 main events at one track----the engine was protested most every night, the experts knew we were cheating----seems they failed to realize that Don's cornering speeds were higher then anyone on the track. At the dragstrip, our 500 horse Fords have whooped many a 600+ horse car because of the good hook and the lower 60 foot times....

Jan and Dean's "Dead Man's Curve" song always said it all for me....Being the faster car means nothing if you don't survive the race!!!!