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A few weeks ago we had a discussion on lowering and it's effects on suspension geometry. I was browsing through John Jaranson's website when I saw his article on suspension geometry and it all flashed back to me. Now I will admit on our regular cars we just changed to the later style rubber pieces for the beam to get the caster a little closer to normal, but for the "track car" we had aluminum bushings cnc'ed for all of our rubber suspension mounts front and rear. The rear torsion bar bushings remained stock, but he was working on Delrin replacements when we quit going. My reason for forgetting this is because I was the "driver" and my friend (joint project) was the "wrench". We both did both sides, but our specialties were obvious. I could drive like the dickens, and he was a natural engineer/mechanic. Unfortunately much time has passed and and I have no clue what he did for measurements for the aluminum pieces. He was pretty good at back yard engineering and our track car always did handle like it was on rails. It did tend to on throttle understeer as most rear engine cars do though. I remember taking the rear bumper off at Sears Point trying to change the weight balance more forward....lol. We later also installed a fat metal accesory front bumper bar to help add more weight in front. You can see the bar is present (blurry) and the rear bumper gone in this pic: http://www.tuff240.com/images/t3/65racer/65racer.jpg Also the same friend built a fastback mini-stock dirt car for his wife to race. It/she always did well and finished in the top 5 consistently. We never knew how good the car actually was until I had the chance to drive it in the years biggest race (I had never raced on ovals or dirt before this day). I started the main event in 5th starting position and was in the lead by turn 2. They all got into the 1st turn a little hot and had slipped up the track a little trying to get slowed and turned. I dive bombed the opening and passed 4 cars on the inside to lead the 1st lap. I led and pulled away for the entire race until the fan belt came off about 5 laps before the end of the race. It was disappointing not to win it, but I had proved our point that I and the car were as good as anyone else there. Jeesh, how do I get sidetracked on these little stories so easily? Anyways, what I was trying to get at about the dirt oval car was that I specifically remember him re-arching the upper control arm. I'm not sure if this had to do with negative or positive caster or what (dirt ovals differ from road racing settings A LOT). I just remeber him doing it and us having to ship the parts out to be heat treated(?). The car was supposed to be based on the original chassis (pan in our case), but it was much more like a tube framed car then a T3 pan. You had to turn right just to go straight......lol. It didn't like moving about to load it on the trailer, but once it was in it's element it was great. It actually handled so good, I tried to keep it full throttle around turns 3 and 4........once. Needless to say, I smacked the wall coming out of turn 4 something fierce. My reason for trying this was because during practice and heat races, I was only the 2nd fastest. The guy that was first fastest was blipping the throttle once through 3-4 and I figured if I could keep it floored the entire time, I would be faster.....lol. As the night progressed, the track came to our car set-up more and I naturally picked up time, just as my friend said it would do. Jeesh...sidetracked on another story again! Sorry to dredge up this forsaken topic again, but I thought I would post it to help clear up some issues and/or create yet more confusion....lol. Hope you enjoyed the short stories. :-) Patrick D. #10 and a bunch of memories/stories. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ List info at http://www.vwtype3.org/list | mailto:gregm@vwtype3.org