I have been doing some mocking up on my chassis. Doing a lot of measuring. I have some numbers on how the camber curve works on the rear suspension. I asked a few simple questions that I never got an answer too.
1 When an original car is sitting on its tires, can the distance between the mounting bolts for the rear shocks be measured? I so what is the distance? I do not know if is even possible to get this measurement while the car is sitting on the ground.
2 What is the shape of the rear spring when it is sitting on its tires like i is driven. Is it flat, curved upwards, or curved downwards?
If you have any experience building one of these cars from scratch. You would know that the above question would be very helpful. The plans I am using I am told were taken from original cars. I also am very picky when I build things. If it calls for a certain measurement I don't make it close, I make it right on the measurement. I know how tolerances stack up. I know how welding pulls things around. Over the years I have learned to check all measurements on a drawing. I have also found many problems on drawings. It sucks spending 40 hours or more building a jig to make repeatable parts, only to later find mistakes on the part you want to make.
I asked about alignment specs. Yes the cobra manual has the specs. But can thee specs be better than the manual states. Yes that is why there is more than one set of drawing for the springs. You can bet the reason for making adjustable A arms is to get better alignment specs.
Anyhow I found this picture on the net.
I can only assume this is a show chassis. Being a show chassis, I assume it is sitting lower in the rear than would be normal. The rear spring has a small amount of upward bend. The rear spring must be weak because the chassis is missing a lot of weight. Also note the rear A arm inner pivit point is lower than the outer pivot point. The angle on the half shaft might be getting close to there max working angle. I also feel that if the wheel has to move upward much to go over bumps, the shocks would run out of travel. I looks like the rear has negative camber and the front has positive camber as the manual states.
Any thought on what you see?