[Richard Hudgins]

Craig,

Your question on anti-roll bar rates is a bit more complex than it seems at first glance.

I personally prefer low spring rates and high anti-roll bar rates. I then use the dampers to control the high transient rates due to soft springs. (Note: this only applies to non-aero cars, like the cobra. Aero cars are a whole different beast.)

But, this only works if you have enough torsional stiffness in the chassis to eliminate flex. (Or minimize it to a acceptable range)

If you have a fairly flexible chassis, you will wish very high spring frequencies and damper rates. (Road course work, not drag stuff)

Anti-roll bar rates become a real guessing game in this configuration. The anti-roll bars will introduce considerable confusion as they will be cross loading the chassis and giving you some really goofy dynamics.

Also, the chassis is undamped, therefore this loading will be cyclical to the natural frequency of the chassis. (Just too confusing for me to set up this type of car, the sprint/midget car guys know how to do this and they make them work quite well. Of course they are only turning left.)

So. bottom line is:

If you have at least 2500>3000 lbs torsional rigidity, you can go with high rate bars. (This assumes 1 G cornering loads.) Anything less than the above, talk to your local sprint car guys.