Shelby Aluminum

[scottj]

Originally posted by steelcomp


Another note on weight and it's effect...you really need to get the car on a set of scales if you want to know where the weight is. It's really the only way of knowing what effect the changes you are making will have.

Total wet weight of the last "Butler" we set up was 2783 with a Motorsport crate 351 W. (Iron blk, al. hds and int) and a tremec TKO.
RF was 641
LF was 615
RR was 768
LR was 758. That was a F/R ratio of 4554%.
You can do the RF/LR and LF/RRcrosses, as well. It had a Left/49.3%Right/50.6%

That car with me in it at 157#:
RF was 641
RR was 806
LF was 659
LR was 834
Notice how my weight brought even a little more rear bias to the table. (F/R 44.2/ 55.7) The L/R ratios basically swapped sides. That was one of the sweetest handling cars I had ever driven! It wasn't over sprung, it had the right sway bars on it, a very rigid platform, and BALANCE!

(numbers were rounded off...but you get the point)

Thanks.

Steelcomp- That's interesting. I spent about a month experimenting with 4-wheel alignment, camber curves (especially rear), percentages, etc. and ended up with #'s nearly identical to yours. All testing was done using the "seat of the pants" method. The biggest problem with the handling was the power. Getting the car to be drivable off corners with 600 ft\lbs proved to be difficult.

T = 2938 w\158# driver and 10 gallons of fuel

R = 55.6%

LF 659 RF 645
LR 825 RR 809

434 cid DART small block
drysump
Richmond 5spd RR
C-4 susp.

The driver needs improving, but the car is pretty good now.