Front suspension for street/drag
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In collaboration with Funkhouser Racecars Freds Truck Parts started designing and are just starting to make the R&D parts for a streetable dragrace style front suspension. Based off an A body spindle, tube arms and tube style crossmember. All to help reduce weight, improve geometry and give unlimited options when it comes to front brakes or spindle mount wheels.
We are aiming to make this a commercially available product so you can run it in the classes that require "commercially available products" to make the car/truck legal. I want something that is "dragweek" compliant, light and strong. I searched the ol interwebz and couldn't find anything that I was really happy with. So we decided to bring it in house. After we have this the way we like it, we tackle a "bolt in" style rear four link. The issue there is the customer will need to weld on axle brackets. but thats a month or 2 down the road. A 8.50 legal "do it yourself" cage kit is also in the works. |
Re: Front suspension for street/drag
Make it cheaper than a dropmember, and then send me one.
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Re: Front suspension for street/drag
We are going to do our best. I have no desire to be the next Porterbuilt. But we will build the best product that we can.
I love the look of the body on the ground. so the R&D kit will be able to lay pinch weld on a 315 radial in the rear and 29' tall tire in the front. But we will have an option for those that dont care about that and want coilovers. 8.99 or faster on a bag it the goal. |
Re: Front suspension for street/drag
This might be a dumb questions but 8.99 on the 1/8 or 1/4?
I don't drag race but wouldn't that be in the 1000hp range? |
Re: Front suspension for street/drag
8.99 in the 1/4 mile yes.
Depends on the weight. We are aiming to keep this truck under the 3000lb mark with me in it at the start line. which means I need to get on a treadmill. We have more than enough power to go 8.99 at 3000lbs. |
Re: Front suspension for street/drag
8.99 in the 1/8th would be like a 14 sec 1/4 hehe
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a streetable 8.99 in the 1/4 mile truck that will lay pinch weld with the cool kids is what we are after. Most say it cant be done. We accept that challenge.
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8.99 in a 1/4 mile @ 3000lbs should put it around 150mph;)
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In a perfect world the power on hand and the estimated weight puts it into the 7s@170 But its going to be far from perfect so Im beyond happy with 8.99@150 That will make for a fun street truck. haha
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Trying to propel a brick to 170 sure makes that an exponential increase in difficulty. IMO 150 and you're hitting the invisible wall in a truck.
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A brick has sharp corners. a truck has a slight angle to the windshield and semi rounded corners. They are totally different.:lol:
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Food for thought..
My truck has 1 5/8 cm back half with 4-link CM 10 point cage There is nothing extra in my cab Ls1 with power glide Mosified front cross member with mustang 2 spindles Willwood brakes on all 4's Truck should be about 2900 with out me in it (last time was 3200 with me in it) |
Re: Front suspension for street/drag
Full interior truck with stereo, leather buckets, sound deadener, console etc.
Thats gotta put me at like 36ish with the ls and 4l80e offsetting the old sbc combo weightwise....wasn't stock in the 35-3600 range? |
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Re: Front suspension for street/drag
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Made some good progress this week. Just need more hours in the day. Frame rail section is done, tire is done and spindle is 90% done. should have that all wrapped up this week and next week starts the fun stuff. Arms and crossmember.
The goal is to keep everything simple, light and strong. |
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Ls1/4l80e with stock verter Bench seat 7" steel wheels with 275/50/15 on all 4 corners Had hood, inner fenders, front bumper, bench seat, wheel tubs and most the bed floor 3,940 with me in it. |
Re: Front suspension for street/drag
Good to know, I gotta be close to that. Hopefully with ditching the inner fenders and a few other small weight measures, I can keep the whole thing under 4k w/ me in it.
500hp/4k lbs in a truck is enough to keep me entertained for....like 3 months. :) |
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I assume most of you guys are boxing your own frame or having it boxed?
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Boxed frame with a cage is unseeded weight :)
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The reason I ask is because we are kicking around the idea of offering a "diy" box kit. We supply the precut metal, you just click it together and burn it onto the frame. Im designing it for my truck so I might as well make it available.
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For a long time I had just a welder and a grinder, I imagine there are a lot of guys that have just a welder and a grinder. |
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For that price I'd be interested. Especially if it had some design to it. I did a sfbd on my 75 and started drilling 2.5 inch holes in it for looks and quickly gave up on that.
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YA that seems like a lot of work. Thats why the water check is oh so nice! haha.
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Problem is that itll be $175 to ship $175 worth of metal. I think your better off in printing the drawings/3ds file and selling them for $5.99 so we can just run them on our own jets or mark them off and torch/plasma/sheer
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I have a welder and a grinder. |
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:lol:See, Randy gets where I am going with this! haha.
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Re: Front suspension for street/drag
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We made some great progress last night. Spindle and hub assembly are built and in the proper location. The cross member with lower pivots is roughed in and the lower arm is roughed in as well. Hopefully we can get the top arm and shock mounts in this week as well then start fine tuning from there. My buddy Matt at Funkhouser race cars is doing a great job bringing my bar napkin idea to life!
The plan for my build is a dual adjustable QA1 and air bag up front but we are also building a coilover option for those that dont like/believe in/need/want an airbag ;) |
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Is it to late to make the cross member out of 2 pieces of round tube? Might be lighter?
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When we finalize things the crossmember will be chromoly tubing. It was just faster to do it this way to start laying out pivot points.
On the shelf bushing, on the shelf ball joints, brake pads and rotors. The A body spindles give us that flexability, plus there is a crazy amount of cheap to expensive disc brake options from every manufacture under the sun. The goal is light and strong but I also want to be able to buy parts at the local parts house and know they will be on the shelf. I think anyone who buys one of these would like that option as well. |
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Wonder if a mustang ii spindle would work too. Bet it is lighter, perhaps not as strong but those roundy round guys sure beat the crud out of them.
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If you want a truck to run the full coilover version on, let me know. I have very little problem driving my truck 28hrs out to the coast...and its not like I ever "have" to be anywhere.
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If the Mustang 2 spindles are lighter I would bet not but much. The reason we decided to go with the A body spindle is it has no steering arm. We didnt want to be constrained in our design making sure the steering geometry was ok. This way we can build exactly what we want, then with the amount of aftermarket bolt on steering knuckles we just find what works. If nothing works we build our own.
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Looks like you have a G body spindle. Curious as to what it weighs in with the steering arm bolted on it. The bare MII spindle is 7lbs. I understand the idea of flexibility in the design with different arms.
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Its an A body 2' Drop spindle. Its a summit brand but summit usually has their name put on quality pieces. and now that we have it in our hands, its a good solid piece to work with. If we have any issues with it there are 15 companies that build them. I will weigh the bare spindle next time I am up at the shop (this is a after hours project).
Safety is my main concern. I have no desire to be 160mph through the lights and having to be up on the wheel during shut down. |
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Kyle,
I'm not saying the Gbody spindle isn't stronger. But keep in mind all the various applications in which MII spindles are used and how abusive some of those applications really are. To say a MII spindle might fall apart at 160mph just isn't fair. There are a lot of them on cars going faster than that. I'm trying to go high 8's this year on the bottle and hopefully deep 8's next year via turbo. I am confident in the MII spindle. Now, I know your building a cross member geared towards something more than cruising to the grocery store and running the drag strip with potentially even heavier trucks than mine (and what you are shooting for weight wise with your truck). In that scenario I can see over building. Your but is on the line if there is a problem or someone abuses things. |
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