The four link system requires removing the leaf springs completely and in most cases putting a complete back half frame assy. in. Coil over shocks, trac bar and very critical measurements etc. Mavman has just done his Maverck and the system with sheetmetal work and all is not cheap. In the 12 to 1500 range. The ladder bar set up will be the one to look at for leafs but you must use the floater attachment on the rear end and other extra items that all add up to a lot more money than cal-tracs or even slapper bars. The problem with the ladder bars is that they come in two lengths and there is interferance problems on the Mav's for the required crossmember that has to be used. Instant center comes into the picture again as Ken said and really, both these setups should be used for racing only for numerous reasons. Try and talk to someone who has done this in your area and ask how it went and look at the setups before you decide. Have seen a lot of street cars with some resembalance to these two set ups, but usually are not the best workmanship for a lot of reasons and in the long run don't perform any better than plain old traction masters(slap bars) because the mathmatical and other critical areas of design, were kind of fudged on. Nothing is impossible to do but very serious calculations must be made to make it work right. For everyday drivers and part time racers, I would use the bolt on devices talked about earlier, for now.
CaCollo I feel your pain although I'm running an automatic I can't punch it off the line without it gettin squirrley on me and I mean some serious Fishtailing. I'm still waiting on some BFG Comp T/A's to get here and I've lowered my back end as low as I dare go and put slapper bars on it's useless without some "stickies"
Some very good discussion going on here........I completely understand your problem with traction, whenever you start making a decent amount of power it is usually the first issue to deal with! First I would try to decide what I will be doing with the car in the future, if you want it to remain a daily driver you need to keep that in mind while trying to decide on suspension parts or setups. The next thing I would do is buy the book "Doorslammers: The Chassis Book" and spend some time reading so you can become more aware of the mechanics involved in getting a car to "hook". Your story reminds me of a story!! When the comet had it's last engine combo I had a friend that worked at the local BMW/Chevrolet dealer body shop. He brought out a c5 vette one evening that had just been repaired and we decided that we would race a few times. I honestly did not expect to beat this vette. We ended up racing on the highway a few times and each time I pulled him all the way through the gears to my top end which was about 115 mph due to the 4.62 gears. I was running a 90' 5.0 liter engine with a holley 4bbl and mildly ported 289 heads, c4 tranny, stock leaf springs, slapper bars and air shocks. The motor was making less power then the vette but with my gearing I was able to pull past him by several car lengths up until my top speed which is when I hit the brakes
Does anyone know if these Slide-A-Links would work on a Maverick which are actually made for 65-70 Mustang? How close or how far off are the Mavericks and Mustangs? Otherwise, where can I find these Cal-Tracs? I'm going to need to place an order within the next few days for traction bars so, any info you guys have with experience would be super. I was also wondering about these Competition Engineering adjustable shocks? Anyone have any exerience with these? Would these be a good choice for the strip? Comp. Shocks
~Attention MAVAHOLIC!!! What is your set-up? It kind of looks like these Slide-A-Link traction bars I'm think about.
Ok.. hum? All good points Bluegrass but from the way I read the original question and what he’s doing is it sound like this is a street car daily driven and is also on a budget... maybe wrong here, so please correct me but that’s the impression I got? I’m really answering and looking at the stand point of the average Joe Blow (not that CACollo is ) asking me, what should they should do? I figured the easy solution is Tires or Traction bars. Can the average person get that yes! Can the average person set up a four link.. pull out the front coils, set there pinion angle correctly... I say no. I mean yeah… you can get all technical about front and rear shock rates, front and rear spring rates, pinion angles, tire pressure and like and yeah even going with a 4 link. and those things all work.. but still with out good tires don’t you think all that it’s pointless as well? again I’m not knocking the education and information part but…. I mean for a cheap pinion snubber and a set traction bars that would run you under 50 bucks. I’m really looking at this way.. again, your average person can’t afford a four link and netiher can I or even a set of slicks to just sit around for months before they take the car out again. Or they may not be as talented to machine something themselves. Or let me put it to you this way… if someone asks I want a better sound system in my car. Well you get two sides… someone saying yeah I put in a Audiovox CD player and 2 6x9. On the other hand someone like Me or Ryan saying that’s not a good system, a good system is Pioneer or Alpine dvd head unit with 2 Kicker 12s with 80 oz magnets running at 1.5 ohms bridged with a Rockford amp crossed over at 50. Now do you guys understand that? Maybe yeah, maybe no. My point would be that both are good both are better then stock. But really how many people have that kind of money or talent to do something like that? So to the average person out there just to have a CD player and two 6x9s would see that as awesome! They would be happy with what they have until they can step up to the next step. Just like what I did next… I got some better traction bars and am in the process “the next step” of looking into rear shocks and pinion angles. so… wanna get better traction? there are many ways but what way can you afford and are you technically inclined to extend to? My .00001 cents. so sue me for the .00001 cents
All it takes is money. How fa$t do you want to go? CaCollo. A good set of slapper bars should be fine for the time being. By the way, since the design is so simple, the cheapest ones work just as well as the most expensive. (just talking about under the spring slappers Cal trac guys!) My opinion of course.
I got a lot better response on this than i was hoping for, thanks guys. And yes, this is my daily driver, and yes, i'm on a budget I already have a set of slappers, but I was avoiding using them for two reasons before: #1) Someone said a long time ago on here that they didn't do anything except at the track and #2) i've heard about them bending leaf springs as well. So here's what i'm thinking. I'm taking a welding class this semester, and i have the next three weeks for "projects", and access to oxy, mig, tig, stick rod, and plasma cutters. I'm thinking i'll go pick up some scrap metal and make some slapper bars that are the correct length (and slap on the front eyelet, right?). I can use the slappers laying around in my garage as a reference. I'll use the money i save on a more expensive setup to put towards some stickier tires, once i burn these up. Sound good? Thanks again! P.S....don't ask me "how fast i want to go" because we all know the answer to that LOL
I agree with MaverickMan in that I think you would be fine with a well setup "low buck" system. Take some time when making your traction bars and make the snubber (part that "slaps" the leaf spring) adjustable so you can make adjustments. I you are worried about the springs wrapping up you need to clamp the front half of the spring, leave the back half unclamped. There are several different companies that make leaf spring clamps or you can make your own. Clamping the front half of the spring will help keep it from warping or what most refer to as "wrapping up". Also, for shocks the summit adjustables are the same thing as the competition engineering adjustables so go with the summit shocks.......the next step up would be the adjustable Rancho's and then the Qa1's, then the Afco's and the list goes on....
