Looks cool, I bought the Maier one, soon to be installed...

 

Can I get that link to build your own

 

Yes you can, lefthanderchassis.com carries them, they already come tapped RH/LH on both ends...

 

Fede,
Well done man. Looks great. Looking forward to seeing the installation.

 

Thanks for the comments, I will update with pictures, Im working today on the passenger side bracket, its going to be mounted to the leaf itself...

My tailpipes are coming out for the install, the im redoing them.

 

Nice! I like the fact that you built adjustability into it. I believe most people really have no idea on exactly how a Panhard bar works. My I suggest this book? Has a very good section on it's use. Forget what the reviews say. I think they're just looking for quick answers only.

Amazon.com: Stock Car Setup Secrets HP1401 (9781557884015): Bob Bolles: Books

 

Nice! I like the fact that you built adjustability into it. I believe most people really have no idea on exactly how a Panhard bar works. My I suggest this book? Has a very good section on it's use. Forget what the reviews say. I think they're just looking for quick answers only.

Amazon.com: Stock Car Setup Secrets HP1401 (9781557884015): Bob Bolles: Books

Thanks for the link, and yes theres really no good solid tech out there, I read a little about the roll centers, and how on a leaf spring car you cant have compiting roll centers.

Saw a dart set up on CC's with the bar way below the axel centerline (actually bellow the leaf springs), so Im really curious to experiment the different settings, albeit this one will never see a track, 100% street car.

 

My (limited) understanding is that the binding caused by different roll centers can somewhat act as a sway bar.

Are you building a mount for the other frame rail to tie it all together?

 

Yes im tieing both frame rails together, thats next after the pass side bracket is mounted...

 

I decided to research and clarify what moving the bar/roll center up and down would do since I'm getting close to putting mine in. Thought it may be helpful to add that info here:

Adjusting the panhard up, moves the roll center up, and causes the springs to feel stiffer, giving less body roll, and a greater tendency to oversteer.

Adjusting down, causes springs to feel softer, giving more body roll, and greater tendency to understeer.

I could see where this could take some time to tune depending on tires and such...
I'm running 245's up front and 285's out back, so I'm kinda thinking I should move the bar up a little to balance the car a little... at least as a starting point. i dunno....

 

Keep in mind raising or lowering the bar on the axle is also going to effect how the tire is loaded or unloaded on that side in turns. That book I posted covers that.

 

I installed a Maximum Motorsports Panhard on a '86 TBird TurboCoupe. The car was built up using a Mustang 8.8 rear and a MM coilover front suspension, Vortech blown 331 and a T5 trans. The Panhard allowed much higher cornering speeds, and freeway entrance ramps were a joy to take. They was virtually no body lean, and the car had just a hint of oversteer. The car also had a mostly stock 4 link, which normally has a very high roll center.
There is some thought as to what side of the car to attach the frame end to, with MM favoring one side and others, ie, Griggs, favoring the other side. Something to do with engine torque I think.
Just be sure the Panhard is adjusted perfectly horizontal and normal ride height This will minimize any side to side movement if the rear axle assembly as the springs deflect through their normal range of motion.

 

There is some thought as to what side of the car to attach the frame end to, with MM favoring one side and others, ie, Griggs, favoring the other side. Something to do with engine torque I think.

Thats due to the rotation of the driveshaft, the body mount should be on the driver side to counter the natural twisting of the axle from that force... based on what I've read so far.

There's certainly more to suspension and going fast than I realized the more I dig in to how to set up a car properly.

 

Started on the pass side bracket, its mounted to the leaf spring...

 

Would it have been easier to build a new shock plate and incorporate the panhard bar mount into that? Good work BTW

 

I thought about it, but since its my daily driver, I didnt want to take it apart, this was the next best thing.

Thanks for you comments.

 

I just made a quick calculation, so it's very well possible that I overlooked something.

Also, some of the panhard bars I've seen for circle track cars are very different in design from the ones you'll find on a street or road coarse car. For a car that needs handle predictable to the left, right and straight ahead, you want something that just keeps the axle in place and limit other side effects as much as possible. That means a long bar that's mounted horizontal. Circle track cars that only take left hand corners of a certain radius, they sometimes (or often) use very short ones mounted at an angle. In that case, the vertical forces can be much higher and you can get much bigger benefits, but only for that particular type of turn.

 

Thanks for the great tech, keep posting, more progress done, the pass. side bracket is all reinforced, needs minor triming and clean up, then another round of mock ups before it goes to the coaters...

 

Helmantal, I realized too that some of the calculations you posted were for engine torque. I was thinking lateral loads from a turn was the example in the book, completely different. I'll definitely make a copy and post it.

 

Time for more updates:

Finally finished the pass side bracket, wich is mounted to the leaf spring

Drivers side (frame mount is done also)

Cleaerence between the rod and the back of the diff is about 1/2"

Things pending:

1.- Shorten the rod 3/4"-1 1/2"
2.-Cut out the tailpipes in order to run the brace of the PHB from the drivers side frame rail to the passenger side rail
3.- Fabricate spacers for the rod ends
4.-Powder coat everything
5.-Weld in the assembly
6.-Reroute pipes, as they are right now they will not permit the bar to be parallel to the axel.

Now a question for the experts im swaping in an 8.8 diff, should I worry with the rear of the 8.8 clearence to the PHB????

That would be the only thing that would hold me back on putting the assembly in and welding it...

 

You might want to rethink the leaf spring mount for the panhard bar. The panhard can be subjected to many thousand pounds of force. If the panhard was moved lower or higher the resulting forces would leverage twist on the spring. This will prevent you from having any adjustment of the roll center. This is the first application I have seen leaf spring mounted, admitting very limited experiance here.

 

From CC land... "It clamps to the spring with two 0.5" bolts and two 0.4375" (7/16") bolts. The top portion of the mount is in two parts, one of which doubles as the rear anti-swaybar end link mount on that side (based on the seat of the pants impression at the Jefferson 500 in May the anti-sway is probably coming off though). The photos above (post # 140) show this mount before it was trimmed, drilled, and painted. I did it this way because packaging the PHR on the MOPAR is difficult with the rear shocks and gas tank where they are. "

 

I too had concerns about that. One thing that helps is the clamp is close to the axle mount plate, so it adds a bit more rigidity to the spring. The further away from the axle mount the more flexible/torsion the leaf spring becomes.

 

looks awesome

 

Federico,

Did you ever finish this?

 

Its been sitting in my garage...this coming xmas holiday it will get installed.:thumbsup:

I got a new toy 95 cobra so shame on me the coupe is in the backburner