Just as the title say's

What kind of suspension are your running

Coilovers?Shock/spring?Traction bars?etc.

I'm looking at megan racing streets, but i hear there not good for drag use? Whats something better to run?

Any stiff spring/strut/coilover system isn't going to be suitable for the strip. You want the ***-end to squat for the weight transfer... Find video's of Ivan's 9sec car, watch the ***-end of his car, it almost scrapes the ground. If you plan to just drag your car, get a good stock replacement or even keep the stock suspension and add lowering springs... I have stock suspension on mine and I'll tell you my car squats like crazy at the track. Only problem with too much squat is the negative camber that's created. When you squat significantly you're losing tread contact on the surface, so running adj. RUCA's would help reduce the increased negative camber... Hope this helps.

i just ordered HKS drag coilovers, but i would also like to know what everyone else is running as far as traction bars, toe bars, control arms and subframe bushings. Ill be making those purchases later this winter and need to know what works best. also what are you guys running for alignment angles?

I would like to know how many of you guys remove the swaybar when you go to the strip ?? One guy who has an LS powered s14 in Maryland said you have to remove it ..... But I just don't see the real purpuse of it. Can any one explain........

I know alot of my Mustang, Camaro,muscle car people almost always remove there front sway bar.....i'm assuming weight?

best bang for the buck is tein lowering springs and stock struts. I have tested both coilover and lowering springs. The coilovers work, but only the full drags do and it takes alot of time setting them up properly. first you gotta go to the alignment shop and set everything up pretty = as a base set. Then you gotta go make some runs at the track and take video of how it launches and reacts. then watch the tape in slow motion to see wat needs adjusted and keep doing that process until its perfect. takes alot of time patience and money.I ran my best times and best 60' on a modified set of tein lowering springs. fronts stayed tein original and the rear I cut 1/2 round out to lower the center of gravity to get better weight transfer. When i had about 320-340whp it would do 1.6 60's all night and handle like a dream as long as i kept the tire pressure above 10psi. 8psi it was a little shaky up top.as for the front swaybar. It doesnt make that big of difference. Unless ur a full drag car dont bother. as a street car you want a sway bar.

rb25drag wrote:best bang for the buck is tein lowering springs and stock struts. I have tested both coilover and lowering springs. The coilovers work, but only the full drags do and it takes alot of time setting them up properly. first you gotta go to the alignment shop and set everything up pretty = as a base set. Then you gotta go make some runs at the track and take video of how it launches and reacts. then watch the tape in slow motion to see wat needs adjusted and keep doing that process until its perfect. takes alot of time patience and money.I ran my best times and best 60' on a modified set of tein lowering springs. fronts stayed tein original and the rear I cut 1/2 round out to lower the center of gravity to get better weight transfer. When i had about 320-340whp it would do 1.6 60's all night and handle like a dream as long as i kept the tire pressure above 10psi. 8psi it was a little shaky up top.as for the front swaybar. It doesnt make that big of difference. Unless ur a full drag car dont bother. as a street car you want a sway bar.

are the spring rates all the same on the tein lowering springs? or did you get a specific set? by cutting out a 1/2 round, do you mean you cut out a 1/2 loop from the spring? thanks a lot for the help

The ones I bought were just a standard set of teins lowering springs.Its been over 4yrs ago since I bought this set so they may of changed them by now. But yes I cut 1/2 loop out of the rear springs only.

180sex_ wrote:are the spring rates all the same on the tein lowering springs? or did you get a specific set? by cutting out a 1/2 round, do you mean you cut out a 1/2 loop from the spring? thanks a lot for the help

Did you buy the H tech (goldish finish) or S tech (green finish)?

green s tech

I might have to give your combo a try this summer, and ditch my megans.

as a drag setup its a sweet setup. It wont handle on the street like a coilover. But it will put the power to the rear wheels for sure.

Well that was my old goal, but granted I get this engine right for the summer, lag will prevent my car from considering road racing.. boost will come on very violently most likely and late in the rpm band.

I'm switching to a 275/40/17 ET street for daily use, so I might as well soften my suspension so I can aid the hooking.

I never cut better than a 1.81 60ft on my megans with BFG DR's. I just felt like there was no were near enough weight transfer and it was very frustrating for me at the 1/4 mile.

Thats the best 60' ur gooing to cut on the megans. Thats about all I could ever get out of them. I always spun to about the 300ft mark. So I thought well maybe I can soften the rear and run the megans up front. That got me to a 1.7 60' I went back and looked at the video. The rear would squat but as soon as the front end came up about 2 inches bam instant spin b/c thatt was the coilovers max flex. So I went back to the tein setup and Now I got about 6-8 inches of travel and the rear squats like no ones business. With the power im gonna put down this yr 500-650rwhp (according to how I wanna tune it when time comes)I expect a 1.3-1.4 60' out of it.

I considered your second option, but seeing as you tried it without much luck I'll pass on that.

Curious to see how your rear end/half shafts hold up. You planning to run axles, or just swap out to a q45 diff? I've got the r33 rear pumpkin and half shafts... I'll see how they last with a 67mm @ 18psi...

well I know im going to kill the stock axles again. So here shortly im going to call a place in Ga and get a rb20 skyline rear end with 4.36 gears. There is a guy on here sr20 that leaves @ 7k on wrinkle wall slicks and has never broke it. so for 300$ Ill give it a try. He said it was a direct bolt in setup.I plan on leaving around 5500 on et streets. So will see how it holds up to about 500tq

Basically the same diff I have, just mines a 4.09 rear end gear. Bolts right up, just swap the rear diff covers.

Good to know someones abusing it and its holding fine.

from what this guy says you dont even have to swap the covers.When i get it first thing im doing is welding it to full posi!! I will never run anything different in the 240's. I run more 1/8th mile races that 1/4 so the 4.36 gear will be a better choice for me as long as I can slam the gears.

On my last 240 I ran solid subframe collars, stock struts/shocks and some drop zone 2" lowering springs. With a 28X11.5X15 ET street it was good for 1.45-1.5 60's. Was launching with anti lag set to 5500rpms

jr_ss wrote:Any stiff spring/strut/coilover system isn't going to be suitable for the strip. You want the ***-end to squat for the weight transfer... Find video's of Ivan's 9sec car, watch the ***-end of his car, it almost scrapes the ground. If you plan to just drag your car, get a good stock replacement or even keep the stock suspension and add lowering springs... I have stock suspension on mine and I'll tell you my car squats like crazy at the track. Only problem with too much squat is the negative camber that's created. When you squat significantly you're losing tread contact on the surface, so running adj. RUCA's would help reduce the increased negative camber... Hope this helps.

Actually for drag racing you do not want the car to squat, that is wasted energy being absorbed. On an F-body car and on a friends 9 sec N/A mustang (both being manuals) we have always used 12-way adjustable rear shocks, usually setting them from 8-10. This allows the suspension to absorb some of the shock instead of directly shocking the tires and spinning them. We usually run the 12-ways up front at a more softer setting around 1-3. This allows for the weight transfer from the front nose to over the rear tires. The key to getting a car to hook and go is to have the suspension pushing the tires to the ground. If a car is squating, the suspension will not do this. If your car is squating, then you are losing valueable 60' time. This is because, the rear of the car has too much time to move down before the car is launching foward at its full capability.

This is the mustang with the shocks set correctly. This is an N/A pass. 1.41 60'http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...lated You will notice that yes, the back of the car does come down, but it is not squating. This is due to the rear shocks being set fairly stiff. This is a 430RWHP N/A and we have the car wieght at around 2850 with a 200lbs driver.

Here is another N/A pass with a 1.43 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...annel

Here is a video from behind, same night but on a 100 shot. Again, the rear does not squat over the tires, instead it loads the suspension up and forces the tires into the ground. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v..._page

Now in this video, the motor was pilled for a 150 shot. As you will see in this video, the front suspension is now to stiff, allowing the front tires to be hung higher and bounce way too much on the rebound side. Too correct this problem, the front shocks need to be set a bit softer and front end limiters need to be run so the front end stays closer to the ground. On the third pass the car was still capable of breaking into the 9'shttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v...annel

Now I completely under stand... 2 completely different chassis, but the same basic rule apply's. going with a suspension set-up that allows you to adjust the ride hieght and pressure on both the front and rear will be the best atarting point. We typically set the front a little lower then the rear for a better wieght transfer, but not too much lower that it over throws the wieght and then shifts the wieght back foward after the initial bite of the tires. For this same reason, you do not want to set the front shocks to soft either. Getting your suspension set just right will take many passes on the strip. Your 60' time will have a drastic effect on your E.T. We record each launch on video to see exactly what the car is doing on the initial bite Here is what we do.

1. set your tire pressure. (we run 10-12psi on slicks, anything lower you will experience what we call a swim, it basically feels like the car of the car is going to kick out from underneath you, not a good feeling at all when your going 120+, 18-22psi on drag radials, anything to low will ruin the sidewall of the radial and not properly work. These tires are not meant for much wrinkle)

2. we set a launch rpm that allows us to launch the car as high into the power curve as possible to propel the car foward as possible. If the car squats over the tire too much, we will set the rear shocks a step stiffer. If the tires spin and the car does not squat at all, we will set the front shocks one step softer (if on the next launch this happens again, we will lower the launch RPM). If the car bogs we will raise the launch RPM (we will continue to raise the launch rpm if the car bogs until we are at the point that we cant raise it anymore due to power curve. You have to be smart enough to know what the motor and clutch can handle and not over due it). If the car still bogs at that point, we will raise the tire pressure, 1psi at a time. If we get to a point were it spins at one and bogs at the other.... start going inbetween. There is so many different varibles such as your ride hieght, your tire type, tire pressure, launch rpm, shock pressure, and ofcourse track prep.

3. We will number each pass on the video. On the time slip we will run the same number and list tire, pressure, launch rpm, shock settings and we will write exactly what the car did. This way we can go back and figure out what needs to happen.

Hope this information can be found useful to someone. Also, for those using slicks and manuals, alot of people are starting to run a stiffer sidewall slick offered by M/T that is suppose to work great with launching on the manual tranny. Haven't had my expierence with them as of yet though.

Modified by Chris Gage at 12:35 PM 1/28/2009
Modified by Chris Gage at 12:51 PM 1/28/2009

Flicktitty wrote:I know alot of my Mustang, Camaro,muscle car people almost always remove there front sway bar.....i'm assuming weight?

Yes, this is to pull wieght off the front end. The best wieght reduction for a drag set-up will be the wheel/tire set-up. 1# of rotating mass can equal to 8# of stationary mass. The less your wheel/tire set-up wieghs, the less power you will lose to move these parts. Also, the closer the wieght is to the center, the easier it is to move. A popular set-up for the domestic cars is a 15x10 rear drag wheel and a 15x3.5 front runner. The Moroso D-2 front runner is one of the most common used and a Hoosier or M/T slick in either a 26x10 or a 28x10 (depending on power made) is usually used.

A real good company for drag wheels is Bogart. They have one of the lightest and most durable pieces and they custom make your wheel to your application to garuntee fitment. They are also one of the nicest looking wheels on the market but they are a bit pricey. Ofcourse if your gonna to spend money on lighting up the car, this is probally one of the best investments that can be made for track purpose.

What type of shocks and springs are you running on these stangs?

Shocker wrote:What type of shocks and springs are you running on these stangs?

Either Qa1 single adjustable's or AFCO double's. Afco's are just a bit better but cost more the the QAI double adj.... both work very well. As far as a spring to match, that would all depend on the wieght on the car and how much power it is making. On the stand in the video... I believe it was a 200# springs up front and a v-6 spring in the rear. It is getting swapped to a 175# spring up front and keeping the v-6 spring in the back after the motor comes back in a couple of months.

The car will be shooting for a T-5 record, should be in the 8's. At this stage, the suspension is much more crucial then if it were a 11-12 second car. Hopefully soon I can play with the s14 suspension and chassis (given I can ever find a roller at a good deal. I am wanting to pull the ls1/t56 out of my Camaro and save that for a LS3/TH400 drag build.)

Chris, Yes and No. The setup on the stang is correct. But Is no were close to working on the 240's. Why? B/c the independent rear will not function like the stangs solid axle setup.Like I stated before they sell full race coilovers for our cars Which if your making 600+hp and have 2k to drop on the setup and the patience to take time and set it up correct it will allow the car to launch similar.But for 600$ you can throw on a brand new set of struts and lowering springs on our cars and make the car launch just as good.Most of the cars on here are all street cars also. So there not going to be making over 500hp for the most part with the exception of a few.Im personally going to go 9's this year on my setup with some Dr's.

rb25drag wrote:Chris, Yes and No. The setup on the stang is correct. But Is no were close to working on the 240's. Why? B/c the independent rear will not function like the stangs solid axle setup.Like I stated before they sell full race coilovers for our cars Which if your making 600+hp and have 2k to drop on the setup and the patience to take time and set it up correct it will allow the car to launch similar.But for 600$ you can throw on a brand new set of struts and lowering springs on our cars and make the car launch just as good.Most of the cars on here are all street cars also. So there not going to be making over 500hp for the most part with the exception of a few.Im personally going to go 9's this year on my setup with some Dr's.

Acutally same rule apply's to the stangs that have IRS.... but I am sure that you know way more about the 240 suspension then I do. So what parts would be needed to do a live axle swap in a 240?

Also, ones definition of a street car is way different then another, We have 8 sec street cars rolling around on random days.... you can easily find yourself a 9-10 sec. street car on a daily basis, it just makes for more fun though.

Chris Gage wrote:Acutally same rule apply's to the stangs that have IRS.... but I am sure that you know way more about the 240 suspension then I do. So what parts would be needed to do a live axle swap in a 240? Also, ones definition of a street car is way different then another, We have 8 sec street cars rolling around on random days.... you can easily find yourself a 9-10 sec. street car on a daily basis, it just makes for more fun though.

Well alot of the difference is the amout of tq ours makes with the 4cyl and 6cyl motors. There not as tq'y as thoose v8' which dont shock the rear end as much as you guys. Also our cars are not balanced to well so we gotta get the rear to squat a little in order to get that weight to transfer. Other wise we will just spin.I only know what I have tested and I tested alot of stuff last year.But im sure someone eelse has found a good combo also.It also has alot to do with drivers. I have seen most Nissan guys drag race and it usually consists of holding it to the rev limiter and dropping the clutch on street tires. Which you and I both know what that does.A good combo with a good driver can always make a good 60'

Ok, so obviously I have quite a bit more research to do, starting all over from scratch is not easy at all, after spending years researching f-body's and stangs. What I am wanting to do is find a cheap s14 without a motor, tranny, shot suspension, straight body, full harness, and decent interior. I already have a LS1/T56 for a project, but the first thing I want to do is get a suspension built and ready for my power and MPH goal. I currently have a LS1 that has 440bhp. Now as far as the rear go fo rthe s14, I am lacking about of knowledge. I know I want a solid live axle and a decent adjustable suspension capable of cutting 1.4's and 1.5's.

Are there currently any good drag suspension write-ups on this site as of yet?

Well Honestly I dont have a clue what is needed to swap in a solid axle rear end in. But it could not be hard due to our cars having an entire sub frame that will drop out of the rear.

If you put a solid axle in it then the rules may apply as for setting it up. But You can setup the Independent rear to hold Alot of power and actually hook a 1.4-1.5 60ft fairly easy and cheap. But if your looking for the 1.2-1.3 range your gonna need some time and $$ to do it.

rb25drag wrote:Well Honestly I dont have a clue what is needed to swap in a solid axle rear end in. But it could not be hard due to our cars having an entire sub frame that will drop out of the rear.

If you put a solid axle in it then the rules may apply as for setting it up. But You can setup the Independent rear to hold Alot of power and actually hook a 1.4-1.5 60ft fairly easy and cheap. But if your looking for the 1.2-1.3 range your gonna need some time and $$ to do it.

I am the type to dump the money into the suspension before the motor, so money into the suspension is not an issue, and as far as the time... I am well aware of how many launches and trips to the track to get it dialed-in depending on the weather and track prep.... all info if greatly appreciated and it appears to me that you are just the one to gather this info from. Thank-you for your help.

No problem man. If I can help I will.I tested suspension all last year. i tried most all combo's on the Irs Stock r200 .408 gears with stock axles. Best combo I found was the Tein lowering spring combo and that was on Crappy Bfg drag radials I turned multiple 1.6's Which was about all my motor would put out. I was also spinning the tires about 50ft out.I think suspension isnt a huge deal on these cars as long as you have a good combo as for driver.I pretty sure I can go 1.4's on my suspension setup and I spent about 600$ on the setup.Another big deal that most guys do is they run a vlsd. Which imo sucks. I run a full welded posi.I know my rear end will not hold up to a 1.4 launch but Ill be switching to a skyline diff here soon.