Torsion bars for better handling; your experience?
on my duster which is bb and t56, I have 1" bars, hellwig tube sway bar, moog offset upper bushings, reinforced upper shock mounts, stiffner plates on the lower control arms, expo 6 leaf with delrin front eye bushings, hotchkis Fox shocks. Cordoba front brakes and explorer disc 8.8 rear. 17s. I used to have the kyb shocks, I noticed a difference, but not a big enough difference to justify those shocks as an upgrade, for the cost. I also have problem with the upper shock bushing on the hotchkis shocks, the bushings shear off i wind up finding what looks like a calamari ring somewhere in the engine compartment and what's left of the bushing will fit inside the hole. I've been told that is common with that style upper shock mount. I also wonder if brand of tb has any effect, this car handles great but rides stiff. It honestly gets old sometimes. If coarse we don't have the nicest roads here in nj.
Ride quality is subjective, but if you have a big block, only 1" bars and Hotchkis shocks you shouldn't have a stiff ride. I'm guessing your car is lowered too far for the 1" torsion bars and you're bottoming the suspension out. Hotchkis shocks vs KYB's are a night and day kind of difference, I've done it. Unless you're bottoming the suspension, in which case it will still be a harsh ride because you're slamming parts together.
When I had 1" bars in my small block Duster I couldn't lower it that much to keep it from bottoming out and the ride was still pretty soft. Which is why I went up to 1.12" bars.
when I grew up (60s), we called them go-carts, not Karts....my bad on that one.
What I mean by suspension is torsion bars / coil overs / shocks. I realize (more modern) Karts have camber / caster adjustment just like our cars do. Most have track width and wheelbase adjustments too. But rarely, if ever (???) have I came across a Kart with torsion bars or coil-overs....NEVER in my day (60s). A move up to a Quarter Midget is when I see any kind of suspension. IMO, the SIMPLE fact that they (the Kart) run on a fairly smooth (no big bumps) track , are inches from the ground, have wide low profile tires, virtually NO body roll (predictable) is why they haul *** when cornering.
My question was...and only a question to those that AutoX ...is why not try to replicate? I asked because I do not Autocross, but never afraid to ask...what if?... or why not? ....to those that do.
sorry...I should have said ...suspension, not shocks. and was only guessing with a soft suspension, it is necessary to control the body roll with a big anti-roll bar.
for Autocross....what are the basics for tuning the shocks? I appreciate your input.
Denny I'm honestly surprised by your questions given your background in designing suspension.
Tuning a car for AutoX isn't really that different from tuning suspension for anything else. The goal is to maintain the contact patch on the ground with the amount of suspension travel you have with your vehicle or the amount of travel you need to create for the terrain. Shocks should be critically damped for ideal performance regardless of what you're doing, road racing or trophy cup offroad. They need to be well matched to the spring rates no matter what type of racing you do.
AutoX courses are usually set up in parking lots, not on race tracks. So the surfaces vary quite a bit, they can actually be pretty rough. And regardless, because they're usually fairly short tracks with slow corners you're usually hard on the gas or hard on the brakes to get the best time, so there's a lot of acceleration and dive. That alone requires suspension travel to maintain traction. I'm no expert AutoX'er, but the tracks I've driven have all been rough enough that a car without suspension travel wouldn't have been ideal to keep your tires planted or the handling consistent. I've been on tracks with my Austin Healey that it was quite a bit too stiff for, it was set up for vintage racing and very soft tires and with street tires on AutoX tracks it was usually well into oversteer mode.
Lowering the cars definitely helps with the CG, and then if you can't modify the suspension points you up the wheel rate to keep the suspension from bottoming out. Based on the class you run the softest tires you can, and that in itself requires a higher wheel rate because you put more force through the suspension.
Then as Mattax said it's just a matter of maximizing your tire contact, which generally means the softest suspension you can get away with. That's relative because with these cars you're talking about 4 or 5" of suspension travel. Even stock that's pretty true. On my car, lowered as it is, I still have a pretty similar travel range to stock because of the way I've shortened and adjusted the bump stops to add travel back into the system.