Duster front ride height

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Scottrico

Scottrico

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Joined
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Elk Grove Village, Il
I am getting ready to order a drive shaft and want to set the front ride height/rake angle for occasional drag racing before I check the drive line angles. I am running Mickey Thompson Street radials P255 R60/15 in the rear with Mancini Racing Springs and Caltracs. On the mostly stock front with PST 1.03 torsion bar suspension I am running Goodyear P235 R60/15. My Question is, should I set the front end height to factory specs which is a height difference of 1 7/8" or should I raise the front a bit to get some more weight in the back? Currently it does look a bit higher in the rear because of the tire size difference and the heavy duty rear springs. This car was originally a slant 6 but I now have a 383 B block and A 833 4 speed trans with a Strange 60 rear end.
 
Scottrico said:
I am getting ready to order a drive shaft and want to set the front ride height/rake angle for occasional drag racing before I check the drive line angles. I am running Mickey Thompson Street radials P255 R60/15 in the rear with Mancini Racing Springs and Caltracs. On the mostly stock front with PST 1.03 torsion bar suspension I am running Goodyear P235 R60/15. My Question is, should I set the front end height to factory specs which is a height difference of 1 7/8" or should I raise the front a bit to get some more weight in the back? Currently it does look a bit higher in the rear because of the tire size difference and the heavy duty rear springs. This car was originally a slant 6 but I now have a 383 B block and A 833 4 speed trans with a Strange 60 rear end.
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All I can say is the obvious, try it and see what's best. That's probably not the best help but it's how I operate by giving stuff a try and I'll be following to see the real advice.
 
I like mine low however I would suggest setting it to have about 5” off up travel.

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My 70 duster has to have it right down on the bump stops to get 5" of travel. That wouldn't be too nice on the street.
 
Tire height and front ride height will not affect your driveline angles. Those angles are fixed; determned by your engine/transmission mounting, and the spring perches in the rear. The only way to change your angles (within reason) is by using angle shims between the perches and the spring (or by radically altering your static rear height, but you have that established)- which tilts the pinion one way or the other. The angle is the relationship between the output shaft of your transmission and the pinion (input) of your rear end, not either's relationship to the ground- which is what you're doing by changing the front ride height. Front ride height can affect your launch, and you can play around with that; but it is not going to affect your driveline angles to any measurable degree. So go ahead and measure & order your driveshaft.
Your front ride height you'll just have to experiment with to see what ultimately works best for you, but I suspect those 235 60 15s are going to need a bunch of clearance in front, they're going to be really tight and you may have some clearance issues to deal with, especially if you want to keep it low to get max travel.
 
Thanks for all of your replies. The front tires are probably too wide, but is a long story how I ended up with them. I completely understand the process of measuring drive line angles except that I was under the impression that raising the front would put more weight on the rear and as the axle goes up toward the body because of the increased weight, that may cause the drive shaft working angle to change and for the length to vary (need to be a bit shorter). As someone mentioned it would not change the pinion angle or the transmission output shaft angle.
Am I overthinking it? I just wanted some more opinions on the subject.
 
Scottrico said:
Thanks for all of your replies. The front tires are probably too wide, but is a long story how I ended up with them. I completely understand the process of measuring drive line angles except that I was under the impression that raising the front would put more weight on the rear and as the axle goes up toward the body because of the increased weight, that may cause the drive shaft working angle to change and for the length to vary (need to be a bit shorter). As someone mentioned it would not change the pinion angle or the transmission output shaft angle.
Am I overthinking it? I just wanted some more opinions on the subject.
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Overthinking it :).... going from a full tank to empty tank will change it more. It is a minor effect.
 
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