Has anyone went to the drags with the PT style rear suspension set ups?

[jst8a5.0]

I like the idea of the torque arm or the 3 link but i was wondering if anyone took off the autox wheels and tires and bolted some slicks on and really tried to hook with any pt setup or know someone who has. I would rather have a car that handles and drives great vs a drag car. I do however want to trap in the mid to high 140s.

[Ron in SoCal]

Remember the project - not sure what the status is - called Unfair. The premise was build a capapble PT car, AutoX and roadrace and with a wheel/tire, shock adjustment and link bar removal you could go drag race. They used an Art Morrison frame with a combo 3 and 4 bar arrangment, IIRC.

They got razzed pretty good for the name tho.

[XLexusTech]

Originally Posted by Ron in SoCal

They got razzed pretty good for the name tho.

Not to mention the Wheelbarrow firewall mod

[hp2]

Originally Posted by jst8a5.0

I like the idea of the torque arm or the 3 link but i was wondering if anyone took off the autox wheels and tires and bolted some slicks on and really tried to hook with any pt setup or know someone who has. I would rather have a car that handles and drives great vs a drag car. I do however want to trap in the mid to high 140s.

That's what I was getting at a post back. I had a car built for handling with high rate springs, big sway bars, appropriate shocks, and at the time, 40 series tires. Car ran 13.2 pretty consistently. Swapping to the equivilent of a 60 series drag slick dropped it to the high 12s to 13 flat.

Sometime later, I took the engine/trans out of that car, swapped it into a purpose built drag car and ran low 12s. This car had very high rate rear suspension, a very loose front suspension, no sway bars, 90/10 shock up front, etc. Typical drag type set up.

Now, since this was back in the early 90s, it was a leaf spring car using an oem style front suspension, in both cases. No 3 or 4 link set ups or torque arms or anything else with a decent amount of adjustability. I did have a smal range of adjustment in the leaf mounting system, angled shims, and the typical amount of front end adjustment. Could you go farther with a more modern, link style set up, maybe. One difference I did notice in the e.t.s is teh drag car would vary 3-4 tenths whereas the handling set up would only vary a few hundreths.

It depends on how much tweaking you want to do to the car. IMO, if you spend too much time changing the set up and altering or removing/adding items, it takes away from the fun. A rim and tire swap is no big deal. Altering all your instant centers and re-calibrating shocks is a pain to do on both ends of a drag strip visit comapred to just driving up, unloading and running. I'll gladly give up elapsed time to the ultimate e.t. chase to have more fun.