Just got the issue ( thanks, Gary ).

It seems that the rear bar was an asset in the article about the Hotchkis offerings.

Carl - what did you go from/to? Do you think a rear bar is now a recommended improvement?

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Rick Dorion
69 RS Conv,355,Autogear M22,4.10's and I don't worry about stone chips ( yet ).

Yeah, Carl. Come clean for us! Looks like a relatively trick bar. One reason I am interested is that I actually have big block springs on my car. I STILL don't have it dialed in yet, but I am wondering if the car will push hard due to the fact that I have a small block.

You know, I have to figure out how to get with Carl's gig. A few weeks back it was wheels and tires, this time it's the suspension. I could realy use a set of brakes for my car, Wilwood has this cool new 13"/six piston brake setup.......

Mark

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69 SS, ZZ430 Look-alike, Tremec TKO, Hotchkis Suspension

And the answer is........... There's no concrete answer for my car yet.

The Hotchkis team designed the bars to work with their springs. The fronts are in the 600-650 #/in range. The rears, if memory serves, are 175 #/in at ride height but stiffen quickly as the last leaf comes into play.

There were no changes in the car from the first test (1" solid bar in front, no rear bar) to the second except for the installation of the Hotchkis bars. Even the front end alignment, which needed to be be fixed, was left alone.

As a baseline we used the tire/rim combo that produced the best slalom time. You can find this article in the Summer 2002 Camaro Performers. This combo used the 1" solid/no rear bar setup. The 18"/20" rim-tire combo was the fastest.

Using this same rim/tire combo with the new bars actually produced slower slalom times. Using my 16" BFG Comp T/A's the times got much better, so much so that the car produced the fastest times yet. We ran out of time to try running the car on the course without the rear bar.

One thing to remember about the Hotchkis rear bar is that the effective rate is low. Notice how far inboard the bar mounts to the differential housing. The farther inboard the bar is mounted, the less the effective rate. It's really only a fine-tuning device.

In the end, there's a few things I learned:

1) The car gets twitchy with low profile tires, and the rear bar makes it worse. The suspension geometry does not work well for low-profile tires.

2) The car needs -1* camber for street use, and another -1/2* for track.

3) With the Hotchkis bars and my 16" BFG Comp T/A's the car is at it's best (so far). It's a gas to drive.

4) The most important factor in all of this is the driver. Mark Hotchkis makes driving the slalom course easy, but it's tough! He can make a Yugo go fast through the course.

Hope this helps.



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The Red Beast http://www.geocities.com/casanoc

Great info. Soooo, are you going to leave them in and, if so, what's your next upgrade?

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Rick Dorion
69 RS Conv,355,Autogear M22,4.10's and I don't worry about stone chips ( yet ).

For now they stay in. Right now the car is too much fun to drive and there are too many good weather driving days left before the rain comes.

The best improvement I can do for the car is to take some driving lessons. Having David Pozzi in the passenger seat was a great help but he might not want to take that risk again!

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The Red Beast http://www.geocities.com/casanoc

Carl,
I agree you are ready for some driving school time.
I wish the track day had a beginners class to help out the new guys.
Having more experienced guys circulating at higher speeds was of help in that you guys would pick up "the line" by following them for a while.
That course is very twisty with corners that can fool an inexperienced driver. It is a lot harder than Laguna Seca, or Sears Pt.
It really felt like an autocross course to me. The types of corners used are very common in autocross.

It would be good to take in some autocross events and see if you can get into some autocross schools next spring. They usually have some then for the new guys.
Most likely Cal-Club Region of the SCCA has a monthly publication of events and there is the North American Pylon. http://www.napylon.com
http://www.calclub.com/

I posted a driving info page on my site. I contributed to some of the article there. It was on the Compuserve Auto Forum.
David

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Check my web page for First Gen Camaro suspension info:
David's Motorsports page (http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/David_Pozzi/)
First Gen Suspension Page (http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/David_Pozzi/first_gen_suspension.htm)
67 RS 327 original owner. 69 Camaro Vintage Racer, 65 Lola T-70 Chev SB Can-Am Vintage Racer

[This message has been edited by davidpozzi (edited 09-23-2002).]

[This message has been edited by davidpozzi (edited 09-23-2002).]