View Full Version : Possible wheel hop


mkpatrick
Sep 8th, 06, 09:38 AM
I tested out my car at a friend's place of business. They have a closed off parking lot and he let me come there after hours and put the throttle on to test launch capability.
Well it did hook better but in the video tape, you can hear the tires making an ack, ack, ack sound. Like wheel hop.
What is missing is, that in the tape, you don't SEE the axle hopping and I didn't feel anything either.
I run Lakewood traction bars with the snubber about an inch away from the leaf spring.
You can see the spring wrap up action when I hit the throttle. The rear end kind of moves up a tiny bit and the tires haze for about 50' and then I'm off the throttle.
If I have traction bars setup like that, what else can cause wheel hop?
Could it be the tires?

68rs406
Sep 8th, 06, 11:03 AM
With what you have now as far as traction aids, you may be ok on a sticky track, or it may be much worse, the problem is tuning on a paved or untreated concrete surface is a whole different world than a track, you'll never hook near as well. What you hear is wheel hop for sure, it may be the fact the snubber needs to be closer, and likely the snubber is not up at the spring eye, but hitting mid spring, making it worse.
On a sticky surface, the tires may bite hard enough to keep the bars loaded and it won't hop, or, it will bite harder and still unload and bite again (wheel hop), just more violently because of the track surface.
It could be from a couple of things, with a traction bar you want the snubber closer than an inch (usually), and it really should contact under the spring eye, not back on the spring, that is real hard on the spring, and also can contribute to hop. The other thing is tires, while a well set up traction bar will virtually eliminate hop, the tires can still make it happen a little, from just pure lack of traction, but even a set of hard radial tires and a traction bar set up, and a bit of throttle control, you should be able to plant the tires pretty well.

mkpatrick
Sep 8th, 06, 04:55 PM
These are Lakewood traction bars. I have the snubber as far forward as possible, using the furthest forward notch. The snubber is still about 4 inches from the spring eye.
The snubbers used to be hard against the spring and located at the rear most notch, putting them further back away from the spring eye. The snubbers were against the spring so hard that they had cracked.
I guess that would be called pre-loading?
Anyway, I put wedges at the axle housing between the traction bar and housing and that got those snubbers (new snubbers) off of the spring. One is about an inch away and the other one is about a 1/2 inch away. I don't know why, it just sat like that.
Could I use a taller snubber? Is there such a thing? I just don't think I should pre-load the suspension. When it was pre-loaded before it was just a constant smoke show. No traction at all.

Rich67
Sep 10th, 06, 02:44 AM
Before you put the wedges in did you trim the snubbers to get some clearance that way? It sounds to me like if you removed the wedges you should be able to trim the snubbers down and get a 1/4 to 1/2 inch clearance. That is what I did on my 67. I have those same Lakewood bars, but instead of triming the snubbers that came with them I used polyurathane ones made by Energy Suspensions. They are very low profile, less than half the height of the rubber ones that came with the bars. I bought them at the Schucks on HWY 99 near 512 and I-5.