Do drag racers do g force training9/27/2023 ![]() You can see this pre-load when the car is electronically scaled.īickel goes on to say: “Nearly all drag race cars must have at least some initial chassis pre-load in order to make the car run straight. This is because of the unbalancing traction effects of chassis roll and rear-end torque rotation. Lower horsepower cars tend to require right rear pre-load and high horsepower cars require left pre-load. When one rear wheel is pre-loaded, the opposite front corner of the car will also have a weight bias.” “Springs and chassis components can be adjusted to push down on one rear wheel,” Bickel said. Corner-Weight Distributionīickel points out that corner-weight distribution refers to the amount of weight carried by diagonally opposed pairs of wheels. That’s why many well-built drag cars actually have a place to mount ballast on the right door brace or “X” on the roll cage. To offset the driver weight, you can add or move ballast. However, when you place a driver - particularly a big-boned one - into the left front seat, then the left-side weight bias of the car will change significantly. From a bare-bones perspective, it usually means there isn’t much difference in the side-to-side weight distribution when the car is placed on a set of scales. Of course, when building a new drag car, the same applies as you tend to center the heavy bits. With any rear-wheel drive car, the heaviest pieces are situated on or near the centerline of the chassis. If the wheelie bars unload the slicks, then the car will spin. ![]() If there’s too much weight on the back-end (for example, the car hits the wheelie bars hard), the car will be prone to wheelies. It won’t transfer weight if it’s turning the tires. If there is too much weight on the nose, then traction suffers. The catch here is there must be enough hook for the car to get moving and transfer the weight. When a car leaves the starting line, acceleration forces create load transfer from the front to the rear. This puts more load on the back tires and simultaneously increases traction. Even purpose-built cars, like a contemporary Pro Stocker, have more weight on the front-end than the back. Because it’s located at the front, the vast majority of door cars have a weight bias that favors the nose. The engine is typically the heaviest piece in any door car. It influences traction, handling, and performance. Chassis builder Jerry Bickel says weight distribution is at least as important as total vehicle weight. ![]() Weight distribution is extremely important, and mostly misunderstood. But even if you can’t take pounds out of the car, it’s a really good idea to think carefully about how weight is distributed. All things being equal, a lightweight race car will always be quicker and faster than a heavy one.
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