I recently installed a set of CE ladder bars in my car. Last weekend I made my first passes with this setup. I got the best et, mph and 60' ever so I'm pretty happy. After talking to some guys at the track and doing a bit of research I realized my setup of the bars is far from perfect or good. I got the coilovers and springs adjusted to the proper hieght they had been setup with too much preload in the springs. Then I borrowed a set of car scales and have my car setup on them. So now I have some numbers from them but I'm not sure exactly what to do with this info.

FL:1145# 31.5% FR: 909# 25.1%

RL: 762# 21% RR: 808# 23.3%

Total:3618

These wieghts are the car in race trim with driver in the seat and I'm 200#.

So what I'm asking is what kind of distribution of wieght am I looking for. Completely even on all four tires?

The car is a 1967 Dodge Charger 440 10.3-1 E-heads 4500 converter 4.10 with a 30x9 tire coilover springs are the 150#

Best run was a 11.158 @ 119.953mph 1.539 60'

your car is typical of a lot of Mopar with either stock or race rear suspension. Most of the cars have less weight on the RR than the LR so yours is good did you adjust the LF torsion bar to move weight onto the RR? If not you can and it may move some weight over onto the RF at the same time, maybe not If the car goes straight now as it is I would probally leave it alone

The LF torsion bar is cranked up a bit more than the right. This is just a happy accident though. Car went slightly left but not very much.

So you figure this distribution is in the right ballpark?

I plan to lift the car up about 1/2" on the coilover brackets. When I properly adjusted the springs it came down a little.

I have the extra flimsy drag T-bars in the car so they both have a lot of preload on them to achive the ride hieght. This seemed to work good on the old SS springs but is it nesasary for ladder bars?

What about the bars out of the "black monster"?(318-383)

What diameter are the drag bars?

Not exactly sure they are smaller than /6 bars.

Car went slightly left but not very much.

So you figure this distribution is in the right ballpark?


Your in the ball park.... lower the left T-bar a
little to take some of the pre-load out, that will
keep the car from going left

You should see the car though looks like the front bumpers rubbing the ground...

the front end hieght is with in a 1/4" at rest side to side. Passenger side is a 1/4" higher. I'm going to lift the drivers side another 1/4", then check the ladders bars for preload. I never did check them so that might be the wander at launch, which was very minor.

Well I hit hte track and it ran ok. here is a couple of vids of the launches.



http://members.shaw.ca/Lobux/vids/Launch1.wmv
http://members.shaw.ca/Lobux/vids/launch2.wmv
http://members.shaw.ca/Lobux/vids/launch3.wmv

All of the launches and the rest of the runs look good to me