Last outing I had 53 frt/47 rear weight, was trying to control wheel stands. Since then I have lightened the front end by 130 lbs with an aluminum block and light battery.
The new weights should be 1420 rear, 1470 front, for 51 get ,49 rear.
106 wb, 30 inch ladder bars,Afco big guns for rear shocks, rebuilt Afcos up front. Currently the ladder bars are in lowest hole in front, very stiff extension setting on rear shocks. Fronts were found to be worn out at time of this slow mow video of launch.

Raise the bars. The lower they are the greater leverage on the front end. How may adjustment holes do you have? Do you have front travel limiters?

https://photos.app.goo.gl/sxJiCTXrzBqSxaB3A
A slow mo vid of last pass.

My thinking also on raising the bars. They are in the bottom of four holes. I have front end limiters, and can tie the front end down pretty tight if needed.
I have a basic change to the whole suspension setup in mind, but before posting it, would like to hear from others with more tuning experience. I am running 10.5 x 33 Hoosiers on 14 inch rims.

Raise the bars to a higher hole
Lighten the rear of the car
Tighten front shocks
Move things forward in the car
Less gear in trans (leave in second gear or 2.10 instead of 2.45 first)

Took the words right from my fingertips.

In addition to what has been mentioned. Heavy battery in front of the radiator. Reduce front extension travel. Stiffer shorter front springs. If the front shocks were worn bad you may find that will cure a lot of it. My shocks have to be full stiff on rebound to keep from clicking the 60 ft with the rear tires. They are going to go in for stiffer valving yet. mine is 55% on the nose.
Doug

Have your shocks revalved by one of the many shock guys out there these days. Was the BEST thing we have ever done to the Vette, working with Adam Dryziach and we have a ways to go still. Along with what has been mentioned. Moving things up front as mentioned will help as well as tieing front end down. Also launch RPM can be lowered to keep it from "popping" up, etc etc

Horsepower, gear and ladder bars can be a tough deal to tame.

I wouldn't go crazy raising the bar pivot up. You could try it. You may be able to do it with the Big Gun valving, but if you already have them cranked up, it may be too much hit to control.

Other than that, all the things mentioned, less gear, less RPM, tie the front end down, tighten the shocks (both ends), move weight forward, etc, etc...

The gorilla in the room is the ladder bars. If this thing has the engine in your sig line in it, your going to be struggling with it forever.

My #1 answer is...




You will wish you had done it long ago after the first hit.

Leave the bars where they are and work on the front end travel with stiffer shocks, my car has less weight (56% on the front and 44% on the rear) on the front end with a total weight of 2850 Lbs. with me in the car. Stiffening up the front travel made the car go from 1.28 to 1.24 60 ft times.

FWIW we have ladder bars on the Vette, shock valving will be the key to make it work and go fast and stay down. We used to have the same issues with it especially when we had less power and needed the pitch to make the car work. It also a very short wheelbase car at 95". Moving stuff up front was a big help and we struggled to get it to 56/44 but that was a big deal, along with the shocks the car now laves flat as a Hyundai, ok maybe a bit more aggressive, and can go 1.11 60' with a small block. We have basically zero front end travel now as well. On a really hot greasy track we might go as far as 1/2" of front end travel. But usually there is 0-1/4"

All of you have touched on things I was considering. Since I am so light up front, I am going to limit travel in front to about two inch and the shocks were just rebuilt. Will start very close to full stiff on extension. I have nothing left to lighten or move forward. The trunk is empty😁 I have considered going up one hole with the ladder bars to try and push the nose down at the hit, and limit the rear rise by tightening the shocks.
There is another option. My front ladder bar brackets are 1/4 plate welded to a 2x3 inch X .125 thick cross member, and looks strong enough to handle fourlink bars. The bars would have to be 28 inch long to replace the ladder bars.
I would end up with a 4 link with only a couple usable instant centers. Bars would be ten inch apart in rear, and 3 1/2 inch apart at front, about 44'" I. C. Maybe 6 inch hi. It will cost a bit for the bars, but bolt in!
Thoughts on this?

Al when you reduce the travel on the front as far as you do, do the front shock extension settings make much difference? Greg why can't you locate the battery in front of the radiator?
Doug

[my doodlings concerning the poor man's 4 link
https://photos.app.goo.gl/HXyxYiLYdTMxzDd69

What about doing an Ultralink type set up Greg? Not sure if anyone remembers those?

not sure what that is?

Believe it or not they actually do. I can still make the car want to flip over is the extension is to loose. For instance when we run NMCA NA10.5 they are usually very tight on ext, when we run WCNA they are a fair amount looser. But I believe it is simply a function of the car we run, short wheelbase deal that would prefer to wheelie. The front pickup point on the ladder bar is basically under the drivers crotchal region Now that we have the shocks to control the tire/chassis we are able to control the rotation and not need the pitch. In fact we are still sneaking up on this deal trying to hit our "target" wheelspeed now that we can control it. Before we struggled to control wheelspeed and had t keep it much lower to make the car happy. The wheelie thing really is a matter of controlling the wheelspeed, but it takes some time, tweaking and very good shocks to get there.

there are pics of the Ultra Link in this thread. moparts

Already there. You can see the battery hold down other side of the fuel cell.

Al, thanks for at length descriptions of your tuning. Lots of valuable info there.