Damper Settings for Drag racing
Turbo Mini Forums

I know some of you will not be very keen to give out all your found secrets, but you may be willing to share a little info.

Obivously every car is different, but damper settings is something I've not had a chance to experment on the strip.

What settings to you guys use, and what do you change if your having problems getting off the line?

Team Racing

make them all as hard as hell jim

I've fiddled lots with this, and I'm not giving anything away!

yeah, rock hard rears, with hard tyres.

This approach makes sense, as you want to try and stop weight transfer to the rear of the car. Also you want to reduce drag from the rear tyres as much as possible.

The renault 5/rs turbo guys use long steel bars instead of rear shocks so the back is right up

Metro turbo weekend driver,Mini turbo in the making again!

All I know is I use KYB fronts and Spax (on #1 click) at the rear. I Drive to to track, get scrutineered, and race - without any nutting and bolting.

I don't intend to compromise any of that.

I was talking to a mate of mine the other day who regularly runs a front wheel drive Nissan at the Pod.

He has just spent about £800 on some dampers made specially for drag racing.

They are valved to allow rapid bump and slow rebound (or the other way round!) instead of the opposite for normal road dampers. He said something like 80/20 instead of 20/80 - does this mean anything.

The idea being to hold the tyre to the ground but without being too hard to cause axle tramp.

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

buggery balls! there goes one of my efforts this year

Dave,

I am pretty sure they work by having a greater resistance to downward movement of the wheel, hence the energy is forced to push the wheel into the tarmac rather than lifting the body, particularly off the line.

The 70's Pro-Stock Camaros that ran at the Pod in those days had anti-tramp bars on the back axle that forced the wheel down, this also prevented the rear from squatting dow. They also had loose shocks on the front that alllowed maximum weight transfer to the rear of the car.

With a Mini, we need to do the same with the driving end by stopping it from lifting, but not with just hard damper settings.

I think hard settings would be OK at the back.

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

ok then .. we all know jims fishing ..
i had a very intersting chat to one of better known new members a few years ago at the pod and at avon about tyre pressures and damper setting .. bearing in mine i was now runs MC`s old car.. and what he told me was totally against all we had thought was "right" .. i never got round to esting his setting out .. but if he was using those setting , which i believe he was ..i think he improved times speak for them selves ..

Everyone knows that instructions only have to be read if the thing doesn't work....

Ill give you a clue Jimster, its not all about damper settings, but spring rates, corner weights and construction of dampers. Fortunately I got to know the man who makes a certain type of damper and we talked axtensively about this subject
Paul

Edited by paul wiginton on 5th Jan, 2006.

I seriously doubt it!

imho progressive springs on the rear, you want your susp travel to a minimum, fronts i would also have on progressives, but stiffer yet again, travel again to a minimum slight tow in for stability i would use soft compound cut slicks on all 4 corners i would possibly have the back tilted up higher than the front so on launch the car levels out rather than the front lifting. and the front losing traction. hard to explain but i can see it in me head lol i would even explore oil weights in the dampers to compensate rebound (i do this on model cars and when i raced mountain bikes) when you spin the wheels with high rebound, the wheel bounces on the tarmac, if you reduce rebound it cuts this bounce right down and the tyre finds grip quicker. just my opinion tho i am sure peeps will say its bollox.

Edited by Richie on 5th Jan, 2006.

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One day I was thinking about this subject and the answer just hit me. I coulnt believe it at first, the answer is painfully obvious. Within weeks I went to Pod and tried back to back tests on various set ups all in the same day. It was the obvious answer that gave me nearly 3/10 sec. Temp stayed constant throughout that day so i am confident of my findings.
Bet thats got you thinking now, you wont sleep tonight.
That is all Im saying
Paul

I seriously doubt it!

I suggest you keep it to yourself then!

I take it this change was made between Avon 04 and Avon 05?

No I think it was between 03 & 04
Paul

I seriously doubt it!

So what changed in 04/05 then? Just power?

I gained 10 whole Baldwin bananas ( as Giallofly puts it) and lost 10 kg off the car and 11/2 stone off myself.
Paul

I seriously doubt it!

like me jim the few i've done have been just turn up and run and drive home with out changing any thing. to much hard work getting under the car lol.

Best 1/4 mile 13.2 seconds @116 mph
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so you kept off the burgers paul............lol

how about this then, those who havnt already got there wee secrets could start a poll, or a thread where average 60ft is posted, along wiht starting gear, tyres, damper brand and setting, spring brand and setting, rough weight of car, rough power. its alot of varioables, but as people experiment ove rthe course of next year hopefully a pattern will emerge. thing is though if you discover the "secret" and you contributed, you gota spill the beans, otherwise its just not cricket.

turbo 16v k-series 11.9@118.9 :)

Denis O'Brien.

I found some beanz


The Bergenholtz team were the first to devise a way to utilize the wheelie bars as traction bars – to keep the front end of the car (where the drive wheels are) planted for better launches and quicker E.T.s (elapsed times). The invention catapulted the team to the forefront of front wheel drive drag racing and by the next race half of the competitors were equipped with their own versions.


Bit like this I suppose

http://turbomagazine.com/features/0205tur_integra01_zoom.jpg


http://www.turbomagazine.com/features/0205tur_integra/

pneumatically operated so only down for the start then lift up to reduce drag:cool::cool:

Edited by Dangerous on 6th Jan, 2006.

Metro turbo weekend driver,Mini turbo in the making again!

That idea has been around for a long time - basically it's increasing the wheelbase dramatically, so the weight doesn't shift off the front wheels so easilly.

Not ideal for a daily driver! LOL!

Edited by paul wiginton on 6th Jan, 2006.

I seriously doubt it!