What to do to stiffen everything up for drag racing?

[Chadillac2000]

I'm currently building a 1G drag car that will only see the track so i'm in no way looking for comfort here. Just need everything as stiff as possible and to roll as straight as possible. I removed the front and rear subframes last night, currently awaiting a 4 bolt rear end and a manual rack to replace the stock 3 bolt and ps rack that the car came with. So is there anything I can do to stiffen up everything that would improve the car for drag racing purposes? I've heard something about welding the toe adjustment in the back maybe, and also not using bushings in between where the rear subframe connects to the car.

 

[talonracn49]

Its not that you wouldnt use bushings at all, but that you would machine them out of aluminum or nylon instead of rubber -- a lot less moving around.

I wouldnt mess with welding the toe adjustment -- that sounds like a bad idea -- even a drag car will need a good alignment.

 

[talonracn49]

Welding in your roll cage will help to stiffen the chassis substantially.

 

[Chadillac2000]

Yeah, do you know any places that offer these bushings? I got the information about welding the rear toe adjustment from an old post from Taboo but their website seems to be MIA nowadays.

 

[freshlane]

Solid mounts & Adjustable shocks, FR & RR strut tower bars

 

[lenny 15]

I wouldnt mess with welding the toe adjustment -- that sounds like a bad idea -- even a drag car will need a good alignment.

It's not how it sounds. It isn't adjustable, it was designed by Mitsubishi to be like four wheel steering. The harder you turn, or accelerate, the more the rear wheels turn outward. Mitsubishi did this so that if someone who isn't a great driver takes a corner to fast the car won't oversteer, it will understeer. If someone were to go to mitsubishi and say, the car spun out, and I hit a wall because you didn't build a good car, what can they say? Now if someone comes to them and says "I turned the wheels, and the car just understeered and I ran into a wall." Mitsubishi can say, you were going to fast. See why they built it like this now?

I don't have a picture of it, but if you put the car up on jacks by the chassis and not the suspension, you can wedge a screwdriver in between it and make it move. when i did it, my wheel turned about and inch to the outside.

EDIT: Also, Road Race Chassis division can tell you what needs to be done to eliminate this. You can get their number on RRE's website. http://www.roadraceengineering.com

 

[92awddsm]

What you are thinking about is the rear active toe eliminators.

To stiffen the car, weld up all pinch and seam welds in the body(they are just spot welded from the factory), switch all rubber bushings to either polyurethane or aluminum, switch all engine and tranny mounts to poly, install a roll cage, rear active toe eliminators(homemade can be found with a search) and get some good adjustable shocks and ground control coilover springs(or something equivilent) or just cough up the $for full coilovers.

 

[Chadillac2000]

Does anybody actually sell aluminum bushings or do you have to fab these?

I wish that taboo site had pictures.

 

[lenny 15]

Shearer Fabrications is the only place I know of where you can get Aluminum bushings.

http://www.shearerfab.com/products.php?itemID=21

 

[Chadillac2000]

Yeah I stumbled across those right after I posted that last one, thats a ridiculous price. I'll probably just look into polyurethane bushings since nobody really makes any aluminum ones.

 

[Strm Trpr]

Fortunately, for 1g's the Prothane Motor Mount Kit replaces 3 of the 4 motor/tranny mounts with full urethane inserts.
1 of them is a sandwich type like the 2 smaller mounts on a 2g.
You can get them in either black or red as well...