Author Topic: How to figure proper ackerman with a 2" offset front axle and FORWARD arms  (Read 12660 times)

Offline Scott Krieger

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  • Your Best Time: 8.75 ET - 152.00 MPH 1/4 mile
  • Your Track: LVMS
  • Your Vehicle: Front Engine Dragster
We run our right side long.

Our track (LVMS) turns off to the left. So the car turns left much easier with the right side long.
It was that way with her (Kayla) Jr dragster. First thing we did when we got the Jr. was take advantage of the 0-2" of roll-out. Making the right side long. After the end of the year made a lot of changes to the car. One was making the left side long. She didn't like the way the car was harder to turn left. So I went back to having the right side long and she liked it much better.

So when we put her front engine car together we made the right side the side I could make long and all has been good.

Offline rooman

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As Bruce noted earlier the reason for having the left side long is that torque will tend to lift the left wheel at the hit and thus having the right wheel trailing will blank the beam for a longer period of time. If you are running something like a J/D that does not carry the front end leaving then the difference is academic but for all others having the left lead is beneficial. As for the car turning left better with the right wheel leading, that sounds more like an ackerman issue as the location of the contact patch should not have any affect at slow turnout speeds. A lot of juniors have funky scrub radius geometry too and that will accentuate the problem.

Roo
Yeah, I am from the south--any further south and I would have been a bloody penguin.