Basic measurements for them fancy 4 links

Does anyone know what how wide you are supposed to put the boxes and how far forward the boxes sit in front of the axle center line?

Just looking at the rear axle and behind the seat area and wondering where it all would sit if I did it someday.

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"Rally racing makes a heroin addiction look like a vague craving for something salty"

Matt, I made some Sooooper Bitchin stainless plug in spacers for the 3/4" rods ends I've used and I thought, "Wull, i can make these any width but if'n I stink a little I could bump up the production run and use the same thing in another application, lemme see hmmmmmmmmmmmm, OH! I gots sit! I'll make them same width as Xratty front control arm inner bush for that day I make some 606 copies of the Ford 909 arms! I's fawkin bwiwiant!"

That's what I thunk. So I made them 60,1mm wide.

Now since them I found some burly rod ends with rubber bushes so I wuz thinkin----always a danger sign---why not use rubber at one end for a little cushion. I'll check those tomorrow. Gotta finish dinner at 10:45 cause I been down making a jig from welding Ian Seppanens Nissan 240 strut ears on.....
Earliest I've been home for a week.

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John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
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john vanlandingham
Matt, I made some Sooooper Bitchin stainless plug in spacers for the 3/4" rods ends I've used and I thought, "Wull, i can make these any width but if'n I stink a little I could bump up the production run and use the same thing in another application, lemme see hmmmmmmmmmmmm, OH! I gots sit! I'll make them same width as Xratty front control arm inner bush for that day I make some 606 copies of the Ford 909 arms! I's fawkin bwiwiant!"

That's what I thunk. So I made them 60,1mm wide.

Now since them I found some burly rod ends with rubber bushes so I wuz thinkin----always a danger sign---why not use rubber at one end for a little cushion. I'll check those tomorrow. Gotta finish dinner at 10:45 cause I been down making a jig from welding Ian Seppanens Nissan 240 strut ears on.....
Earliest I've been home for a week.

What the frick width is 60,1mm?

I'm not so much wanting the box width (which I'm assuming that's code for), but the "hey I'm looking in the back seat area and there are these 2 weirdo boxes, they look to be ________ inches apart"

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"Rally racing makes a heroin addiction look like a vague craving for something salty"

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mellow65
Does anyone know what how wide you are supposed to put the boxes and how far forward the boxes sit in front of the axle center line?

Just looking at the rear axle and behind the seat area and wondering where it all would sit if I did it someday.

On the width, it depends on where you put the brackets on your axle. Here they are placed 9" out from each side of the diff housing: http://www.rallyanarchy.com/EscortRallyPrep/Suspension%20Rear.pdf

As far as how far foward the boxes sit, according to the same document, the equal parallel arms are 25.5" from center to center.

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"Talk about drugs. Driving a car like that, going that fast, it’s like all the drugs at once." - Tommy Byrne

"Now, Pinky, if by any chance you are captured during this mission, remember you are Gunther Heindriksen from Appenzell. You moved to Grindelwald to drive the cog train to Murren. Can you repeat that?" - The Brain

the "frame rails" on the car will sort of dictate how far apart the boxes will be. length can vary from car to car. the corollas use 24" long links and volvos are more like 28".

Like Wlison said, the width apart is going to be determined by things associated with the axle and the car's under body structure:
- Axle locations where you can put the brackets
- Where in the floor you can put the long upper boxes. Generally, this is limited by the subframe/unibody rails in the backseat area
- Where under the car you can place the lower anchor brackets; this may be wider than the uppers to get a solid anchor point.

Make them as long at you can allow with everything else. You can tie in the upper box forward ends (where the multiple holes are located) to a horizontal bar welded across the main hoop of the cage to strengthen it all up. Keep uppers and lowers equal length and make them as level as possible at static ride height. You can look at how circle track racers use unequal equal length and angled links; makes sense for acceleration only off of left turns. Makes no sense for left and right turns on uphill and downhill; and with braking action in all sorts of conditions.

On my never moving Opel Manta project the link are 24" center-to-center (I mistakenly reported 28" recently); the uppers are 25-1/4" apart, and the lowers are 36-1/4" apart. The forward links ends are rubber bushed, and the back ends are heim joints.

Mark B.

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starion887
On my never moving Opel Manta project the link are 24" center-to-center (I mistakenly reported 28" recently); the uppers are 25-1/4" apart, and the lowers are 36-1/4" apart. The forward links ends are rubber bushed, and the back ends are heim joints.

Mark B.

How IS that Manta project these days Mark? Same place my Ascona project is most likely!

FWIW, we are entering my friend's Ascona in the all-tarmac Rally New York in August. Should be interesting...

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Opel is a 4-letter word...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10498579@N07/sets/

Hey Bob,

Going nowhere; too much to do to keep work/business going, and my wife and I picked up another hobby that eats up time and attention.

Good deal on the Ascona entry! Hmmm, I may be tempted to come up.

Regards,
Mark B.

FWIW, I pretty much have the engine done for my rally Ascona. Got a Ford T9 gearbox core after looking for years too. Suspension is all done. Just gotta get the shell finished and painted and assemble it. That's 'all'....

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Opel is a 4-letter word...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10498579@N07/sets/

I'll probably be asked to turn in my rally card but I have been know to, sparingly, watch, rarely, not very often, the Sat morning shows on Spike. One of the shows, Xtreme 4X4 has a host Ian Johnson that is, oddly enough, quasi-intelligent.

Sometime in the past they were building a tube buggy/trail runner. He gave a long chalk board monolog on the math of suspension design. It was really interesting. Minor changes in the length/ geometry of the four links have a significant effect on rear squat/traction/axle wrap.

Maybe it's on the internet somewhere???

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bknblk2
I'll probably be asked to turn in my rally card but I have been know to, sparingly, watch, rarely, not very often, the Sat morning shows on Spike. One of the shows, Xtreme 4X4 has a host Ian Johnson that is, oddly enough, quasi-intelligent.

Sometime in the past they were building a tube buggy/trail runner. He gave a long chalk board monolog on the math of suspension design. It was really interesting. Minor changes in the length/ geometry of the four links have a significant effect on rear squat/traction/axle wrap.

Maybe it's on the internet somewhere???

If you go hunting around the internetz for a '4 link calculator' you'll probably stumble across something that'll do the math for you.

Met Ian & Jesse @ Sema a few years back. Both pretty entertaining. Got a picture of the crew with Jesse somewhere.

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This isn't floor mat anarchy

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bknblk2
I'll probably be asked to turn in my rally card but I have been know to, sparingly, watch, rarely, not very often, the Sat morning shows on Spike. One of the shows, Xtreme 4X4 has a host Ian Johnson that is, oddly enough, quasi-intelligent.

Watched an Xtreme 4x4 that was the culmination of some big multiple episode build up where they built a custom tube front end with custom multi-link suspension for something. They took it out to test it and half the suspension welds failed almost immediately. It was hilarious.

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Morison
[jvl] Ohh noooohs! There's an h'off tawpik thread in the gent-urinal dick-cushion four-hum. THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!![/jvl]

All the maths you need are here...

http://www.racetec.cc/shope/

Good luck...

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SteveL
This is the point in the killing spree when you really should turn the gun on yourself

My off road / mad max / motorstorm / rally chase vehicle (Celica) has unequal length arms, and aren't parellel to each other either. I followed the off road truck race design. With heim joints at 6 of the 8 locations, I get no binding, no loss of acticulation and TONS of traction. I've never had the axle hop often associated with live rear ends axles. Ideally, I would have made the arms all about 20-30% longer, but space was an issue, as well as maintaining the factory lower front pivot. The big problem with this set-up is, I have 9" of travel with a pan-hard bar, so the axle shifts under the body a good bit. Either I adapted to what it tends to do off jumps right away, or the shifting just isn't that big a deal. I hear the tires lightly hitting the body at full compression and full droop, but the car never tries to dart one way or the other because the the axle shift.

-Jon

Would the axle shift be the basic reason for the Watts link then? Never really dug thoroughly into that idea?

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Zap zap my ass...