bret
05-11-2008, 01:36 PM
At this point it should be fairly well known that I broke the passenger side spindle on the Goodguys Chevelle at the Costa Mesa Goodguys autocross in March. The fact that I did not make a huge deal of this [yet] has raised a few questions that deserve accurate and relevant answers.
This may be a lengthy post so I’ll try to break it down into digestible sections. The main questions seem to be: 1.What caused the spindle to break?
2. What have you done to correct the problem?
3. Should I be concerned about my Air Ride Technologies / Fatmans spindles?
What caused the spindle to break? The short answer is…I don’t know…yet. While I could offer some informed opinions and guesses, I think it is important to make sure this kind of information is as accurate as possible. While anyone else participating in this discussion is at liberty to offer an opinion I feel that as owner of Air Ride Technologies, I need to be held to a higher standard of credibility concerning my own products.
The spindle broke at the transition from the inner bearing surface to the larger seal surface. The wheel/rotor/spindle pin/caliper assembly did significant damage to the right front fender, inner fender, and door of the Chevelle. After the wheels left the car we slid about 150 feet on the lower control arm. The wheels assembly rolled slowly across the autocross track, hit the fence and fell over. I was going about 35 mph when this happened. I’ll get some images of the spindle up asap. The damage to my pocketbook was significant…fortunately Grundy Insurance was great to work with and settled promptly.
Here are the facts about the car: 1970 Chevelle – 540 Bill Mitchell engine and a Bowler 4L80 trans. Weight is around 4000 lbs with about 2200 of that on the frontend [I’ll find the weight sheets tomorrow]. The front suspension is our StrongArms with ShockWaves, the taller Fatmans spindles and our MuscleBar swaybar and PosiLinks. We are using a 245/45-18 BFG KD tire on a 18x8 Intro wheel and Wilwood 13” 6 piston brakes.
This car has approx. 7000 driven miles and another 5000 or so in the Goodguys trailer. It has participated in 7 autocrosses so far. Anyone who has seen me drive this can tell you that it gets driven “11/10ths” all the time. We have used up 6 sets of front tires on the car so far.
Here are the facts about the spindle: The Fatmans spindle is a one piece forged steel unit, just like the oem GM Camaro/Chevelle spindles. When I can get the exact material and heat treatment I will publish those as well. The first run of the units were 2.75” taller than oem [ball joint to ball joint] to improve the camber gain characteristics. The steering arm location was moved down slightly to improve the bumpsteer on the Chevelle. It retains oem style brake mounting so any brake system for a Camaro or a Chevelle will fit. Subsequent production runs were revised to a shorter 1.75” dimension over oem height because Fatmans found that some customers were having balljoint bind problems at complete compression if using stock control arms and a “street” alignment. Although this made the camber curve a bit shallower, it is likely more appropriate for street tires and street alignment specs. Brent tells me that these spindles are made offshore. This does not surprise nor concern me…a large majority of suspension components for oem and aftermarket companies originate from Asia and/or India. In my many conversations with engineers from the oem, racing, hotrod, and military sectors, material quality has not been a concern. Design and testing is still done locally, per the customer [as it was with the Fatmans spindle]. The forging house simply makes the component that he is contracted to make.
2. [B]What have you done to correct the problem? I have this particular spindle on my Buick GSX, my 66 Chevelle, my 70 Nova and now on my new 68 Camaro. I have driven these cars over 100,000 miles collectively, and have raced them HARD in numerous autocross and track day events. Because they are raced, these cars are visually inspected on a regular basis in many areas, especially wheel bearings, brakes and spindles. No problem has ever been found. After we broke the spindle on the Goodguys Chevelle I immediately [on Sunday] called Brent VanDerVort, owner of Fatmans. He immediately pulled his remaining inventory and my remaining inventory of spindles and sent them for x ray and hardness testing. All tested good. In the interest of overkill, and because I did have one problem, he sent these units out to have them shot peened and then re-heat treated. At this moment in time [mothers day] I do not have exact data about these tests or procedures. I will gather that information and share it asap.
All of this takes time. As much as we would all like to think that nothing could be more important than our “crises de jour” the hardcore research, engineering, and testing facilities all move at the same slow friggin pace…day in, day out.
3. Should I be concerned about my spindles?
I am not…and here is why.
1. As I stated above, I have used these spindles successfully over thousands of miles on the street and the track. Positive experience breeds comfort.
2. I beat on my cars. A lot. I have also let professional racecar drivers beat on them several times. Hard. If there is anyone who is stressing components more than we are, they hopefully have enough experience to inspect ALL areas of their racecar regularly. This issue has been covered on this website before with good reason. If you race your car you need to inspect it regularly. If you only street drive your car then the inspection frequency rate can go down considerably.
2. With the Chevelle failure, you are talking about a 4000 lb plus car, reasonably sticky BFG KD tires, and an EXTREMELY sticky surface at Costa Mesa. That track was so sticky that my 71 Camaro and Stacey Tuckers 69 Camaro were lifting the inside front tire on the hard corners. Those 2 cars had NEVER done that before. Sticky track = more stress on suspension.
With that said, if you are concerned then by all means take your car apart and look at your spindles. Send them back to me and we will replace, re-inspect, and/or refund your money for these spindles. If you are not comfortable with any portion of your suspension then it is truly worthless. I don’t want my product to be worthless. You need to feel comfortable and safe. My personal email is [email protected] ([email protected]). If you are reading this then you obviously have email…send me a message, I’ll send a call tag to get your spindles picked up and we will discuss how you want to proceed. It doesn’t matter to me if you bought them from Air Ride Technologies, one of our dealers, or the swapmeet…I’ll take care of them.
In addition, I am going to indentify and notify all of my spindle customers about this situation. As was suggested before…they deserve this information so they can have the opportunity to make an informed decision.
I will have a webpage up in a day or 2 with logistical details about returns, exchanges, and /or refunds.
In the meantime I am driving the Velocity Camaro with Henry De Los Santos from Chevy High Performance Magazine to the YearOne Experience in Atlanta this week [if we can keep it running] and will run it hard on the big track and the autocross with my Fatman spindles. I hope to see you there!
The rest of this is personal pontification…feel free to ignore it.
It has been suggested that my products are designed for street rods and therefore not up to rigors of autocrossing, roadcourse, or “pro-tour” use.
I typically don’t expend much energy to refute this…our performance on the track seems to handle that.. My secret is that I never told the car that it was a “street rod”…
Seriously, this is why I get to go to work every day. No challenge= no fun. I like fun. Take a look at our show and autocross schedule and come out to take a look or take a ride. Who knows, maybe you will get to witness more carnage. [I’m sorry that was just mean, wasn’t it?]
The point is that our products are designed for the vehicles that they are to be installed on and for the purpose the vehicle is being built for. You won’t hear us recommending an air over leaf system for a Camaro that is to be track driven. You also won’t hear us recommend a set of double adjustable shocks and a big swaybar for a 50 Merc that is a cruiser. Our main design criteria has always been safety, ride quality, handling performance, and stance…in that order. If you are a former mini-trucker you will remember all the crap we took a few years ago when we spoke out against frame dragging and reverse 4 links. [If you can’t draggit you’re a faggot…you had to love that] You can check the archives of sport truck.com for confirmation.
It has also been suggested that I am not qualified to design and build suspension components because I am not a degreed engineer. Make no mistake…I DO NOT have any degree at all. I never attended college or trade school. I have never made an issue of this, pro or con, because it just didn’t matter to me. However, in the interest of full disclosure it may be appropriate to explain some of my background. [I’ll be brief, really]
Like most of you, I have been building cars since high school. In 1987 I went to work for a rep agency representing MSD, B&M, Autometer, and a few other lines at the NHRA drag races. In 1990 I went to work for Blower Drive Service at the mobile display manager. While there I was involved with the early EFI development with Craig Railsback and John Meaney [he was DFI back then]. Craig and John are perhaps 2 of the most intelligent humans that I have met so far. Craig is who I stole the phrase “If I have to choose between the tape measure and the stopwatch, I’ll take the stopwatch”. John Meaney taught me to not confuse education with intelligence. Again, to clarify, I didn’t help, I learned.
I started Air Ride Technologies in 1996. I’ll skip the boring parts, but at this point I have supplied suspension systems for tens of thousands of customers, hundreds of award and race winning vehicles, dozens of multi-million dollar car projects, several oem concept projects, a handful of NASCAR teams, a few RV and industrial vehicle projects and a couple of high end military projects, one of which involves the V22 Osprey aircraft. Now, I know that it may be unimaginable that any project could possibly involve more money, more planning, and more engineering than a hotrod, but the Marines spend more money on this project every minute than any hotrod project in total I ever even heard about. Our LevelPro controller was required to pass a voltage surge test that cost us [them] $30,000. [Yes, we passed] Our military customer was especially concerned about my lack of engineering credentials until the Marines liaison pointed out that we were able to resolve a suspension issue that had eluded their team of mechanical engineers for several months.
Although I am not a “degreed engineer” I have access to several individuals in several disciplines. I read a lot of books, I ask a lot of questions, and I stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night. [still paying attention?] I have told many customers that I do not know every way there is to build an air suspension, but I do know several years worth of ways NOT to. [that was supposed to be cute...feel free to insert indignant reply here]
Typically when I talk about Air Ride Technologies I use the term “we”. That is because any significant accomplishment is the result of the efforts of more than one person. I use the term “I” today because I want to project to everyone that I am ultimately responsible for my products, manufactured or vended. I have been known to tell employees “It may not be your fault, but it is your responsibility.” That includes me. Especially me.
I know that I’ll have more info to post in the next few days / weeks. I’m sure that there will be many replies and opinions. I ask that you take what you need and let the rest lay. I will attempt the same.
Bret Voelkel
President
Air Ride Technologies, Inc.
This may be a lengthy post so I’ll try to break it down into digestible sections. The main questions seem to be: 1.What caused the spindle to break?
2. What have you done to correct the problem?
3. Should I be concerned about my Air Ride Technologies / Fatmans spindles?
What caused the spindle to break? The short answer is…I don’t know…yet. While I could offer some informed opinions and guesses, I think it is important to make sure this kind of information is as accurate as possible. While anyone else participating in this discussion is at liberty to offer an opinion I feel that as owner of Air Ride Technologies, I need to be held to a higher standard of credibility concerning my own products.
The spindle broke at the transition from the inner bearing surface to the larger seal surface. The wheel/rotor/spindle pin/caliper assembly did significant damage to the right front fender, inner fender, and door of the Chevelle. After the wheels left the car we slid about 150 feet on the lower control arm. The wheels assembly rolled slowly across the autocross track, hit the fence and fell over. I was going about 35 mph when this happened. I’ll get some images of the spindle up asap. The damage to my pocketbook was significant…fortunately Grundy Insurance was great to work with and settled promptly.
Here are the facts about the car: 1970 Chevelle – 540 Bill Mitchell engine and a Bowler 4L80 trans. Weight is around 4000 lbs with about 2200 of that on the frontend [I’ll find the weight sheets tomorrow]. The front suspension is our StrongArms with ShockWaves, the taller Fatmans spindles and our MuscleBar swaybar and PosiLinks. We are using a 245/45-18 BFG KD tire on a 18x8 Intro wheel and Wilwood 13” 6 piston brakes.
This car has approx. 7000 driven miles and another 5000 or so in the Goodguys trailer. It has participated in 7 autocrosses so far. Anyone who has seen me drive this can tell you that it gets driven “11/10ths” all the time. We have used up 6 sets of front tires on the car so far.
Here are the facts about the spindle: The Fatmans spindle is a one piece forged steel unit, just like the oem GM Camaro/Chevelle spindles. When I can get the exact material and heat treatment I will publish those as well. The first run of the units were 2.75” taller than oem [ball joint to ball joint] to improve the camber gain characteristics. The steering arm location was moved down slightly to improve the bumpsteer on the Chevelle. It retains oem style brake mounting so any brake system for a Camaro or a Chevelle will fit. Subsequent production runs were revised to a shorter 1.75” dimension over oem height because Fatmans found that some customers were having balljoint bind problems at complete compression if using stock control arms and a “street” alignment. Although this made the camber curve a bit shallower, it is likely more appropriate for street tires and street alignment specs. Brent tells me that these spindles are made offshore. This does not surprise nor concern me…a large majority of suspension components for oem and aftermarket companies originate from Asia and/or India. In my many conversations with engineers from the oem, racing, hotrod, and military sectors, material quality has not been a concern. Design and testing is still done locally, per the customer [as it was with the Fatmans spindle]. The forging house simply makes the component that he is contracted to make.
2. [B]What have you done to correct the problem? I have this particular spindle on my Buick GSX, my 66 Chevelle, my 70 Nova and now on my new 68 Camaro. I have driven these cars over 100,000 miles collectively, and have raced them HARD in numerous autocross and track day events. Because they are raced, these cars are visually inspected on a regular basis in many areas, especially wheel bearings, brakes and spindles. No problem has ever been found. After we broke the spindle on the Goodguys Chevelle I immediately [on Sunday] called Brent VanDerVort, owner of Fatmans. He immediately pulled his remaining inventory and my remaining inventory of spindles and sent them for x ray and hardness testing. All tested good. In the interest of overkill, and because I did have one problem, he sent these units out to have them shot peened and then re-heat treated. At this moment in time [mothers day] I do not have exact data about these tests or procedures. I will gather that information and share it asap.
All of this takes time. As much as we would all like to think that nothing could be more important than our “crises de jour” the hardcore research, engineering, and testing facilities all move at the same slow friggin pace…day in, day out.
3. Should I be concerned about my spindles?
I am not…and here is why.
1. As I stated above, I have used these spindles successfully over thousands of miles on the street and the track. Positive experience breeds comfort.
2. I beat on my cars. A lot. I have also let professional racecar drivers beat on them several times. Hard. If there is anyone who is stressing components more than we are, they hopefully have enough experience to inspect ALL areas of their racecar regularly. This issue has been covered on this website before with good reason. If you race your car you need to inspect it regularly. If you only street drive your car then the inspection frequency rate can go down considerably.
2. With the Chevelle failure, you are talking about a 4000 lb plus car, reasonably sticky BFG KD tires, and an EXTREMELY sticky surface at Costa Mesa. That track was so sticky that my 71 Camaro and Stacey Tuckers 69 Camaro were lifting the inside front tire on the hard corners. Those 2 cars had NEVER done that before. Sticky track = more stress on suspension.
With that said, if you are concerned then by all means take your car apart and look at your spindles. Send them back to me and we will replace, re-inspect, and/or refund your money for these spindles. If you are not comfortable with any portion of your suspension then it is truly worthless. I don’t want my product to be worthless. You need to feel comfortable and safe. My personal email is [email protected] ([email protected]). If you are reading this then you obviously have email…send me a message, I’ll send a call tag to get your spindles picked up and we will discuss how you want to proceed. It doesn’t matter to me if you bought them from Air Ride Technologies, one of our dealers, or the swapmeet…I’ll take care of them.
In addition, I am going to indentify and notify all of my spindle customers about this situation. As was suggested before…they deserve this information so they can have the opportunity to make an informed decision.
I will have a webpage up in a day or 2 with logistical details about returns, exchanges, and /or refunds.
In the meantime I am driving the Velocity Camaro with Henry De Los Santos from Chevy High Performance Magazine to the YearOne Experience in Atlanta this week [if we can keep it running] and will run it hard on the big track and the autocross with my Fatman spindles. I hope to see you there!
The rest of this is personal pontification…feel free to ignore it.
It has been suggested that my products are designed for street rods and therefore not up to rigors of autocrossing, roadcourse, or “pro-tour” use.
I typically don’t expend much energy to refute this…our performance on the track seems to handle that.. My secret is that I never told the car that it was a “street rod”…
Seriously, this is why I get to go to work every day. No challenge= no fun. I like fun. Take a look at our show and autocross schedule and come out to take a look or take a ride. Who knows, maybe you will get to witness more carnage. [I’m sorry that was just mean, wasn’t it?]
The point is that our products are designed for the vehicles that they are to be installed on and for the purpose the vehicle is being built for. You won’t hear us recommending an air over leaf system for a Camaro that is to be track driven. You also won’t hear us recommend a set of double adjustable shocks and a big swaybar for a 50 Merc that is a cruiser. Our main design criteria has always been safety, ride quality, handling performance, and stance…in that order. If you are a former mini-trucker you will remember all the crap we took a few years ago when we spoke out against frame dragging and reverse 4 links. [If you can’t draggit you’re a faggot…you had to love that] You can check the archives of sport truck.com for confirmation.
It has also been suggested that I am not qualified to design and build suspension components because I am not a degreed engineer. Make no mistake…I DO NOT have any degree at all. I never attended college or trade school. I have never made an issue of this, pro or con, because it just didn’t matter to me. However, in the interest of full disclosure it may be appropriate to explain some of my background. [I’ll be brief, really]
Like most of you, I have been building cars since high school. In 1987 I went to work for a rep agency representing MSD, B&M, Autometer, and a few other lines at the NHRA drag races. In 1990 I went to work for Blower Drive Service at the mobile display manager. While there I was involved with the early EFI development with Craig Railsback and John Meaney [he was DFI back then]. Craig and John are perhaps 2 of the most intelligent humans that I have met so far. Craig is who I stole the phrase “If I have to choose between the tape measure and the stopwatch, I’ll take the stopwatch”. John Meaney taught me to not confuse education with intelligence. Again, to clarify, I didn’t help, I learned.
I started Air Ride Technologies in 1996. I’ll skip the boring parts, but at this point I have supplied suspension systems for tens of thousands of customers, hundreds of award and race winning vehicles, dozens of multi-million dollar car projects, several oem concept projects, a handful of NASCAR teams, a few RV and industrial vehicle projects and a couple of high end military projects, one of which involves the V22 Osprey aircraft. Now, I know that it may be unimaginable that any project could possibly involve more money, more planning, and more engineering than a hotrod, but the Marines spend more money on this project every minute than any hotrod project in total I ever even heard about. Our LevelPro controller was required to pass a voltage surge test that cost us [them] $30,000. [Yes, we passed] Our military customer was especially concerned about my lack of engineering credentials until the Marines liaison pointed out that we were able to resolve a suspension issue that had eluded their team of mechanical engineers for several months.
Although I am not a “degreed engineer” I have access to several individuals in several disciplines. I read a lot of books, I ask a lot of questions, and I stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night. [still paying attention?] I have told many customers that I do not know every way there is to build an air suspension, but I do know several years worth of ways NOT to. [that was supposed to be cute...feel free to insert indignant reply here]
Typically when I talk about Air Ride Technologies I use the term “we”. That is because any significant accomplishment is the result of the efforts of more than one person. I use the term “I” today because I want to project to everyone that I am ultimately responsible for my products, manufactured or vended. I have been known to tell employees “It may not be your fault, but it is your responsibility.” That includes me. Especially me.
I know that I’ll have more info to post in the next few days / weeks. I’m sure that there will be many replies and opinions. I ask that you take what you need and let the rest lay. I will attempt the same.
Bret Voelkel
President
Air Ride Technologies, Inc.