Leaf Spring Help

[Bryce]

There are some companies out there that make a leaf spring that has a stiffer/thicker front half of the spring. This helps with wheel hop.

Search for Mary's second gen camaro. She is the fastest at most autoX events and runs leafs.

By the way cool truck.

[NOGO]

You can definitely get a leaf spring car to handle great, although there is typically a compromise in ride quality. There is no need to run a axle locator like Panhard or Watts either. Like Falcon65 mentioned, you can get a spring that is thicker on the front side or a shifted forward spring pack to prevent spring wrap and axle hop. This will not guarantee you traction at the drags so there will be a compromise there as well. Do you know the current weight on your rear axle? Its pretty easy to select a good spring rate, but the spring install height, RC, etc. will need to be taken into consideration as well. You dont need a super stiff spring if you can run a rear sway bar to increase some roll stiffness.

You may need to have custom springs made. I highly recommend Deaver Springs because they are top notch, although they are a tad pricey. http://deaverspring.com/

[dbranger94]

By the way cool truck.

Thanks!

You dont need a super stiff spring if you can run a rear sway bar to increase some roll stiffness.

It has a rear sway bar already, but it's only 5/8". I did upgrade it to urethane bushings though.

Like Falcon65 mentioned, you can get a spring that is thicker on the front side or a shifted forward spring pack to prevent spring wrap and axle hop.

I would say the axle centerline is located about 60/40 toward the front of the spring pack.

I had thought about engineering a pinion snubber setup. It would be pretty easy to add a x-member with a pad to the frame. The 8.8 already has holes in it I could use for snubber mounting. Didn't know if it was something anyone was typically using in this application.

[astroracer]

I don't think you will need to do to much more to have a good handling truck. The drop and urethane bushings will had ten fold to the handling characteristics. If this a street driver I guarantee it will handle better then most "on road" conditions will allow.
If you are having wheel hop issues and want to get away from the slapper bars a set of Caltrac traction bars will work wonders and they look cool to boot. Google them.
Mark