[Aces&Eights]

I'm still in the learning phase on sprints, don't actually own one yet but I'd like to have some basic knowledge of adjustments and tuning before I take the plunge. My background is dirt late models and I've collected and read several books on them thru the years as well as engineering and geometry, attended a couple of seminars, not to mention the knowledge available in the DLM Tech section on many message boards like 4M.

With sprints, there seems to be an absence of knowledge shared or available, I've only found 1 book from "Steve Smith" and neither of the 2 sprint car magazines I get have anything about tech in them. So where can I get some basic tuning and setup info on Non-wing sprints? Is it a closely guarded secret and I don't know the special handshake or clandestine password? Don't bother recommending that I offer to pay a team to let me hang out, there are no teams within 4 or 5 hours of me and zero non-wing.

I understand the basics of "spacers" in the rear and I know shocks(I worked for Carrera Racing shocks from 98'-04'). I also know that a lot of tuning is simply done thru different block heights, but tuning with torsion bars and when to do what, I dunno...

[badcoupe]

Dan drinan typically does a seminar I think it's available on DVD as well. Might call his shop and ask. Block heights are one thing torsion bars are another although they are just springs, Schroeder has charts that give the bar size then then you look at the length of your torsion arm to get the actual spring rate of each bar. There are lots of variables to these type of cars for sure. Some chassis manufacturers give some recommendations on bar shock ride etc. others may not.

[darnall]

Somebody thats already familiar with the gains in shock tech the last 10 years can read the Steve Smith sprintcar book and watch the 20 year old video Jimmy Sills did that compliments the book and have a major grasp of how to set up and tune a sprintcar. Other than tires and motors that cost twice as much and last half as long and shocks that cost 10 times as much the cars haven't changed enough in the last 20 years to need a complete overhaul in tuning approach.

The book and-or video teach you everything you need to know about squaring the car and getting it on a baseline setup. You can actually use the specific setup numbers from 20 years ago and have a car thats better than 90 percent of the guys who drive them. Or you can use those procedures you learn from the book and apply the baseline setups the chassis builder has on their website or will give you on the phone and be even better off.

And in my experience the closer to those baselines I stay the faster I am consistently. It gets so tempting to go chasing the next voodoo magic RF shock valving or newest cockpit adjustable swaybar. Then you're changing 6 other things to accommodate for what that trick part goofed up. Then you adjust something else by 6 turns when half a turn is the most you ever needed before. Then you realize that every night between the heat race and the main you have to change 3 bars, 4 shocks, radius rod pickup holes and rear block height before you can do the wheel spacer and stagger change you used to do to keep up with the track drying. Finally after an entire season of chasing chasing chasing a magic setup and finishing worse and worse you junk a car, put another one together with your baseline under it and go faster than you did the last 4 months.

Karl Kinser and Sammy Swindell, and most likely Keith Kunz, and anybody who is fast year after year after year will tell you that they've used the same baseline setup 95% of the time over the last 5 years. Their baseline may not be an exact copy of what you would find on the chassis builders website but it won't be night and day different..and it was eased into over the years and never something radically different than they used the previous week or year. Different tracks start with a different gear and stagger... change in dirt thru the night requires fine adjustments in air pressure, stagger, wheelspacing, weight jacking and shock valving.. a track that goes thru a drastic change or a night with drastic weather may require a slight bar change.

Thank heaven sprintcars are as simple as they are. I couldn't even imagine being in the dirt latemodel game the last 20 years. Leafs then coils-truckarms then 2 link 3 link 4 link 5 link with extra shocks and springs here there and everywhere. 25 years ago they went thru the corners like a pavement car more sideways... then everybody went monkey see monkey do with the guy who won when his car went thru the corners pushing like it had a flat RR tire.... then the hot set up for a couple years looked like really soft suspension that reacted a lot to any change in throttle or direction...then for a few years that morphed into every DLM and IMCA modified looking like the right rear spring and 3 of the rear radius rods were missing and it would buck like a donkey and lay over dang near on the passenger door, LR wheel got shoved up the drivers butt at center of the turn, LF wheel off the ground higher than the hood of the car beside you....everybody thought a car was "HOOOOOKED UP HARD" if it was 3 wheelin.... but any buick riviera lowrider with hydraulics can 3 wheel just like that in a parkinglot or on a street or in someones front yard and people don't think it's HOOOKED UP.

Over the last year or so I have watched a few laps or the whole episode of each of the DLM races on MavTV or CBS sports...fastest guys in the world in those cars, and I notice that they've come back full circle and once again they go thru the corners like a pavement car sideways... typically all 4 tires on the ground, minimal body roll, minimal front end lift or dive...nothing crazy looking. Funny thing is that even though tires are vastly improved, motors are much stronger, and shocks are tons better track records didn't drop by a half second per year when everybody kept finding all those trick set ups. Just like in winged and wingless sprintcar racing... there are as many 10-12 year old track records as there are 5 year old records and current season track records.

If you can find ESPN video archives of USAC at eldora and terre haute in the early-mid 90s and compare it to video from the same tracks last season you will notice that other than body panels and seats theres very little difference between 20 years ago and today.

If you own a harbor freight hand tool set that has 8 combo wrenches, a crescent wrench, a ratchet and 12 sockets and can find a couple decent tape measures you have everything you need to square up, set up and fine tune adjust a sprintcar for the entire season.

If you feel like it's hard to get people to tell you stuff about setting up a sprintcar its probably not because they're being secretive... it's either because they really don't know or because they know that theres really nothing to tell. The magic doesn't come from what parts you put on it. The magic comes from knowing when you need a half pound or a pound of air pressure changed, when you need to add a turn to the RF or a quarter turn to the LR, when and how much to soften the RR shock compression or should I adjust LR rebound instead...etc etc...

Without replacing any parts on the car you can move each rear wheel, change weight jacking/ride height on 4 torsionbars, change air pressure in 3 tires (which can also change stagger), do no more than 1 inch, 1 pound or 1 turn worth of any or all, and make a car pretty happy-driveable from 1st heat of the night tacky to lap 30 of the 7th A feature dry/black/slick. A 20 year old book can tell you which direction to go with each adjustment to go the right way. The guys that win year after year after year are better than the rest of us at knowing which ones to do when and how much..and when they can really help themselves by changing rebound valving of a LF shock by 1 number...or when they can put a lower gear in the car to take advantage of huggy pole rubber before the rest of the field finds it.

Anybody who has ever felt the least bit knowledgeable or comfortable working on any other suspended racecar can get a handle on sprintcar basics in one good night in the shop, a couple good dumps with that book on your lap, and a couple trips to the track. After that it's all about experience, practice and memory... and reading dirt.

[Aces&Eights]

LOL, the Jimmy Sills DVD is proving hard to find. I'll try and contact Dan Drinan. Oh yeah the DLM guys are fooling you into thinking they look normal, it's an illusion. RF spring is typically so soft it barely will hold car up sitting still. Then it collapses onto a bump rubber. The nose piece is mounted with the RF a foot higher than the LF. Body has been trimmed away on passenger side to accommodate this. The right side frame rails have been raised as well as cross member. They just modified the body so it looks normal when running at speed. But to me its crap.

[darnall]

And badcoupe is correct... Newer dvds are available... along with Drinan you can get videos of the chassis seminar Gary Wright hosted at the chilibowl... i'm under the impression that those are more geared toward the guys who have been around long enough to have a grasp of the basics and are wanting more education about the fine tuning aspects...trying to gain a few extra years worth of experience in an afternoon with a veteran. And I know 2 guys, racing buddies for a few years, who went to one of them just knowing they were going to learn the trick secret hot setups that separate the pros from the weekend warriors...the ones that Danny Lasoski uses when he whips up on some local 360 racers like themselves... and they came out of the seminar thinking they had been cheated, lied to, and wondering where they needed to buy 5 grand worth of new stuff in order to finally be taught the secret handshake of sprintcar speed....

But for somebody who understands that the seminar is intended to speed up their learning curve and teach them how to turn variables into more consistency much can be gained.

Also like coupe said...all the comparison charts are available... if you have spent 30 years referring to a spring in terms of 225 pounds, 350 pounds, etc and absolutely have to know how a 1025 bar on a 14inch arm compares to a coil before you feel comfy the tools are there... or you can just realize that 1025 is middle of the road, 925 is super light, 1150 is super heavy, and there are multiple options in between then you know which way to go when you decide to deviate from your baseline and you don't need to see how each relates to a coil rating system.

There are plenty of variables for somebody to make it as complex and complicated as they want. But compared to any other suspended racecar it couldn't be more basic and crude. That's the beauty of openwheel cars.... plenty of what you need, nothing you don't need.

[red70racer]

DArnell You have let the secret out of the bag
Because I'm old and our race car generally goes around a corner I've had more than 1 up and comers with too much cash ask me about setups
I've told them basically what you outlined
They don't tell me to my face they don't believe me, but I know the look
Good information DArnell

[badcoupe]

We've been running tq and Midget since 99 and I always try to keep learning but granted there are lots of adjustments many rarely need bothered. I went to one of drinans seminars and also pay per viewed the Hyper Racing one last month. Interesting info on a few bits but basically reinforced the basics. Drinan had Garrett from csi shocks come In and do a bit on shocks and that alone was worth the admission, very good info for a guy like me who always liked a fairly basic shock package. KISS applies a lot to the cars keep it simple.