Just installed the Dick Miller Racing no-hops and adjustable upper arms and the axle is moved over to the right. It won't have far to squat before it rubs the side of my slick although according to DMR it will lift and not squat. Is there something I can do to center it better? Would like to gain about 3/8ths of an inch for peace of mind. My 10 inch slicks won't fit but the 9's do. Thanks, David
Join the club!!!! I've had DMR set-ups on two different cars. On the first car I used his whole set-up, including lower bars. The hard plastic bushings in his lower bars actually allowed the rearend to come forward on one side. Yep, the wheelbase was 1/4" shorter on one side. I first notice it because the steering wheel was crooked when the car was going straight. I sold that car. When I built the GS I have now, I used Global West lower bars with a spherical bearing in the front end and a Del-a-lum bushing in the rear end. This helped the rearend stay straight, but it still pulled it over a little, just like you've described. Then I installed a factory swaybar. That did two things. First I didn't have to run as much preload, which is the cause of the rearend pulling to one side. Secondly, the swaybar acted like a big spring to keep the rear end centered. Mine still isn't perfectly centered, but it's better than it was. You might double check your pinion angle and pre-load. The drivers side bar is used to set pinion angle, so if you make it to long you are actually pushing the rearend to the right. Then you compaund the problem by shortening the left side to get preload. It's really not a very good design, from GM that is. But, we work with what we have. I can't complain, really. I've gone 1.43 60' times (footbrake) with my GS and I'm still looking for more. The car goes real straight and hooks fairly consistently. I'm using Hoosier 9" radial slicks. Have fun.
What Jeff said is right on. Here's how I got my DMR stuff to work good.......I sold it. ou: Not the his stuff is junk or anything, it's very nice. It's just when your trying to adjust two different bars that are at extreme angles from each other you can't help but to push the rearend all over the place. I kept the Global West lower bars, which are just like Jeffs. I installed billet spherical upper housing bushings from Wolfe Racecraft and used Southside Machine upper bars. I then use a Wolfe anti-roll bar to add a touch of preload. I've been much happier with this set up, it's nice to go down the track with everything free and nothing binding. If I were you, I'd still see if you can your DMR stuff to work. Try and get the housing centered and see just what your pinion angle is there. In my opinion, you have a very small window for adjusting and still keeping everything free (no binding). Don't go overboard on preloading, I found that a little can go a long way. Also I'll add that my experience stops at 11.0's.
Thanks guys, I'll try and deal with since I already incurred the expense. ou: I just installed it last Saturday and haven't tried it out yet. David
David, I used that DMR system until this season when i switch to Wolfe Racecraft stuff. I had pretty good luck adjusting them together until I got the pinon angle right and then another 1/2 turn on the passangers side for preload. Good luck
Yep, what Shayne and Jeff said and to add, in my case the harder the car launched approaching the low ten second range the more preload it needed to keep it straight. This then pulled the passenger side tire even closer to the outer wheel well. I do run a huge (or did) swaybar, which helped a lot.
