Wheel hop!!!
Thread Starter
Team Owner
Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 22,185
Likes: 65
From: NJ
Wheel hop!!!
w/ the Z06 size Firestone wide ovals my C5 MN6 has some pretty serious wheel hop, any easy way to eliminate it? I don't do a lot of burnouts but its annoying the heck out of me.
Race Director
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 10,649
Likes: 31
From: Central Florida
By far the simplest path to eliminating wheel hop is doing the driver mod.
That just requires being judicious with the throttle by squeezing it, rather than stabbing it. It's really that simple.
You will get some advice to
(1) switch to drag radials
(2) change the shocks
(3) change to poly bushings
You can, indeed, spend thousands of dollars modifying the car to correct the problem...or...you can make a slight adjustment in the speed of going to wide-open-throttle.
As for me, I've done the driver mod.
If you go to the drag strip, reducing the rear tire pressure hot to 25-26 psi will also help cushion the shock to the drive line brought on by aggressive launch and shifts.
Ranger
That just requires being judicious with the throttle by squeezing it, rather than stabbing it. It's really that simple.
You will get some advice to
(1) switch to drag radials
(2) change the shocks
(3) change to poly bushings
You can, indeed, spend thousands of dollars modifying the car to correct the problem...or...you can make a slight adjustment in the speed of going to wide-open-throttle.
As for me, I've done the driver mod.
If you go to the drag strip, reducing the rear tire pressure hot to 25-26 psi will also help cushion the shock to the drive line brought on by aggressive launch and shifts.
Ranger
Collections Hold
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 2,899
Likes: 6
From: Fort Wayne Indiana
This is another way to accomplish the same thing with 100% success if you can't seem to eliminate the condition via driving style modifications. This is why track cars (of any type) are built to withstand track use- independent of the driver. (of any skill)
Hope this helps. 
Wheel-hop/axle tramp is a direct function of abnormal suspension/drive line wind-up and deflection during acceleration. This condition negatively affects IRS and conventional axle equipped cars the same; however, the IRS drive line is far more inherently prone to this condition overall due to design.
No matter what one would like to believe, there is no "easy", silver-bullet, one-part-fixes-all component that will correct wheel-hop/axle tramp all by itself with 100% success in all applications; however, it requires a combination of a number of small, but critical, incremental suspension upgrades that will eliminate the destructive condition entirely....every time.
1. Coil over shocks with adjustable rebound/compression
2. Correct ride height for the application
3. Correct dynamically adjusted wheel alignment for the application
4. Correct tires for the application
5. Correct tire pressure
6. Polyurethane suspension bushings
We've done all of the above to quite a few of the cars we build here in-house that frequent the drag strips and not a single one of them has ever had wheel hop again...*ever*. It requires a lot of money and work to perform all of these upgrades at once, which most folks don't want to do, but then it takes the same to produce reliable power also and folks do that without a second thought. Unfortunately, adding drive line strength is not as glamorous as adding engine power, so most folks neglect the chassis of the car until something breaks. The downside however, is that fixing broken drive line parts over-and-over-and-over again due to wheel-hop/axle tramp isn't fun/cheap either. You can upgrade the car now or fix it later at a greater expense- Pick your poison....
The other problem is, that most folks never do all of the above upgrades at once either like they should, but rather the opposite to where they think they can try to cheap-out and only just do a couple of them instead to "save money" or because they don't think any of those conditions applies to them or their driving style. They soon find out otherwise..
Then those same folks who have cut corners by skimping on what's actually needed by the car are always scratching their heads later on wondering why their car still wheel-hops anyway, continuously shatters drive line parts over-and-over or they say, "it only wheel-hops a little bit now compared to before, so it's good enough".
*ANY* car that wheel-hops, no matter what brand it is- even a *little bit* is doing it far too much already, as that destructive condition *will* fracture the drive line eventually...it's just a matter of time.
The only way to secure drive line durability over time is to *completely* eliminate wheel-hop altogether as described above. Even a "little" wheel-hop is too much..... If one thinks they can "cheat" physics by only doing one or two of these upgrades "calling it good", than they are fooling themselves and wasting their own time and money, as the wheel-hop issue will *never* completely go away. There are no "gray areas" of what needs to be done to correct it and sometimes, there is only one way to do some things in life right- this is one of them...
JR-CRUZ-IN's low 9.teen's 1/4 mile IRS car is a prime example of an outstanding set-up using the above recommendations and his car's track durability record for years is a testament to that those upgrades do work *very* effectively when combined together in tandem.
No matter what one would like to believe, there is no "easy", silver-bullet, one-part-fixes-all component that will correct wheel-hop/axle tramp all by itself with 100% success in all applications; however, it requires a combination of a number of small, but critical, incremental suspension upgrades that will eliminate the destructive condition entirely....every time.
1. Coil over shocks with adjustable rebound/compression
2. Correct ride height for the application
3. Correct dynamically adjusted wheel alignment for the application
4. Correct tires for the application
5. Correct tire pressure
6. Polyurethane suspension bushings
We've done all of the above to quite a few of the cars we build here in-house that frequent the drag strips and not a single one of them has ever had wheel hop again...*ever*. It requires a lot of money and work to perform all of these upgrades at once, which most folks don't want to do, but then it takes the same to produce reliable power also and folks do that without a second thought. Unfortunately, adding drive line strength is not as glamorous as adding engine power, so most folks neglect the chassis of the car until something breaks. The downside however, is that fixing broken drive line parts over-and-over-and-over again due to wheel-hop/axle tramp isn't fun/cheap either. You can upgrade the car now or fix it later at a greater expense- Pick your poison....
The other problem is, that most folks never do all of the above upgrades at once either like they should, but rather the opposite to where they think they can try to cheap-out and only just do a couple of them instead to "save money" or because they don't think any of those conditions applies to them or their driving style. They soon find out otherwise..
Then those same folks who have cut corners by skimping on what's actually needed by the car are always scratching their heads later on wondering why their car still wheel-hops anyway, continuously shatters drive line parts over-and-over or they say, "it only wheel-hops a little bit now compared to before, so it's good enough".
*ANY* car that wheel-hops, no matter what brand it is- even a *little bit* is doing it far too much already, as that destructive condition *will* fracture the drive line eventually...it's just a matter of time.
The only way to secure drive line durability over time is to *completely* eliminate wheel-hop altogether as described above. Even a "little" wheel-hop is too much..... If one thinks they can "cheat" physics by only doing one or two of these upgrades "calling it good", than they are fooling themselves and wasting their own time and money, as the wheel-hop issue will *never* completely go away. There are no "gray areas" of what needs to be done to correct it and sometimes, there is only one way to do some things in life right- this is one of them...
JR-CRUZ-IN's low 9.teen's 1/4 mile IRS car is a prime example of an outstanding set-up using the above recommendations and his car's track durability record for years is a testament to that those upgrades do work *very* effectively when combined together in tandem.
