? diff in cal-trac vs slapper bar ?

[danny waters sr]

I am going to change my 66 nova from the traditional slapper bar to a split spring leaf and cal-tracs... what should i expect such as reaction and performance. My car works excellent as is but am looking for some help in reaction times and maybe pick the front wheels a little. As of to date my 283 has yet to lift front wheels and i do struggle on a consistent spot for a decent reaction time. Running stock class with 165 sixty foots and 490 on the 330 foot.

[Jeff Lee]

If you look at the Stock Eliminator cars you will see a majority of them run Cal-Track bars and springs and few, very few, run slapper bars.
I had the springs and bars on my '70 D/S AMX and wish I would have gone that route about two years earlier. I fought with SS Mopar springs for a few years and it really held back the performance.

[Alex Denysenko]

Originally Posted by danny waters sr

I am going to change my 66 nova from the traditional slapper bar to a split spring leaf and cal-tracs... what should i expect such as reaction and performance. My car works excellent as is but am looking for some help in reaction times and maybe pick the front wheels a little. As of to date my 283 has yet to lift front wheels and i do struggle on a consistent spot for a decent reaction time. Running stock class with 165 sixty foots and 490 on the 330 foot.

Danny, you have a PM.

[Hemiparts]

I'm in the same situation, new motor looked good last weekend @ Kinston now it's time to work on getting it to the ground. I thinking about Cal-Tracs myself I just posted above looking for suggestions on which spring to go with.

Chris

[Alex Denysenko]

Chris,
call me during the week.

M-F 10am-6pm CST

219-861-1214

or e-mail anytime
monymkrssla@aol.com

[cad]

We used to run slapper bars/j-bolts.
I highly recommend you get the matching Rancho 9 way adjustable shock so you can "control" the body separation, which plants the tire. You might not see any 60' improvement at all, but you will see consistency.
We didnt have consistency until we purchased the Calvert leaf springs. My 60' is around 1.54.
Alex is good to deal with and he is near Chicago, so shipping is quick if you are closer to him than Calvert in CA.

Clark

[Daran Summerton]

I love slapper bars! The best leaving camaro IMO (Bertozzi) runs em. My 80 camaro would 60 in the 1.40's on swap meet slapper bars and Kmart shocks, not saying the 1000$ set up is bad but they all pretty much accomplish the same thing -- stop spring wrap up. If you have plenty of pinion angle and it hooks good I would look at working on the freeing up the front end. Can you by hand bounce the front end easily or is it like a brick? No expert here just an alternative to spending $ on something that may not affect a 283 stocker.

[Dave Turner]

Originally Posted by danny waters sr

I am going to change my 66 nova from the traditional slapper bar to a split spring leaf and cal-tracs... what should i expect such as reaction and performance. My car works excellent as is but am looking for some help in reaction times and maybe pick the front wheels a little. As of to date my 283 has yet to lift front wheels and i do struggle on a consistent spot for a decent reaction time. Running stock class with 165 sixty foots and 490 on the 330 foot.

Mr Waters, I have a 6cyl FORD for sale that'll get your Nova in the air!!

Might give it a rash however......

[james schaechter]

Danny, you just need to hook up that clutch pedal that we talked about and you will get your front tires off the ground! LOL.

Also, be mindful of ride height when ordering the split monos. We started with the stock ride height,but like the lower ride height so we changed the back halfs to lower the car. We still have the standard height back halfs in the garage. The springs work well.
The Calvert stuff is very good. certainly the norm in the stockers. I have seen slappers on some notable cars too, but given the choice, I would go with the Calvert stuff.

Also, not sure of your tire size, but watch the belly of the inside of the slick. We have 9 x 29.5s on 8 inch rims and we had to really massage everything. It still rubs. This is an issue with most any mono spring by the way. Just something to really look at. Jim