And if you have to ask “What football game?” you are probably one of my people.
Instead I’m here, making a blog post about arcane technical things related to building a hot rod from scratch and trying to figure out the correct ride stiffness and roll stiffness. I mentioned how I was trying to do the rear axle and figure the suspension but I couldn’t because I didn’t know which axle I was going to have? Well that’s not a problem with the front axle because I have all the things for the front end except the engine and all I need to do is leave some room for that.
I have several images and documents that have the dimensions of the LS architecture which is pretty much the same for everything from the 4.8L truck engine through and including the 7L LS7 even though some have iron blocks and some aluminum. So whatever gets stuck in front of the firewall is going to be pretty much the same externally. I know there is 43″ between the center of the front axle and the firewall, and 100″ wheelbase (center to center both axles), and the engine is going as close to the firewall as it will go without hitting anything. So I’m hoping I can get a space for the air off the radiator to make some downforce instead of running into the engine. The only thing I’m concerned about is increasing the polar moment by having the radiator right behind the front axle, but the increase would be minor compared to putting it back against the engine.
The reason I can put the radiator just clear of the back side of the front axle is I decided to put the tie rod in front of the axle instead of the normal behind the axle. This isn’t that daring a move, because back when sub-100″ wheelbase buckets were common and people were even making sub-90″ buckets for better dig off the line by increasing weight transfer, people put all the steering in front of the axle except the drag link which ran alongside the engine. I’m putting the steering box up front so why not shove the radiator right behind the axle? As I mentioned this has a slight negative effect on polar moment, but only a slight effect.
And it’s getting late now so I’m going to bed.
Witch on a Bicycle 