30 replies to this topic

[grandstand-fan]

Whats this I hear that 4-5 Stock cars went thru inspection Friday night at lima with swedge tubes for inner and outter tie rods? I looked up the rules on lima's web page. #11. Suspension a. Weight jacks are optional. Front suspension and steering must be unaltered O.E and in stock location, and must be replaceable by stock part from same type suspension. If this is true Y are they not Disqualified ? Just like the bar cars running there now same rules in the same section! #11. Suspension d. Rear suspension must be stock O.E design. No added lift arms, shocks or springs. Aftermarket pan hard bars are optional, but must be solid. Upper torque link/biscuit bar (24"max length) optional, but mounting point on car must be within 24 inches of axel centerline. No Macpherson struts or coilovers eliminators. No swing arm suspension. Rear suspension area must remain open and unobstructed for inspection. What part of a swedge tube/endexing birdcage rear suspension fits under STOCK O.E DESIGN. Where does it say Bar cars are ok to run with indexing bird cages? Looking on the photo section on Andersons car the left rear tire is almost out of the entire body of the car, Douglas is almost as bad. Watching last week them pullig the left front tire almost all the way down the back stretch is wrong. Lima needs to put a stop to these late model/E-Mod wan't to be Stock cars. The roofs on some of the cars even look like mod roofs, or late model's. for that fact.

[Role out]

As far as tie rods that's been going on for years and what I heard is limaland ok'd the rear suspensions before the race season started and if they r running with 4 bars or 3 bars it doesn't really matter there very complex hard to get right what's right tonight won't b right next time

[Role out]

As far as tie rods that's been going on for years and what I heard is limaland ok'd the rear suspensions before the race season started and if they r running with 4 bars or 3 bars it doesn't really matter there very complex hard to get right what's right tonight won't b right next time and by the way 4 tires r better than 3

[Douglas82]

Lol this is hilarious. Swedge tubes we have been running for years really is that all you got to b!tch about.... And Limaland and Eldora were absolutely fine with the 3 bar and 4 bar cars the only thing I think is funny is that a bar car hasent even won a race this year maybe they should make leafs illegal those guys are fast!!!! Someone always has something to cry about!!!

Edited by Douglas82, 11 June 2013 - 05:43 PM.

[stocker]

Chris not to be mean but Limaland has never said swedge tubes were ok in the 14 years I have been there. and as far as the bar cars at Eldora/Limaland being ok the night at Eldora they had tech why did you have your birdcage locked up if they were legal to run. Just like the alum intakes they never alowed you to run them until this year and the rule changed in the rulebook, so if lima said they were ok I think they would have changed the rules also. Tim Conover

[Douglas82]

Chris not to be mean but Limaland has never said swedge tubes were ok in the 14 years I have been there. and as far as the bar cars at Eldora/Limaland being ok the night at Eldora they had tech why did you have your birdcage locked up if they were legal to run.
Just like the alum intakes they never alowed you to run them until this year and the rule changed in the rulebook, so if lima said they were ok I think they would have changed the rules also.

Tim Conover

All I knw is for the last 4 yrs me and several people have had swedge tubes and Limaland seen them every year not trying to get in a pissing match but how does that make the car any better or faster and before we spent the money to build our car and the other guys that did the same changes we asked lima and they said it was fine so why if they say its ok are we making a big deal out of it u guys are beating the bar cars every week and as far as Eldora goes my car hasent changed we run same there as we do lima

[Douglas82]

In the rule book it does not call out that aluminum intakes are ok

[dirttrackfan4life]

Wow this is hilarious. Swedge tube or stock adjuster, they do the same thing basically. A swedge tube is just more stabile and dependable. As for bar cars at Lima or Eldora. I do remember a certain bar stock car at eldora which was a peirce car, which won multiple championships. There was a conversation about using swedge tubes at an Lima awards banquest quite a few years ago. The reason they allowed them was they were more durable thank stock parts, which made the cars stay in the race and not break so often. Hell I say lets put a limit on motors. Lets run a speck carb or something. That will make it more interesting than these people building 15,000 dollar motors. Just an opinion. Have a great day

[stocker]

If swedge tubes were legal, I would have them on my cars!!! I have been through 4 outter and 3 inner tie rods this year. Not only are swedge tubes more durable than STOCK OEM REPLACEMENT PARTS, swedge tubes can be used to adjust the bump steer... if you understand how front end geometery works... and I do... you would understand the "performance advantage"!!!! As far as bar cars in the stock car class, if you want to run them, pull the fenders off and run with the mods or keep the fenders, lose the tail pieces and run a limited late. The season started with cars "looking" like latemodels, and as the season goes on, the cars are rotating like latemodels. This is a STOCK CAR class that is way out of hand, birdcages are not a STOCK OEM REPLACEMENT PART. I know the chassis have already been paid for, so the simple cost effective fix for this problem is to weld or bolt the birdcage, and not just for tech for inspection after the race. oh and I know the tricks so I'll point them out for all to read. Bolt heads and nuts welded to the birdcage to appear to be bolted, and silicone painted black to appear the birdcages are welded. If the left rear tucks up underneath, the birdcage is indexing. It's that simple boys... weld em or bolt em!!!!!!!!! And $15000 for a motor... they say you get what you pay for, and horsepower costs money...if so i am out motored times 3!!! You do the math.

[Douglas82]

I'd give u 6000 for your motor buy all u have for that. Lol

[long-26]

One fact among all this is the class is out of hand. Has been for a while. The top cars are declared legal every week At a track where they actually tech the cars. rules are set so why the complaints now?. if swedge tubes was what it takes to go fast I would of had a win by now. it takes big bucks to go quick. Which is why I am done til I can put something decent back on track. Good luck to all the stock teams for limas final 7 shows...sounds like it will be fun to watch

[stocker]

At the end of the year if we do go late modle racing with Jordan I will sell it for 6,000.00 to ya. I have less then that in it Chris not Kidding!!!! Justin it's not just money that makes them quick! Time, effort and knowledge goes a long way!

Edited by stocker, 11 June 2013 - 09:16 PM.

[long-26]

Well obviously or any guy with a padded wallet would be running up front

[kartracer229]

Well just for the giggle factor, since Ive waited for some arguements to come up, I do work on a stock car at Lima, last year we had a bar car and right out of the gate I said "this thing should never have been built and been able to roll through tech". This draws up the dumbassery when they put simply in the rules "No Swing Arm Suspension". Well naturally thats what ours was...however, Z-Link is legal...wait a minute wtf? So...just because the spring is not on the trailing arm its ok now?? For the Steve Brown last year we came with 4 bar, Z-link. You dont realize how many people said "your car looks like one of the most stock ones out there!" Until it hiked up on the bars. My views on this whole bar deal is it is a load of crap. We were told in tech when we had to move the spring off the trailing arm, that we could mount the spring forward (pierce style). In tech we were told we had to weld the spring mount so the mount wouldnt move. Well just kind of a hint, I dont think I really want my spring mount moving. So do they really understand what "moves" when the car gets on the bars? I worked on a late model team in 2008, and Ill be 100% honest my view is, if you know what your doing with a bar car, then that bar car would win every single night out. I read something once "A dry track is a 4 bar playground". Ill agree with that. Id 10x over rather be on a 4 bar 4 bar, and dont think it didnt cross our mind when we built our new car this year. I do understand the KISS theroy, but if you can find someone who can set the bar stuff up, you should be untouchable, otherwise Bloomer would be on leaf springs everywhere he goes. There are peoples theroys as to why the bar cars never worked that well 10 years ago, weight, the tire they were on then, and several other things, but I think now, since the stock cars are old modifieds and late models, I would venture to say a bar car used properly, would be untouchable. It is awesome to see the leaf cars still kicking the crap out of all the fancy bar stuff though. Another huge problem you have right now is how to locate/build a new car. I know if they wanted to go to like an IMCA deal, full frame cars are hard to come by, and people just change the stock mounting locations to make them hike up anyways. Currently our car is built to the rules 100%. Its a 36 inch behind the balljoint camaro clip, steel leaf spring car, no pull bar. Were struggling, but were making strides every week to get it better, but we had to have a late model chassis builder build it for us, theres simply no one left to get a car in a timely fashion except Conovers. We also built a leaf spring car because we heard the rule of "Birdcages must be solid and welded to the rear end", which never happened. Absolutely our car looks like a late model...thing, and we have our reasons. My driver is not tall, but tall in the upper half, when he sits down, he sits as high as someone who is 6'7" tall. So when we built our car, Ron Miller builds his cages 3 inches taller than a conventional late model, and we had another 3 added to that so I could have my drivers head under the cage. I think if Lima had a tech on this like "Suprise, were checking to see if your helmet is above the cage after heat race", I think everyone would be shocked. Anderson's head stuck out above the cage if you look at the Montpelier Outlaw Show photos when he put a sprint car wing on. Anyways. We had a very very tall cage car, to the point for 1, it looked like a pop up camper, 2 if we used a standard deck height/door height, the window openings would have been insanely large, more than enough for a car to get a wheel inside and do quite a bit of damage. So we built the doors high to have a standard size opening. Well since everything has been raised, what nose are we going to be able to use without it looking stupid with a bumper cover 600 miles in the air and everything hitting our radiator? All that was left was the slant nose. Cars have been getting away with them for years (Koz, Ralston, Craig) so whats the complaint now. Just a reference, our entire air cleaner sits under the hood, no raise or anything to show you how high the deck is. Our car is also one of the safest out there, my driver can get out from the front, the passenger side, and the rear of the car if needed. Tim I know your talking about our car about the late model look, yours looks like an ASA car, so...whats the difference between Dirt Late Model and Pavement Late Model? Its all sheet metal. The problem is, this class is WAY too far gone. Hell even the college cars are running carbon composite leaf springs (I know it doesnt say you cant, but if were complaining about bars and things of this nature, when did a Hyperco Carbon Composite leaf spring ever come on a 1985 Monte Carlo) There still is favoritism in tech, Ive seen it too many times this year already. If you cant make the declaration in tech between a pull bar and a lift arm (seen it in person), then you shouldnt be in a tech man's position. We got yelled at for rust on our brake rotors this year after we washed the car and let it sit throughout the week. Come on. Theres a million other things to look at/for. Hell what about those stupid inspection panels they make you put in on the interior decking? I remember when if you didnt have one, you were being sent home. We spent 50 bucks on one, and its never been opened. Come on guys. I didnt put it in there for a dog and pony show. I remember they did a visual tech on the Wooten cars last year, told the #7 his nose was too wide, and they needed to narrow it. Then the #1 (had a stock monte carlo nose piece on) went through tech, and it went through no bubbles no troubles...and the #1's nose was 4 inches wider. Theres no templates, theres no yes you can, no you cant bars. Its all visual and if you think you can do it, then do it. The only place Lima has to blame for them being out of hand is themselves. The unenforcement of tech for the past 10 years has led to what you have today. The rule books are so far outdated. I remember when Waynesfield was talking a little bit about Stock Cars this year, and we told them to update the rules, and would assist in doing so (in a reasonable manner), to bring things around to the cars of today, then the class was dropped. I even heard they thought about bringing back the motor claim rule this year...well why in the hell would you do that when you have 15 guys who already have the big cash spent? You cant real back the engines at this point, theres too many of them out there to give them a 355 rule (and lets be honest, they wouldnt tech it anyways, too many ways to cheat it, look at the Thundercars, I know of Dart Block 415's in that division), so you can make it a steel leaf spring no mono leaf rule, or stock bar style must run the bushings and whatnot in a stock location. If your needing to look up rules for this, Indiana Super Stocks has a diagram of how the stock style rear suspension may look. I hate my long postings, but you have a million problems in the stock car division, not just bar suspension and swedge tubes unfortunantly, and at this point, Im not quite sure how to real it back in.

[stocker]

Not necessarily, you also have to have tallent. Look at both of my cars, they are identical when they hit the scales and the way they are built, they also have the same numbers on the dino. But why does one run upfront every week and one has only cracked the top 5 once. Not bashing on my own driver but tallent is needed. One thing people always say is that i have a padded wallet and that is no where close to the truth. I work every day of every week just to go racing at the end of the week. And also sponsorship goes a long way.

[kartracer229]

Well yes, there has to be a level of talent, but come on, if I put Jordan in my compact at Waynesfield, he isnt winning either. Its the best combo of everything. But the combo's that people are putting together are out of hand

[stocker]

Eric apples to apples! That car Brad is in won how many features when Kevin drove it. Just like the late modle team of Rick Delong we crew with on big races. Put Matt Miller in it and how many races have we won in less then two years. Good cars and talent goes a long way.

[Emily Gade]

IMCA stock cars is a great way to go. There are lots of chassis builders out my way for them and while I understand the frames are getting difficult to find they are not impossible. Back home our rule says you have to run a full frame car for the stocks, both in IMCA and the outlaw class I ran. They're obviously not as abundant as they used to be but they are out there if you put in a little bit of effort. I guess we are all running them and never had a problem finding a car. IMCA stock cars are great because you have options while keeping the stock look. You can't run an aluminum body, but you can move trailing arms wherever you want (stock ones, which is what every stock car class around me has to run) they also have a great engine rule, you can either run unlimited compression and cubes with a stock 350 Cfm carb or a max 361 cube and a 10.5 to 1 compression ratio with a 500 Cfm carb. No crazy suspensions and no loopholes in the rules. Wish they would've adapted those rules in my area back home. It's a great class and the racing is phenomenal. My car is a full framed stock 4 link, trailing arms in stock location. It's the same car I ran back home except I am allowed to remove 100 lbs of lead for out here. I ran 6th in the feature right behind Douglas. Just from my experience at Lima, I don't think the bar cars have that much of an advantage when it's tacky, just when it slicks off. While I agree the rules are a little out of hand, we did it to ourselves. Not just the tech guys should be getting the blame. We as racers are supposed to use our brains and ingenuity to push limits, find grey areas and maybe bend the rules a little. Just like every stock car class in America, this slowly gets worse and worse until we get in the position we are in right now. Then we complain about how we want to go back. One guy pushes the rules a little, so the next does the same thing trying to compete and keep up with the other guy. It continues on down the line until we get into a spot like this. It's not just happening here, don't blame Lima. Same thing happened/is happening at all my Iowa/Illinois tracks. Reasons for this is just vague rules. If you have vague rules that leaves lots of room for us to experiment with pushing limits. Honestly when we were thinking of bringing my car out here we read the rules and thought I would have to scale back my car in order to be legal. If truth be told I should've upgraded it. For only reading the rules and never seeing the track or local cars, we believed we built the car to specs per the rules while making it as optimum as possible (suspension-wise) wow, we were sure wrong. That's why the IMCA class is so great though, their rules are written almost without flaw. Has anyone ever read them? You can't really fit any grey into them. If someone does, they rewrite the rules to address the problem. Granted, racers are racers and the bending, testing, and ingenuity still come into play, but most of that would be so blatantly obvious because of how the rules are written. It's mostly yes or no, no in between. Because of that the class thrives. It's not just because the tech guys are amazing either. They are not any better/worse than what is working at Lima, I promise you that. The "late model" looking noses (for me anyway) is more of a money saving and time saving thing for me. In 2010 I ran stock appearing stock car nose with aluminum fenders and had to replace them about 4-5 times thought the year. We went to the plastic fenders and instantly fell in love. Plastic is so easy to maintain, so it gets bent a little, pop it back out. Heck if its really bad throw a heat gun on it and pound it back out with a rubber mallet. I even run plastic fender braces and plastic angle along the panels to hold everything together. So so so so much easier. KISS, right? I will point out I do not run an MD3 late model nose, it is simply the "classic dirt" nose and fenders you can buy straight out if a performance bodies magazine. It's unreal how different things are 400 miles away yet some things are exactly the same. At home we have to run full framed cars with bone stock suspension, yet we're allowed to run whatever 4bbl carb we want, slab bodies, no tail pieces, hood scoops, and closed in cockpits. Out here we can run the crazy suspensions and mostly tubular chassis, yet we have to be on a 2bbl and run a stock resembling tail piece. Yet, we are faced with the same issues with things getting out of hand. Oh, and Lima's leaf spring cars run up front every night, at home if you bring a lead spring car to the track you get laughed at, lol just another example of the differences, it's crazy. I guess just know its not only here and no one person/thing should get the blame I'm doing this on my phone so hopefully the pictures upload, but just for a visual the first car is an IMCA stock car, the second pic is what I raced against in Iowa, and the third is my car fit to Lima's rules. Ehh...i would say Lima has a little of the best of both worlds body/nose piece-wise. Just wish the rule book was written a little bit more in depth on the mechanical end. Is it gonna change? Probably not. Are we gonna keep racing? Yep. Are people still going to complain even if some things do get changed? You bet

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Edited by Emily Gade, 11 June 2013 - 11:09 PM.

[Dirtracer48]

I only question why this is coming up now.....nobody seemed to care what my car looked like when I was struggling the past two weeks......the timing just confuses me at all. I also question if this is a good place to argue it, but I see there are a lot of drivers here.....so why not? Bodies: NONE of them look like production cars, they haven't for a long time. Why is the "late model" nose specifically a problem when none of the rest of them are stock appearing either? Kartracer (although he speaks for himself and I may not agree with everything he said) pointed out a lot of reasons the LM style nose works out well for my car, here are a couple others. I got it free.....yes it was used. I have a total of $50 in two complete noses ready to bolt on, sans the new pair of fenders I bought for it to look nice for the car shows. Another reason is, if you understand the way high and low pressures work in aerodynamics, it is VERY easy to have a cool running engine with one. This year is the coolest I've ever had my motor run, and there isn't one single hole in the nose. No mud on the radiator either. The deal just works for us, and in my opinion is no less stock appearing than any of the other stuff out there. Who cares if it looks like a late model, it looks and performs well. It's a race car, it isn't trying to sell itself for something it is not. I actually kind of like the fact that they now look like race cars, instead of trying to make the crowd think we all broke windows out of cutlass's and monte carlos'. Who are we trying to fool? My body cost no more than anyone else's, including those apparently complaining. Yes, the motors are entirely out of hand, they have been for a long time. Everyone knew this when getting in it. I have a friend that works at callies who says UNOH orders the same thing I did......so? Who is complaining? I am at the disadvantage of not having a dyno, and one of the few up front whose motor has never seen one. My engine builder knows his stuff, and I haven't needed to so far. As for some type of restrictor.....bad idea. Those with bucks will build their intakes, heads and cam around it and still perform the best. It will just cost everyone money, again. My motor was built in mind with a 2 barrel and the bowtie intake (both act as restrictors). For no good reason, they decided to allow aluminum intakes this year. My cam/heads are no longer optimal for this setup. I could change cams/heads (which would cost a ton of money), but I find the low end power I lost actually helps keep the tires under me on starts and restarts. Any little change will cost EVERYONE money. The claim rule is a terrible idea at this point. As I said everyone knew the cost of admission when entering this class. So I ask, what is the problem? Car counts are the best they have been in 10-15 years now. The rear suspensions I agree are out of hand, but not yet winning either. I was slightly faster than one 4 bar car friday, and lost position to the other one late in the race after a 2-car door shot combo took me out of competing for 2nd and third. Anyone is welcome to come look at my rear suspension, or anything they want. I have nothing floated, it is a stock leaf spring setup with sliders on the rear. One leaf was bought new this year, the other I just put in this past week that came used from a competitors car last year. As others have said, with the exotic rear suspensions the spring location or anything else isn't the problem, it's the fact that there is a rotating bird cage on them. It's physically impossible to run that suspension without. The leafs doing wheelies also have one. I say the rules should read as follows: All suspension mounts to axle housing must be solid - NO BIRDCAGES OR floating/rotating/indexing/moving type axle/suspension mounts of ANY kind on ANY suspension.

Edited by Dirtracer48, 11 June 2013 - 11:50 PM.

[Dirtracer48]

Eric apples to apples! That car Brad is in won how many features when Kevin drove it. Just like the late modle team of Rick Delong we crew with on big races. Put Matt Miller in it and how many races have we won in less then two years. Good cars and talent goes a long way.

That car has been hit hard a few times too, which could be affecting it. We all know Brad is a great driver too.....you've got some good wheelmen for sure.