Episode 41 - Traction Bars

The Muscle Car Guy Podcast

Today I am going to talk about how to get more power to the ground with your muscle car, and that is by working with traction bars to reduce wheel hop and change the twisting motion of the differential and springs into downward force.

First of all, if you are not familiar with what I mean by traction bars, here is what they are:

These are universal ones, which may or may not work well on your car, but it gives you an idea what they are.

What traction bars do is to take the rotation of the differential housing, and uses the bumper or snubber on the front of the bar to push against the spring eye to stop the rotation. That force is then used to push down on the differential since that force has to go somewhere and it helps push down on the tires.

Another option for traction bars are the caltrac type of bar. They work on a similar principal as the regular traction bars, but do so fir more adjust-ability and better use of the force to keep the spring from twisting.

And the pinion gear doesn't climb the ring gear, it is just Newton's third law that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. To show this, just try loosening a tight bolt with a good creeper and not have your feet on the ground, you will just turn.

Another option than using traction bars is to use spring clamps on the front portion of the spring together to stiffen the spring in the front so it won't twist as much, something like this:

Here are the links I mentioned in the show:

Traction Bars diagrams

Make your own Caltac bars

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