Has anybody seen or have any photos of a panhard or whats link set up for a 1200. I have had a look on the photo album but no luck. There is probably a photo on here but i havnt found it yet.
Thanks
Coops

Coops, If you use the ADVANCED SEARCH bar on the left and type in "4 link rear end" you will find some pics of pan hard rod/link set ups.

with proper leaf and shock setup in a coupe a panhard is deemed totally unnecessary for racing yet alone for the street. Maybe a sedan is a different story as the shocks are at 90 degrees to the axles....
save your $$$ dump the panhard...

Coops,
I have investigated fitting a panhard rod to my race car, but after much thought and research i dicided to go down the watts link road. A bit of mucking around, i know, but I think it would be a better setup in the end. panhard rods have there merit i.e simplicity etc, im just not convinced that they work as well as a watts link.

Benny

I am running 195 60 14 dunlop DO1Js. I have flared the rear gaurds but the inner part of the outside tyre rubs on the inner gaurd. Im not a copy cat but I wanted to see what some others have done. I am going to make a bolt in alloy 4 link control arm set up when i finly get my lathe but at the moment I just want to do somthing quick.
Coops

Mark,
If you try running a panhard on your current leaf spring set up you end up just binding the suspension up.

This is because the panhard moves in an arc and will try to flex the leaf springs laterally.

The only way to get it working properly with leafs is to use ultra soft bushes, not recommended, or use something like this Spring Bearing.

The spring bearing still causes some bind but nowhere near as much as hard bushes.

The Watts Linkage is better as far as if set up properly you will get zero lateral misalignment during suspension travel.

The other condieration is to find where your current roll centre is with the leaf springs and make sure that whatever method you try does not cause problems with this part of the geometry. Here's some more reading for you... Leaf Spring Tech

If you want to try something cheap and different have a go at setting the rear up as a z-link, similar to 4-bar but with 2 of the links running to the rear, you could probably use the existing leaf spring mounting points for this and just weld some brackets to the diff.

I found for simplicity on the circuit ive run rubber bushed leaf springs with the panard but paid paticular attention to getting the panard in the centerline of the diff and as long as posible

as in it nearly rubs on the drum brakes

I have found no bind what ever and its really good on the track

but if you can afford the time and effort fit a watts link these are much better

I went with pannard as I want to be able to run the exhaust out the back easyly


I also run rear shackal bushes in my pannard also rubber

The guy at Peddars in Hawthorn (Vic)swears by the Panhard Rods. Everytime I go into see him he asks me If I have put one on my coupe yet, and draws diagrams about how they work.
He used to work on a few and says that it transforms the handling of them when setup correctly. He is a really good friendly resource if you are after some advice (and free so far)

doing a spot of trigonometry i have decided the following

For a suspension travel of 3 inches and a horizontal Panhard rod of 30 inches (centre to centre) there will be a maximum lateral misalignment of 0.9 mm.

If you need 5 inches of travel then it grows to a massive 2.65mm so unless your tryes do not distort at all then i doubt the shift of the diff will be noticable.

If there is anyone who thinks that a Watts link is worth its weight (literally) then im all ears as i do not know if the amounts spoke of above are significant but am not a seasoned racer.

I think like most things it is how its done not what you do, if you have a 15 degree angle on the Panhard then it will be bad but if it is horizontal at ride height then its not that bad. Also if you want 10 inches of suspension travel then maybe go the watts but they are heavier and require more bracing.

Once again just my thoughts and im open to comment especially from those who have tried and had problems as i am going down the Panhard road and believe 3 inches of travel is enough.

Ben

Quote:
To put it in perspective, that lateral displacement of 0.9 mm, or 36 thousandths of an inch, is less than the gap in the spark plug of an electronic ignition & I think that the original spring bushes, even when new, allowed much more movement than that, so with urethane bushes at the ends, the panhard bar would be just fine if set up like Ben described.