I was talking to the guy who's doing my rollcage at the moment, he's got a mk1 with the works forest flares etc. very impressive peice of machinery with coilover rear end, good to look at a fully prepared car, many ideas were stolen today.

He's running a bead across my rear axle housing like has been discussed on here previously, he reckons we can get 0.5-0.75

hehe, don't get me wrong, as a Datsun man Escorts are the enemy. I love nothing more than beating them - when I can. Although I begrudgingly admit that I kinda like the look of a Mk1 2door with forest flares.. I was just using them as an example that IRS isn't neccesarily the best thing for rallying either. Although it definitely is where the old Datsun semi trailing arm IRS got its best results. They still go well there too.

I'm into rallying as well, with a few mates who compete, and I had a crack at it a while back too. These days though I stick to the Touring Road Events (club level tarmac rallies - some of them use race tracks and closed road sections) and volunteer as officials at a few rallies. Did a Road Block at Rally Q (the Fiesta S2000 was an awesome sound in the forest!) and I'm a Stage Safety Officer for the SunCoast Classic (Targa style event)coming up.

Never been a fan of the 1600s though. When I joined a Datsun club many years ago to get into their Lakeside Track days with my 1200 coupe, anyone with anything other than a 1600 was a second-class citizen - much like you still get these days with Z club people. kind of turned me off them, and taught me to love beating them too.

Sweeeet, if you like Escorts !! But im a Datsun man all the way !! Go you Good thing!! Rip rip ford for lunch

no hard feelings L18_B110 i believe what you say.

i just cant fight the feeling

rally - live axle leaf sprung Escorts always had the 1600's measure. Lighter and more power.

haha its funny that it took holden so long to copy a crappy design

lack of traction and rediculous tire wear hey....seems just what i was after in a burnout car

but yeah there is no way i would do this to a street car

some really nice info there L18_B110.
I personally preffer IRS (not being a circuit racing guy) i love my Rally and street crusing. What i know is some of the best Datsun rally cars 1600, 180B SSS etc all have IRS standard. These days all sorts of manufactures release cars for luxuary and performance like Holden with IRS standard. Took them 30yrs to figure it out.

Not saying its better in all applications But as you can see i am a fan, and it looks tuff too.

Quote:

Rear camber doesn't do it for me. It's a combination of the ridiculous tyre wear and lack of traction but, each to his own.

I'm not such a big fan of IRS from a performance point of veiw. particularly the Datsun semi trailing IRS setup like in the above pics:
1) its heavy
2) poor geometry control - ie toe, camber, and roll centre though suspension travel all changes alot, which means all sorts of nasty things happening during cornering - bump steer, weight jacking etc.
3) excessive squat geometry too

the 'fix' adopted by most circuit cars is 1200lb springs to eliminate as much movement as possible. I think the wheel rate of that is a smidge over 300lbs

much easier and better to simply set up a good leaf spring live axle under the back of the 1200. It will work beter and be lighter.

oh, and all those extra unis soak up some power too.

but if you are after comfort or the camber look (which is not actually what you want for the rear for good performance/handling)

I would love IRS in my ute, Not just the handling aroung corners, but how nice does the camber look when its sitting on the ground
Alot of trouble, but very nice mod.

heaps interested pigdog in seening the end result of your project.

its not that low any more...angles alot less

chassis is complete now, so now on to trans tunnel and tailshaft tunnel