View single post by Ron Earp
 Posted: 04-10-2006 09:31 pm
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Ron Earp



Joined: 03-12-2005
Location: Cary, North Carolina USA
Posts: 339
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 Personally, I would not go for larger wheels for my street or race car.  Why? Well, larger wheels are generally going to increase in diameter and numercally lowering your final drive - 3.75  to a 3.5 is not uncommon going up a few inches.  Acceleration suffers and the 907 needs torque multiplicaiton.  Badly. 

Secondly, and this is a bigger reason, larger wheels means more weight, more unsprung weight, and the result is a much less sharper handling car.  I'd stick with as small as you can get away with and these little 13s, with Hoosier race tires, will generate in excess of well over 1g.  Heck, smallers ones, 205s, on Miatas at a little bit higher weight can generate over 1.1-1.2g on track.  I imagine the JH will do the same if I can get the nastyness of the welded diff tamed.

A standard sway bar won't do well in racing and we only have the modified one on there to offer some tunablity - we're hoping stiff as hell in the rear will result in some oversteer and counteract the push the welded diff will impart.  The other stuff you see is a panhard rod to locate the axle from side to side - there is nothing that really does this besides the four link in the JH and that is inadaquate.  You can see another picture here:

http://www.gt40s.com/images/jensen/diff.JPG

Pan hard comes across, is anchored to the frame, and makes sure the axle doesn't go left or right - reduces load on the lower trailing arms and mounts too, which is a good thing given how flimsy they are.