[The Blue Pig]

While it is true that the 90/10 drag shocks are for letting the front rebound quick and compress slowly, and that you want weight transfer towards the back, you are not looking for the rear to squat. Any time the body squats, its a sign that the axle housing is moving upwards, and since it cannot lift off of the ground, the body drops, or "squats". Rear body squat does not mean that weight is applied to the suspension for better traction, but rather that the suspendion is moving up and unloading the tires, therefore minimizing traction. Now if you invest or fabricate a good 4-link or ladder-bar setup, you may be able to place your I.C. somewhere above your nuetral center line and get good pitch at launch, or even if you place it directly on your N.C. line, you will at least have no downward pitch of the body (upward pitch of the rear axle) and will save yourself a lot of time on E.T.'s. A properly setup suspension is what its all about. Well, one of the things. So yes, the shocks are all about weight transfer, and also absorbing the downward shock when the car touches the ground again, but you can have a good weight transfer to the rear, good launch, and as you said, tires slightly off the ground, without having the rear end squat. Its all about torque transfer and the route one would take to transfer that torque. Sometimes though, this is hard to accomplish, and that is why we see so many cars that squat on launch. Its just a common mistake, due mostly to appearance, cause yes, it does look like the rear would be getting the most traction with the weight of the car pushing down hard on the rear axle, but its actually vise versa, the axle is pushing up into the suspension. ok, now that I have almost written a chassis fab novel, I am done.

[This message has been edited by The Blue Pig (edited May 15, 2002).]