Does lowering your Camaro affect traction?

[Scott@Bjorn3D]

PQ got rid of his drop springs and went coil overs do to this.

[nancygrl]

coilovers and adjustable shocks is one way to be able to go to the strip and drive on the street.

[nancygrl]

TY Dragon22

[newagemuscle]

Originally Posted by Scott@Bjorn3D

PQ got rid of his drop springs and went coil overs do to this.

I would love to do that... I'm just to cheap.

[radz28]

Clean-up the comments

[2010SLVRBULIT]

depends on the intention. lower CG for track a plus, but might not be the best for drag tracks. people putting power into their cars, but failing to realize the aerodyamics that come into play.

[dragon22]

Originally Posted by nancygrl

TY Dragon22

Anytime nancygrl. I absolutely love it when something is explained so simply in such detail and is very hard to argue with. LOL

[BMR guy]

Originally Posted by Supercharged SS

If you ever find the answer to this let me know. I've been wanting to lower the car since Aug of 09 but I too am concerned that it will kill the launch. I'm having a hard enough time leaving the line as it is. My car still has the bone stock suspension except the trailing arms.

Not sure if this helps you or not but we've been able to get consistent 1.55 60 ft/times whether we have the OE springs or our 1" lowering springs installed...

[Apex Motorsports]

Originally Posted by nancygrl

There's a lot more to getting a car to hook up other than just the springs. With a drag suspension, it's important for the front end to unload quickly and smoothly and the rear suspension to resist severe squatting which can result in a springing (unloading) that kills traction.

Factory control arm bushings are not conducive to efficient suspension travel. The soft rubber factory bushings flex a lot during launch or cornering and allow the suspension to move further than it should, harming handling and traction.

Polyurethane is much more dense than the factory rubber bushings and much stiffer. They increase traction by preventing the factory suspension from traveling too far. The down side is that they are also better at transferring noise and vibration into the car.

Then there’s chassis stiffening. Giving your rear suspension a rigid chassis is important and helps effective weight transfer to the rear wheels and eliminating chassis roll, and subframe connectors do a great job at this and are fairly inexpensive. As far as weight transfer, it’s important to have a front suspension that reacts quickly upon launch and applies leverage to the rear suspension for more traction. By removing the front sway bar, the front suspension can more easily raise during acceleration/launch and apply leverage to the rear tires. Not to mention you're shedding some front end weight.

The struts and shocks are great for a comfortable ride, but not going to cut it on the strip. You want a set that are designed to extend easier and compress gradually for a controlled launch to keep the front end from bouncing too much and giving you a more scary run. If your not running enormous power levels the rear shocks would probably be ok. But for higher power levels you want to have rear shocks that are much firmer than the stock.

Probably the most important the most important modification you can make to get optimum traction is investing in a pair of drag slicks. Don't take tires for granted, you think you can get by with a street tire. And that's fine if you only visit the strip once a year. But if you're looking to optimize your ET's, slicks or drag radials are a must, they are not that expensive and can often make more difference in ET than more power.

Now that is a post! Bravo!

[Hotchkis]

Originally Posted by newagemuscle

Just wondering for you track guys that have lowered your Camaros. Did you guys notice a loss in traction after lowering your cars due to a stiffer ride?

Thanks

NewAgeMuscle,

This question depends on which track you’re talking about. Is it drag or road racing that you’re referring to? Lowering your car and your traction will depend on your suspension parts too.

We have many Camaro5 customers having great success with traction on both types of tracks with our Chassis Max Brace for the rear suspension cradle. It helps isolate the cradle and promotes off the line and lateral traction while cornering.

Here’s a video of a Camaro being tested with and without our Chassis Max Brace: