Hot Rods 32 Ford handling issues

I have a 32 Tudor sedan. It handles well on the highway and is reasonably comfortable on the road. BUT, it sucks going around corners.
It has stock 32 front suspension with a dropped axle and lever shocks. The rear is banjo with reversed main leaf and one additional leaf removed.
I know I can't be the only guy with this problem and I wonder what fixes others have come up with.
I certainly don't expect sports car handling, but there must be something that I can do?
Maybe air shocks? something with helper springs?
Thanks
Jim

 

What kind of tires and wheels??????????????????

 

What is it actually doing in corners?

 

How fast are you taking corners, with that 82 year old technology? What do you think it should be doing and at what speed?

 

It just leans over too much in turns. I know it's a bit top heavy being a sedan, but thought it should corner better. It has wire wheels and radial tires

 

What tfeverfred said.

 

You need sway bars.

 

Thats an easy fix!
I ran the rear buggy spring for the first 200,000 miles & also got tired of the leaning in mtns. & curves.
Installed the Posies semi eliptical kit in 1996, in rear & love it, no more leaning in mtn. driving or curves.

 

A good set of tube shocks may help a great deal. Mounted at approx 45 degrees

 

If you lay the shocks at 45 degrees, it alters the motion ratio 2:1 [or 50% depending on how you do your math] You would need 4 x the stiffness in the shocks to get the same resistance as a shock that is mounted vertical.

What the OP needs is to increase the roll stiffness without increasing the harshness of the suspension,
The best way to do this is front and rear sway bars.
Do both front and rear to try to keep the car neutral ,up to the point where one end slides out first [ either understeer or oversteer ] then that end is too stiff.

 

Panhard bars and sway bars. Also use shocks that match your tire style, radial shocks are tuned for radials, and so on. Using leaf springs? Remove and grind ends so they don't dig into the corresponding spring, and add Teflon liners. Springs are often overlooked because we don't think of them as needing a lot of attention. If you have the Teflon button style, "Well, excuse me!" Another overlooked aspect of setting up a car is that all roads have a crown to cause water to run toward the curb, when setting up front suspension. I've often thought of using a wedge, like round track racers, to offset this, though 'thought' is the operative word at this point. Obviously it can dealt with on independent front ends no problemo.

 

How would a sway bar on only the front only work out/improve handling ?

 

The traditional method of dealing with the crown in the road is to use positive camber [and toe-in to counteract camber thrust ] , Not necessary these days with better roads and radial tyres.
Weight jacking "wedge" into a road car is a recipe for disaster.
You'll get corner entry understeer under brakes one way and not the other. And the opposite under acceleration [one direction will be loose]
The purpose of wedge in a dirt car is to preload the inside rear, then weight transfer on the corner distributes the weight evenly so that tyre stagger will corner the car.

 

To keep whatever handling state you car has you shouldnt make a change at one end only , front/rear bars designed for the car shouldnt change "handling"(meaning under/over steer) but they will lessen roll, which can increase conering speed (swerve responce wil be a lot better) . One can be used to correct (lessen or increase if you like) undeersteer and/or oversteer. If the car has two bars already trying stiffer/softer at one end can tune out whatever your after.
Shocks control suspension oscilliations, tune the suspension with spring and bar stiffness then fit shocks that suit the springs/car weight. Tyre design has more to do with camber caster requirements, change tyre type consider changing caster/camber.

 

^^^ Thanks.

 

This is what's under my Deuce sedan and it handles like a sports car on twisty roads. HRP

 

whack 5" out of it and it won't be so top heavy

 

Bingo!
Ding-ding-ding !

 

My car is old so am I. Neither of us can handle tight twisty turns. So we just go about 60-65 mph and enjoy it.

 

Another idea (that probably doesn't have a lot to do with the body lean) is to check for correct Ackerman setting on the front end. Lotsa modified spindles aren't even close.

 

Guys, Sway bars are not traditional, nor can I see a good way to install using the stock Ford suspension. Guess I'll just have to go slower. Nuts

 

Hey HRP, what suspension is under your car w/sway bars?
Thansk
Jim

 

S-10 frame conversion would be best.

 

You don't need sway bars or panhard bars.
You need to get a few books on car handling from the library. (there are many)
This is a pic of the fastest "C" sports racing class car in the NW in 1955.
It raced against Mercedes 300SL's, C Jags and similar class cars.
It had ALL early Ford running gear. The modifications to the running gear did not require a machine shop or any additional special parts.
One other thing, the driver is part of the handling combination.

 

To reduce bodyroll you need to increase roll stiffness. [ in proportion to Centre of Gravity Height over Roll Centre Height ]
If the CGH is low then less roll stiffness is needed.
One patch up method is to raise the Roll Centre, but this causes the vehicle to slide instead of roll during lateral acceleration.[not recommended]
Bodyroll is controlled by front and rear roll stiffness combined , if the chassis can control torsional twist.
Most of the time people are looking at the wrong end of the vehicle
The moment you removed the leaf in the rear you created an understeering situation [ the car will fall over and sledge into the corners]
Why, because the rear now wants to fall over more because the is less rear roll stiffness. Now assuming the chassis doesn’t twist, when the rear bodyrolls X° the front will also want to roll X°
So now the outside front tyre is overloaded for the proportional cornering loads [causing understeer] and the front crossleaf is trying to control more roll than it was designed to do.
A Rear sway bar is a “tuneable” fix.
So is adding more leafs and getting the ride height re-set.
Another method if you want the rear suspension to remain soft is to use coil springs [soft] but increase the spring base as far apart as possible [this increases roll stiffness without compromising harshness]

 

My kind of fix!

 

Lower that sucker!

 

I have stock springs front and rear with a 4" dropped bell axle up front. I used a front sway bar from Chassis Engineering and it solved the problem for me. Don't know about being traditional or not but it's hardly noticeable and very easy to install.

 

Great info as always Kerrynzl!

I have read that a rear sway bar only (ie no sway bar on the front) is a no-no. Can you either dispel this as bad info, or elaborate?

 

Polish sway bar, works perfect on my Deuce 4-door. Old seat belts sewn to fit just right on both sides