Hot Rods Cowl Steering and Suspension setup

You drove the Spencer car? Holy crap Pete! Don't tell us you drove the Flint roadster too! No doubt you know what you are talking about and I am so glad you are a member here willing to document your knowledge for the rest of us. Thank you so much.

 

The 34 had really bad white knuckle bump steer.
It's a bad pic for dissection .
I didn't build it.



The roadster pickup doesn't give off a bad road manner vibe and drives very well.
This one I did build.


The interesting thing is that with any cowl steering there's only one sweet spot where the arcs will not fight. Take any sweeping turn or lane change and the arc points are no longer in line.

 

PeteE,layed it out very well,an right! But there are those that just don't get it. Cowel steering is a very very high % of the time, done wrong,mostly by those that don't understand whats needed. There for a vary high % of poorly done cars with it,just look badly engineered to any one that knows. Some see an just do what they see,thinking that must be the right way {Don't copy misstakes] Whats also not said much,is a long pitmen arm is also bad,adds greatly to slop an poor control ,beside looking poor it's ugly to those that know better. Often the cowelsteering style is only done as a way around not being a good enough engineer to do it like most well done rods are or becuzzzz they think its tad. Hot rods to me is making it better,I really don't like seeing cowel steering myself done wrong.

 

Pete added some great feedback, also interesting to know that the Spencer car does suffer from bump steer which is one of the few cars you seen in the past with cowl steer.

 

More info on the Doane Spencer car.
Doane was a very talented race car builder, over a long period of time, including IMSA cars.
Doane owned his roadster for a number of years, and drove it with a very conventional chassis.
In the early 50's he decided to rebuild it to race in the Mexican road races, creating the chassis that is under it today.
Doane never finished the rebuild, and never drove the car with the cowl steering!
It wasn't until around 1970 that it was put back on the road by Neal East.
I knew Doane, he was a master craftsman. His cars were always a work in progress. His chassis expertise was very good. He was always looking forward to the latest designs. Some of his last builds were incredible.
I believe had he have finished & driven the roadster he would have made changes to improve the steering, that was the kind of guy he was !

 

Well said.