Alberto Aguirre Jr <bluedoberman@yahoo.com> wrote:
: I was recently told by a couple of people to put
: traction bars on my truck. A guy with a custom shop
: said not to. They dont help and I should use some old
: hot rodder trick with some sort of "ladder setup".
: Has anyone ever heard of this "ladder traction" trick
: and if so does it have advantages over traction bars?
Unless this guy is talking about something else, as
far as I know, ladder bars are usually welded between
your axle and frame, and are generally done on race-only
vehicles. I don't think they behave very well on the
street. The advantage of traction bars is that you can
just bolt them on and they won't hurt the streetability.
I had some generic Lakewood traction bars on my '96 Dak
for a while, and they did help to eliminate the "chop"
and chatter that I was getting on launch. There are more
sophisticated traction bars available such as Slide-A-Links
and Caltracs, which you might want to take a look at.
Those are nice because they don't just hit the bottom of
the leaf spring, they are bolted in place on both ends
and you can easily adjust the preload just by turning
a nut, rather than having to take everything apart to
install shims.
Unless your Dak spends most of its time on the drag strip,
I don't think ladder bars are going to be a good choice.
--
-Jon-
.- Jon Steiger --- jon@dakota-truck.net or jon@jonsteiger.com -.
| 67 Dodge Coronet, 70 Plymouth Barracuda, 76 Peugeot TSA |
| 78 Dodge B100, 90 Dodge Dakota Convertible, 92 Dodge Ram 4x4 |
| 96 Dodge Dakota, 96 Suzuki Intruder 1400, 96 Kolb FireFly |
| 99 Jeep Cherokee 4x4, 01 Dodge Ram 3500 CTD |
`--------------------------------- http://www.jonsteiger.com --'
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