The H'ell Camino

Greg

Make RME Rockcrawling Again!
Admin
I've been working on the brake lights and turn signals recently. Replaced all the bulbs out back and replaced all the lenses. The previous lenses were broken and pretty ratty looking. After the new bulbs, not everything was lighting up so I ordered a new rear body harness, which gets installed next.

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I also had the car out after dark the other night and realized how bad the headlights were. One high beam is burned out and all the other lights are very poorly adjusted, pointing at the ground about 50' out. I picked up a new bulb to replace the burned out light and a hardware kit, in case any of the original parts are broken/stripped/missing. The H5006 is the outside combo low/high beam and the H5001 is the dedicated, inner high beam light. I think I'll replace all 4 lights with new Sylvania lights, they have good reviews. I'd really like to have great lighting with this car.

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TurboMinivan

Still plays with cars
Location
Lehi, UT
Can you find (do they still make?) Sylvania XtraVision lights? They’re still drop-in replacements, but are a bit brighter and have better light distribution patterns. For the small cost difference, they are well worth it IMO.

EDIT: here they are:

 

Greg

Make RME Rockcrawling Again!
Admin
Can you find (do they still make?) Sylvania XtraVision lights? They’re still drop-in replacements, but are a bit brighter and have better light distribution patterns. For the small cost difference, they are well worth it IMO.

EDIT: here they are:


Yeah, I just ordered that exact light for the low and high beams a few hours ago! :D
 

Hickey

Burn-barrel enthusiast
Supporting Member
I can personally attest that the new sway bar does an incredible job controlling the body roll, especially when the car is ballin up a long sweeping on-ramp and rolls through some unknown wet substance which causes the car to get sideways this way, then that way, then this way again, and finally a 180 leaving you facing oncoming traffic that's entering the on-ramp. Yup, fantastic sway bar. 😂
 

Greg

Make RME Rockcrawling Again!
Admin
I can personally attest that the new sway bar does an incredible job controlling the body roll, especially when the car is ballin up a long sweeping on-ramp and rolls through some unknown wet substance which causes the car to get sideways this way, then that way, then this way again, and finally a 180 leaving you facing oncoming traffic that's entering the on-ramp. Yup, fantastic sway bar. 😂

2 min into the ride and we're facing the wrong way on the freeway on ramp, after being violently whipped back and forth!

Let me know when you're in town again! I'll try to make it 5 min before doing something dumb!

X-D :grimacing: :eek:
 

Greg

Make RME Rockcrawling Again!
Admin
Hopefully your car is still where you left it. That shit is NASTY

It really is, probably ought to hose the car off. I try to wash our vehicles often in the winter due all the Mag Colorado likes to put down. Car washes around here actually have a Mag Remover option to get that junk off!

And its slicker than hell! 😁
 

Greg

Make RME Rockcrawling Again!
Admin
.....
I'm no expert on El Caminos... but no rear sway bar and a big aftermarket front sounds like a combo for less suspension balance than stock...

I already responded when you first made the comment a couple months ago, but apparently it didn't sink in.... feel free to educate yourself and become an 'expert', rather than trying so hard to make yourself sound right. -


"How and Why Sway Bars Work

Believe it or not, sway bars are actually very simple suspension components. Sway bars are intended to reduce body roll while a car is turning. When your car turns, the outside of the vehicle will squat while the inside will lift and "unload" due to centripetal forces. This reaction is what is referred to as body roll. We want to reduce the amount of body roll in a performance vehicle because you are taking the weight from the inside tire and applying it to the outside. By doing this, the car is using only one tire to turn instead of two. This reduces the grip of your car and negatively impacts steering. A sway bar reduces body roll by acting as a torsion bar that transfers load (force) from one side of the car to the other. Sway bars connect the left and right suspension components on a car so that when weight is transferred laterally, both the left and right suspension pieces will compress. This distributes the turning forces more evenly across both sides of the vehicle and helps it stay flat through the turn.

Rear wheel drive cars allow the rear of the car to pivot around the front, and as such they tend to oversteer. By increasing the stiffness of a rear wheel drive car's front sway bar you can help to decrease oversteer in a corner. Since, in this case, the rear wheels are driving the car, we want to keep them planted. To reduce body roll, however, the front sway bar can be stiffened without negatively affecting suspension dynamics. "


So to put it in layman's terms for Stratton, a big front anti-sway bar in a RWD car will help prevent oversteer.... and oversteer is exactly what we experienced, to the point of a loss of control. The bigger front anti-sway bar will help all 4 tires planted when pushed hard in a corner.

For a little more info on the situation, we were going straight when the back-end came around. I was full throttle and the car shifted front 1st to 2nd and it WILL break the tires loose when shifting, under full throttle. It wasn't warm out, the tires and ground were cold. The tires crossed over the trail of mag chloride, then the car shifted hard into 2nd gear at high RPM and broke the tires loose.

Yes, I was driving hard and pushing the car. I had just told Jeremy how little body roll the car had and wanted to show him how it worked on a turn. I have driven up this on-ramp a handful of times with the car since the new anti-sway bar was installed and it has performed very predictably. It's a fun corner because it's a tight 90* flat corner on concrete with good traction, then it quickly straightens out as it gets closer to the freeway. I saw the trail of fluid on the road as we were accelerating, but I didn't realize it was Mag.

The combination of cold tires, cold ground, wet & slick mag chloride, full throttle, a car with very little weight over the rear end and a hard shift into 2nd all added up to spinning out. Yeah, it was dumb.... but no harm was done, the car is fine, we stayed on the road and got a helluva scare and a good laugh.
 

haulinshine

Active Member
I already responded when you first made the comment a couple months ago, but apparently it didn't sink in.... feel free to educate yourself and become an 'expert', rather than trying so hard to make yourself sound right. -


"How and Why Sway Bars Work

Believe it or not, sway bars are actually very simple suspension components. Sway bars are intended to reduce body roll while a car is turning. When your car turns, the outside of the vehicle will squat while the inside will lift and "unload" due to centripetal forces. This reaction is what is referred to as body roll. We want to reduce the amount of body roll in a performance vehicle because you are taking the weight from the inside tire and applying it to the outside. By doing this, the car is using only one tire to turn instead of two. This reduces the grip of your car and negatively impacts steering. A sway bar reduces body roll by acting as a torsion bar that transfers load (force) from one side of the car to the other. Sway bars connect the left and right suspension components on a car so that when weight is transferred laterally, both the left and right suspension pieces will compress. This distributes the turning forces more evenly across both sides of the vehicle and helps it stay flat through the turn.

Rear wheel drive cars allow the rear of the car to pivot around the front, and as such they tend to oversteer. By increasing the stiffness of a rear wheel drive car's front sway bar you can help to decrease oversteer in a corner. Since, in this case, the rear wheels are driving the car, we want to keep them planted. To reduce body roll, however, the front sway bar can be stiffened without negatively affecting suspension dynamics. "


So to put it in layman's terms for Stratton, a big front anti-sway bar in a RWD car will help prevent oversteer.... and oversteer is exactly what we experienced, to the point of a loss of control. The bigger front anti-sway bar will help all 4 tires planted when pushed hard in a corner.

For a little more info on the situation, we were going straight when the back-end came around. I was full throttle and the car shifted front 1st to 2nd and it WILL break the tires loose when shifting, under full throttle. It wasn't warm out, the tires and ground were cold. The tires crossed over the trail of mag chloride, then the car shifted hard into 2nd gear at high RPM and broke the tires loose.

Yes, I was driving hard and pushing the car. I had just told Jeremy how little body roll the car had and wanted to show him how it worked on a turn. I have driven up this on-ramp a handful of times with the car since the new anti-sway bar was installed and it has performed very predictably. It's a fun corner because it's a tight 90* flat corner on concrete with good traction, then it quickly straightens out as it gets closer to the freeway. I saw the trail of fluid on the road as we were accelerating, but I didn't realize it was Mag.

The combination of cold tires, cold ground, wet & slick mag chloride, full throttle, a car with very little weight over the rear end and a hard shift into 2nd all added up to spinning out. Yeah, it was dumb.... but no harm was done, the car is fine, we stayed on the road and got a helluva scare and a good laugh.
how dare you teach things lol
 

RockChucker

Well-Known Member
Location
Highland
Both tires break loose? Can't remember did you put a detroit or something in the rear end? Just curious how the back end started to come around while going straight. I know things happen very quickly....
 

Hickey

Burn-barrel enthusiast
Supporting Member
Both tires break loose? Can't remember did you put a detroit or something in the rear end? Just curious how the back end started to come around while going straight. I know things happen very quickly....
We weren't going straight. We were accelerating aggressively through a long sweeping curve. We crossed a 3' wide wet strip at an angle (a merge point).
 

RockChucker

Well-Known Member
Location
Highland
We weren't going straight. We were accelerating aggressively through a long sweeping curve. We crossed a 3' wide wet strip at an angle (a merge point).
ha. I think any rwd vehicle would have swapped ends in that scenario of a 1-2 shift at WOT crossing a grease patch at the same time. At least you were listening to the sounds of America coming out the tailpipe. Had you saved it, you guys probably would have felt like you were riding a bald eagle with an American flag waving off its back.
 
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