At the urging of a few of the So Cal Lightning owners, I've begun producing a version of my "slapper bar" type of traction device for Gen 2 Lightnings.

I've been testing them since April, and feel that they are ready for our high powered trucks. Some of you have had a preview of them during testing, but you can see them if you look at the Sport Truck reprint on my initial website.

The focus of these traction bars is not pure racing, but a street/strip product that you can live with during the week, and then bolt on slicks and go racing on the weekend. They can be installed in a few minutes, with simple tools, and require no disassembly of the rear springs.

My truck is a true daily driver that gets 800 miles per week. I wanted a traction bar that would not effect the ride or handling the truck and would stay out of the way until needed. The "slapper" fits the bill. I have been using them daily since April with no ill effects.

They provide good traction with stock tires, but after testing them using ET Streets on SVTLightning99's truck last Sat., even I was impressed.

They are heavy duty construction, with hardened u-bolts, and will be powder coated black.

I should be able to ship the first sets in 3-4 weeks.

I thank Steve for allowing me to become a proud supporting vendor of F150online.

 

Jay

Welcome to the ranks of the Supporting Vendors.

Doug

 

Hey Jay Lincoln Sounds awesome how much and any pics of them installed and how bad is the install ? Also will they help prevent wheel hop ??
Thanks ]
Vin

 

Doug, Thanks. I hope this endeavor works out well. The product sure does.

BadAZZ516, the install is really easy. They clamp onto the springs using four B-7 grade 1/2" U-bolts. That's it. At the testing this weekend, I removed them from my truck and bolted them on Jim's (SVTLightning99) truck in less that 1/2 hour. Idid not even need to jasc up the truck. With no tuning, he picked up almost .1 second in 60' and ET.

They really do prevent wheel hop. When you turn the truck, you can get wheel hop, if they are set tight.

I will have pictures of my prototype bars posted sometime during the weekend. If you want, I can email you pics before then.

Price is $265.00, plus freight


Thanks for your interest,

Jay

 

What a great idea for traction devices that can be used all of the time

Save a lot of tread at the stoplights

 

here are the pics you sent me a while back Jay...

 

Jay.. are you going to "box" the ends? it would look cleaner without that hole.

i lost your first email.. gonna email you again.

brooks

 

Brooks,

if you box the ends, you lose access to the snubber adjustment. I considered closing off the rear only, but it will collect moisture, creating a rust condition. I guess it will have to be flow through ventilation.

 

hmm.. why would you have to adjust the snubber?
or do you just have to adjust it once, then leave it alone?
racing suspensions are new to me. LOL


brooks

 

Brooks,

The snubber will need to be adjusted for height and/or distance from the axle centerline, depending on how hard you want to "hit" the tires.

If you leave too much clearance between the snubber and the spring, the rear end will rotate too quickly and drive the tires into the ground. F-1's are too stiff to do this with, and will grab, then spin hard. With F-1's you want the snubber closer to the spring, so that the rear cannot begin to rotate as rapidly.

With ET Streets, you want to increase the clearance, and drive the tires hard into the ground. Because they have a soft sidewall, and work better when flattened onto the track, hard.

A traction bar is a lever that transfers weight to the rear, by lifting the front. It's only physics and geometry.

 

oh, okay.. i see now.

just carry a open end wrench with me. i can handle that.
i sent you an email.. talk to you later!

brooks

 

Jay,
What if you threaded the tubing and used a locking nut on top to make your adjustments? It seems to me that you could do this and then you could close off both ends. Just a thought.

 

PFA, on the prototypes, the tubing is threaded. Again, If the ends were boxed, water could still go down the two open holes(there are a total of three), and fill up the bars.

The prototypes used .167" wall tubing, so threading was OK. They were too heavy, and I had to "swiss cheese" them, to make them work like I wanted.

The production units use a larger cross section 2"x 3", but use .125" wall thickness. That is too thin to thread, and have the bars durable enough to be used every day.

The Truck-Traks on my truck have about 8000 miles of LA surface street driving. If I made them too light, they would break.

Like any product, you try to hit a price that will entice the customer to buy. I will not, however, sacrifice quality. I could weld nuts inside the tubing and box the ends, but It would probably increase the labor cost to produce by $30-$40 per set.
The hardware cost is nothing.

You guys let me know, would you like to pay $265 or $300 per set?

 

.1 in the 60' usually yields greater ET reduction.

Do you have the actual 60', 1/8 and 1/4 mile data for before and after the traction bars?

Based on that article, your truck ran 13.91 @ 99 MPH w/ chip, MAF/Filter and your traction bars. What kind of 60' time? What did it run before the traction bars?

Thanks for the info!

 

Wayne, my truck has only run with F-1's, and I have never run it without the traction bars.

Those runs in the Sport Truck article were made @ LA County Raceway. The 60' times were in the 2.03-06 range. You have to remember, that the track is at 2700' above sea level. On that day the temps, were in the mid 90's. That makes for one weak puppy, when it comes to a blower car or truck.

The improvements that we saw over last weekend, were done on SVTLightning99's truck. He uses Et Streets, and was nice enough to let me bolt the Truck-Traks on his truck for a late day run.

These runs were done at Carlsbad raceway, down near San Diego. His truck is virtually identical to mine concerning engine mods. We were running within .02 on each other all day. He ran 13.69 (2.14 60') with ET Streets to my 13.71 (2.14 60') with F-1's and Truck-Traks.

In the pits, I literally unbolted the Truck-Traks from my truck and bolted them onto his truck. His next run was 13.63 (2.06 60').
I can show you the time slips if you want. He also mentioned that he felt that he could launch with the RPM up a little, instead of from an idle.

If you live in So Cal, you understand the condition of the local race tracks. Most are very old and not maintained very well. The track with the best traction, is up in the high desert, and is sometimes pretty dusty. It's very hot there from amout May15 to November. Carlsbad is at sea level, but hasn't had any maintanance for 25 years. It's basically a 1 lane race track.

Pomona is by far the best, but no longer used for anuthing but Police driver training, and two national events per year.