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wheel hop


tandm

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you may feel it, but you'll hear it even more, (thump, thump, thump) it a number of things can cause it, lack of weight, alotta power, sticky tires, a bunch of things can cause it. Brian with the dyno would probably know more than me about, but it is a nasty thing for a car to have cuz like I said it will break alotta shit very fast as it is very hard on the drive wheels and supsension
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Yeah, it's a very nasty feeling. It's basically the driven tires bouncing up and down off the pavement under power, which makes the whole car shudder.

 

There are lots of causes and cures. Sometimes it's bad bushings or alignment, sometimes changing tires helps, sometimes changing springs or shock settings helps, sometimes it's a broken or loose shock mount, sometimes bad wheel bearings can cause it, sometimes it's caused by the way the suspension geometry was designed, sometimes a lightweight flywheel can make it worse on manual cars, sometimes it's actually caused by weak control arms flexing -- every car has slightly different causes and cures. Can you tell I had to do a lot of research on it? smile.gif

 

In my experience, if a car is already prone to wheelhop, rough pavement with bad traction will make it worse.

 

If you ever get wheelhop, you need to find a cure quickly, because it puts a lot of extra strain on driveline parts and will probably break something expensive pretty soon.

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Guest BLACKBIRD99

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Michael Knight:

Can you actually feel the back of your car hop or what?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

 

You'll definitely feel it with the suspension and ride quality of the T/A. It's only happened to me a couple of times in the 2.5 years I've owned mine. You can improve on that by getting suspension upgrades. Lower control arms and a panhard rod help with wheel hop the most, I think. They certainly help.

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yeah almost any car can have it too, hell if I AWD launch my Talon the front tires wheel hop a bit before tha back ones catch and then is stops and the car goes. my friends Saturn has one of the worst cases of wheel hop I have ever seen, and its a SC1 SOHC saturn :eek:, he's busted 3 motor mounts because of it too. wheel hops is the Satan of cars, thats all there is to it!
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usually, wheel hop results form a suspension that is too stiff. Picture this: you give the car throttle, and the weight gets transfer to the back. This is forcing the tires to the ground. Once the "hit," and they will, if the suspension is to stiff, the springs are just going to "pull" them back off the ground. THis is wheel hop. If you have a suspension that is too soft, weight transfer will happen at the wrong time, and the tires will spin uncontrolably.

A good set of lift bars (NOT slapper bars) can help the RWD wheel hop problems. During acceleration, the pinion is wanting to rotate up, causing the springs to bind, which pull the tire back up off the ground when they unwind. The Lift Bars will use the axle's twisting motion to lift up on the body and plant the tires.

South Side Machine makes a good product, and sine you are buying them, might as well get the sub frame connectors! :D

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I never had a wheel hop problem at the strip, but I used to have one on the street on certain bad pavement conditions.

 

A Panhard rod won't do anything for wheel hop (it just basically keeps the rear centered). What eliminated mine (which normally wasn't too bad) was new lower control arms and my Spohn solid mount adjustable torque arm. That probably made the most difference.

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Guest bird of a different motor

ok honestly i will answer this, but.....i have NEVER seen so many f*cked up answers for what "wheel hop is and what causes it". Wheel hop happens as result of torque and the twisting effects on the rear gears,and axle in your case mikey knight. here is what happens with "rear" wheel drive cars. as you apply power to the drive line and you do it very quickly, it will cause the pinion angle to raise. In normal terms the front of your pumpkin will try to raise up. This force that tries to rotate the rear axle is counter acted by the suspension, whether it be control arms or in my case, leaf springs. now,...the twisting force and subsequent rotation will stress and move up in the suspension then it will snap axle back into normal position when your tire loses its traction. your wheel will plant and it will happen again until it repeats the process. Now many of your guy's fixes do work. but the easiest way to fix it on a rear wheel drive car is to "preload" the pinion angle down ever so slightly so that when this torque and twisting tries to happen it only pushes the pinion angle to normal. So again, in normal terms, preset the front of your pumpkin down so it will only raise till the straight setting. Traction bars, like slapper bars, use the fact that this twisting will happen so that they will work. If anyone wants a better explanation, i will show you what can happen and how i have set my car up to prevent it. as for front wheel stuff.....No f ing clue. but that is what happens in "wheel hop" wow that was like a mark or renner post. :D:D:D:cool:

 

[ 15 February 2002: Message edited by: bird of a different motor ]

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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Bottlefed Windsor:

One of the causes of wheel hop is worn down tires. I used to have wheel hop on 1 of my mustangs, and when I put new tires out back, the wheel hop went away.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

 

This is true too. New rear tires helped mine a lot. It'll be back soon though... smile.gif

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