I am redoing the suspension on my truck this build and have a few questions from the guys who have been there. I doubt it has any effect on the answer, but just for the record I am still in the air about Caltracs vs Ladder Bar as the truck will only see the track once a year and will be street driven 5-8,000 miles each year.

New setup should be 4,000lbs ready to race, 370" with S480. I am hoping to be able to hit somewhere in the 9s on this setup eventually.

My question is, when does boxing in the frame become a must do? I am going to be stripping down the frame for a repaint and figured I would go ahead and do it. I have been told by a couple people that until there is a cage setup on the frame the difference will be minimal.

I wanted to hear the opinions of the fast guys and maybe a sponsor who does this.

 

if you go ladder bar you need to box rear section

if you stay leafs dont worry about it

 

heres my $.02

these frames are surprisingly flimsy and flexible. the faster you want to go, the more chassis tuning comes in to play. if you have all this fancy suspension and shocks and what not to control everything but the fram is flexing a few inches either way as you launch and go down the track what good does having a good shock to control everything when the frame is just bending to where it wants to be anyways...? make sense? maybe?

 

thats where a cage or roll bar come into play

plating the frame wont stop it from twisiting, since you need triangulation to prevent the twisting youre talking about

plating works well when you 4 link or ladder bar the rear

 

Any opinion on if a ladder setup would be any issue on a vehicle that gets that many miles? I know plenty of people street ladder setups, but the roads in my area are horrible. 1-2 foot wide 2 inch deep potholes about every 50 feet.

 

If 9s are your goal leafs will get job done