Panhard Bars; A brief tutorial
Panhard Bars: A brief tutorial.
Height
The height of the panhard bar helps to determine the height of the rear roll center(see illus. 1). The roll center is an imaginary point around which the rear of the race car rolls. The height of the rear roll center (and the front also) is critical to handling. When you lower the panhard bar the rear roll center drops. A lowered rear roll center promotes side bite at the rear which tends to tighten corner handling. However, an extremely low roll center can generate excessive chassis roll which can cause suspension geometry problems. Also, excessive roll can delay corner exit acceleration.
Illus 1.
The roll center moves downhill whenever the angle of the panhard bar is increased and uphill under opposite conditions.
The roll center moves towards a stiffened and away from a softened side of the rear suspension.
NOTE: When a short panhard bar is used and installed with allot of rake, the rear roll center may be located beyond the panhard's mounting points (as shown in illus.2).
Raising the panhard bar raises the rear roll center. Generally, this adjustment causes corner entry handling to loosen and chassis roll to lessen. You can learn the "tuning range" for heights of your panhard bar by testing at the race track and taking good notes!
When adjusting for height, change both ends of the panhard bar. Otherwise you may introduce another handling effect by changing the angle of the panhard bar (more later). Also, if you adjust the height of the panhard bar just at the chassis, the rear roll center may move in the opposite direction(see illus. 1&2). Generally, a 1" change to the height of a panhard bar makes a noticeable change in handling on dirt race cars (asphalt cars = 1/2").
IN MEMORY OF
Blake (Fuzion) Finnel 12-3-1986 - 08-11-2007
NHTOC #120