for anyone who is in the market for a panhard rod, definitely go with trackbird's panhard rods. they are great quality and i'm very happy with the fitment and adjustability. i give them .

Thanks Pat. It was nice to meet you the other evening and I'm glad you like the PHB.

I checked out your website, that looks like a fun toy you're building.

yeah....getting there slowly but surely......the time and money factor have a way of setting the timeline for projects.......hahaha

Hey kevin do you have the steel one's made yet?

I'll be ready to test the heavy duty one this week. The parts are on the way.

Although I have not bought or fitted one yet, I saw the piece in question and agree. Very good quality!

But you have driven a car with the lighter weight prototype on race rubber on an autocross course.

kevin, by the way, i installed the bushings as you said to and the bolts tightened down very nicely. they didn't smash anything like other pieces i've seen. good job on these!!!! i'll have to spread the good word to all my buddys in av8ss, ai, & aix running the 3rd and 4th gens......

It took me a while to work that out, but it works perfectly. Glad it worked for you as planned.

And what fun that was! Suspect shocks and all!

Suspect = Broken

Mericet's first test drive of an LS1 car was done on an autocross course. That's the way to try your first LS1. He had more fun driving my car than I did.....

The parts for the Heavy Duty version are here for me to play with. It is stout, but it weighs about 9 lbs (with ends). Oof. I didn't mean to make it that stout....

I'm going to put it on my car and see if it removes the last little bit of tire rubbing I had at the last event. I don't know if it was PHB flex (I was running a thinwall prototype PHB that was laying around the garage) or just standard rubbing. I'll find out soon.

I'll try to post a few pics when I get a chance.

Pics

And another.

That's the new bar. Those are not the good rod ends however.

Outstanding, Kevin! Which model dumptruck are these for again?

I guess I didn't realize exactly how beefy this one would be. I knew it was overkill, I just didn't figure out the weight.

Somebody needed to build a PHB for 3 second drag cars....

I don't think it will flex....

Maybe I can use a couple of them to dig my car out..

Kevin for steel its nice looking.


Later John

Does anyone have a steel PHB (rod end style) from BMR or someone to weigh? I can't remember what my old BMR unit weighed.

Anyone?

Calculate it, silly. Off the top of my head most steels are around .284 lbs/cu in.

True. But, I need to know the wall thickness, diameter and length they use. Otherwise, I'm making a pretty rough guess.

Wait...I get it. Ok, try this.

Has anyone sunk a steel (such as BMR) PHB in fluid and can you tell me how many cubic inches of fluid it displaced?

Almost everybody lists the diameter and wall thickness. For example, BMR 1.25X.120 for mild steel and 1.25X.095 for chrome moly. You ought to already have a pretty good idea about the length....

True. I guess my point was that I don't know anything more than a guess about their "end caps" that are welded in. But, I can get a rough idea (if it were straight walled) that way.

Ok. (I made no attempt to account for the end "caps" and am using the weight of a straight walled section of tubing).

Chromoly:

1.25" = 1.22718462890625

@ 40" long that is 49.08738515625 cu in

1.06 (inside "hollow" diameter) = .882473375385 sq in

@ 40" long that is 35.2989350154 cu in

Subtract one from the other, you have

13.78845014085 Cu in. left.

X .284 = 3.9159198400014 lbs (chromoly)

Did I screw up the math?

Steel:

I get about 4.8393595935424 (when I say roughly, I run it out to 13 decimal places ) lbs for the steel one.

So, I'm only 50% over weight. Not bad (It's made of .250 wall steel tubing, maybe I'll cut it in half and make a killer set of LCA's out of it..... ).

Actually, if you want to be "13 decimal places accurate" you're 100% over weight. He's 50% of yours. That old, "percent of what?" question....

As for the rest of the hardware, I was ignoring his "center adjustment" style since you obviously won't build one this way and he probably won't when his next design of the week comes along....

If you go to thinner wall steel tubing, you'd need to weld in tube ends as well...use the same rod ends, same jam nuts, etc the difference in weight of the tube should give you a good idea of the difference in weight of the final product how most people build them. If you go with swedged tubing that's threaded, that will save you the weight of the ends of course.

At the risk of impeding progress, I have to ask, "why bother with steel"? The inexpensive, lightweight, high quality aluminum bars fill a niche. Part of what enables you to get there is (correct me if I'm wrong) the use of fairly off-the-shelf components, easily worked material, no finishing or welding required, cheaper shipping, ....

It sounds like the steel bars are either going to be very heavy or require some fabrication, which is probably a big hit to the business case unless you can do it yourself.

Sam and Lou already sell good steel bars, and I think Sam even sells several different weight/strength/cost tradeoff options. Lou also sells aluminum bars, but they are a bit more exotic and they are pricey.

Or to put it another way, why are you pursuing the steel option - strength, cost, or ???

If you are trying to build a heavy duty version, what about just increasing the wall thickness or otherwise tweaking your aluminum version?

Mostly I wanted to experiment. I found a source who could supply me with what was generically called "Steel PHB Tubing". It didn't give specs, so I orderd a chunk to see what it was. What it is, is heavy. Now I know.

It was something I wanted to look into, so, I was looking into it. (And, it has now been thoroughly looked into and I'll very likely not be looking into it again, etc ).

Besides, I'm starting to figure out how to get an F-body to move towards 50/50 weight distribution. Just use a 300 lb PHB. (and move the battery.....)

And, yes Jon, I'm truly 100% overweight and his is 50% lighter than mine. Damn engineers.....

Well, there goes my weight-distributing hitch theory....

Maybe we can tie it into the PHB.....

That's what I was trying to imply.

I thought so.....

Or, you could add a tie-down loop in the center of the PHR and resolve all those axle-or-chassis towing tech debates

Now that's good thinking....

Yeah, let's see...I just installed a damn trailer hitch which weighs nearly 40 lbs...a spoiler that's about 10...all my extra brackets add some weight.... I think if you make me up a set of LCA's & a PHB out of that stuff I'll end up with the weight distribution of a Porsche 911! Sweet! :leaving:

You already have the brakes for it.....

I do overkill better than anyone I know.

Not quite. With that weight distribution I'd need big-ass rear brakes!

Just swap the front and rear brakes

...and all this time I thought it was BIG RED?!?!?!?!