Outer Limits 4x4 Board

what top leaf has every one used?
i have a set of ifs rear lux springs.. that are nice and long im thinking about choping up as they have some nice canver in them!
what do peope think?

It depends on what you are using for "normal" springs, as hilux springs are wider than sierra.

I have used old sierra springs whenever I have done mine. Personally, I don't think you need much camber on the 3/4 leaf at all. I;m not sure of the science of this, but when you run lots of camber or more than one leaf on the 3/4, the rate of this leaf appears to be subtracted from that of the main pack (as they are opposing each other)

The effect is a car that has a funny sort of progressive spring rate - the car "rides" on the 3/4 in that it will compress normally, but rebound is really bouncy. If you experimented with shocks (such as a shock from a coil sprung application with light compression and heavy rebound, I am thinking range rover) this might work, but with typical leaf spring application shocks, this "bounce" can be quite odd.

IMHO I would run flat leaves on the 3/4 and make sure the bumpstops are under the chassis, rather than outboard like a standard WT sierra. This way the 3/4 leaf will sit flat and the car will be more predictable until the leverage of the compressed side opens it up. The cars set up like this seem to drive fine on road, whereas the cars with stiff (two leaf) or very arched 3/4's tend to want to lock them down.

In my twisted mind, I tend to think that if the car does somehting odd on road that makes it awkward to drive, then it will also be awkward to drive off road too, (this has always been the case with my cars) but sometimes I think I am the only person that thinks this.

I would not recommend 3/4 on a SPOA car at all unless it was basically also linked, set up low and very well sorted.

y does every one say this???
with soa i have found mine basicly NO difrent to drive then sua.. i also have hilux fronts in my rear... i have no axel tramp (in comparison) and more flex.. and im also running 3 inch bigger tires..
so y does every one think alot about spring wrap?

Red_Zook wrote:y does every one say this???
with soa i have found mine basicly NO difrent to drive then sua.. i also have hilux fronts in my rear... i have no axel tramp (in comparison) and more flex.. and im also running 3 inch bigger tires..
so y does every one think alot about spring wrap?

if your not getting axle wrap u must not be driving the thing very hard

It stands to reason that the extra spring wrap that SPOA induces tries to open up the 3/4 more, which is why SPOA+3/4 cars tend to be a bit wobbly and inpredicatable under power. Like everything, you can get around this stuff, but I would say 9 times out of 10, there is more available travel in the front end that will be far more benefit than the extra couple of inches of largely uncontrolled travel in the rear.

I guess how bad your spring wrap is will be an effect of tyre size, spring stiffness and configuration, gearing, locker configuration, shocks, traction of the surface you are driving on, and driver finesse.

Put another driver in your car, put it in low 1, 2wd, on tarmac, and get them to boot it. watch how far the diff winds up. You will be shocked.

Every SPOA car I have seen has suffered spring wrap to some extent, and they nearly all have short spring life. You can "lock them down" with short stiff shocks, stiff flat springs, etc, but when you get them to flex and give them a bit of boot they will wrap.

At its worst, I have even seen SPOA cars bind uni's on engine braking, the diff rolls around that much.

Trying to run SPOA without a traction bar (of some design... there is another can of worms ) will resutl in eventually terminal spring wrap, unless you run short, stiff, captured leaves like stock hilux rears (on a hilux)

i run a stock front main for my top leaf ,i also run a track bar.havent had any weird or unpredictable behaviour .havent really notice any difference to stock spoa except it flexes heaps better.as for side angles due to the front mains higher spring rate havent had any unloading problems at all and ive been known to drive on some rediculous angles at times.all in all ive been very happy with 3/4 spoa.hope this has been helpful.