Wheel Hop Discussion

[jefo]

Hey Guys,

I want to discuss the probable causes of wheel hop on turbo-mopars. My 89 caravan turbo converted to a 5 speed wheel hops, even after the following mods:

New struts/mounts
Poly Control Arm Bushings
Poly sway-bar bushings
Solid bobble strut
poly filled motor mounts

What else is left? And what affect does the weight of the wheel have on wheel hop? I am running 24lb steel wheels currently, and am considering lightweight alloy ones.

[contraption22]

Slicks.

[tryingbe]

Filled stock mount is crap.

[shackwrrr]

I think it's just the nature of a stub strut suspension design when the wheels are spinning. Im having the same issue with my DIY poly mounts, I have about 40 in the poly and another 30 in the mounts so Im not out much but the result was the same, squished out poly and torn mounts. My next step is to get some of Johnny's bushings as his front and passenger mount are solid blocks.

Has anyone thought of traction bars? I think I remember seeing the BSx with them. They are popular in the SRT crowd due to overly flexible control arm bushings. The concept is simple but it adds complexity and more wear components into play. The setup ties the control arm at the sway bar mounts to the core support to prevent the control arms from moving fore and aft, and depending on the angle of attack they could add some pro lift to the front suspension.

[Reaper1]

What kind of struts are you using? Being able to control the oscillation of the suspension is VERY important.

A light set of wheels will definitely make it easier for the strut to do that job.

By having a solid bobble strut, make sure it is not preloaded. I made that mistake at first. It needs to be snug, but not pushing the engine up in the rear in any way.

[tinyturbo]

Bad wheel alignment gave me the worst wheel hop ive ever had in a turbo dodge, that and preloading the driver side sway bar if youve got a one legger diff helps a lot, I have an 11 second g body and i rarely experience wheel hop

[jefo]

They are monroe sensu-trac struts. I'd have to check out the bobble strut settings as I believe I put it at a slight preload. And it was aligned after I did all the suspension work. The reason I did all the above work was to try and get rid of wheel hop with street tires.

It seems to have lost the straight alignment after some wheel hopping and launching though, as the wheel wants to center turned a little counterclockwise.

Amazingly the van usually spins both tires in a straight line. It doesn't wheel hop when only one starts spinning.
Also, when it was an automatic it had no wheelhop but thats the nature of an automatic.

I plan on replacing the 24lb steel wheels with 12lb alloy wheels. I am curious as to how much this will reduce wheelhop.

[black86glhs]

Personal opinion, those sense-crap struts are definitely not helping your situation. The valving can't react to the smaller movements when the wheels bounce and they aren't that sporty to begin with. Also, you running stock front springs?

[fixit]

I've struggled with wheel hop in my neon -- did the filled mounts (3m window weld), pre torqued the motor mounts, all helped a little.

The biggest improvement was from changing out my prothane lca bushings to the spherical moog http://www.moogproblemsolver.com/moo...ings_Sheet.pdf


Here's a picture of setup to pre load the motor mounts.. (since then i've gone up 1 size on the turnbuckle because the old original broke)

[Reaper1]

Personal opinion, those sense-crap struts are definitely not helping your situation. The valving can't react to the smaller movements when the wheels bounce and they aren't that sporty to begin with. Also, you running stock front springs?

+1 on Sensa-Craps being total and utter junk. If you can, I think FWD still has Koni's for vans available. That would be your best bet.

[contraption22]

Those Moog LCA bushings for neons are really cool! Never seen those before. I remember a few years ago there was a group buy effort to have the factory arms modified with spherical rod ends. I don't know if it ever took off.

Thanks for posting that!

[A.J.]

I second the Monroe struts being crap. I use KYB's and had wheel hop with slicks at the track. Turns out my KYB's were bad (over 60K miles and 7 years on the van). I replaced them and it went away.

I installed new Monroes on my girlfriends Mom's '90 TBI van and never liked they way they felt. I finally got sick of it and put on KYB's and it was a day and night difference.

[contraption22]

I second the Monroe struts being crap. I use KYB's and had wheel hop with slicks at the track. Turns out my KYB's were bad (over 60K miles and 7 years on the van). I replaced them and it went away.

I installed new Monroes on my girlfriends Mom's '90 TBI van and never liked they way they felt. I finally got sick of it and put on KYB's and it was a day and night difference.

I'm using KYB GR2's on my Horizon. No wheelhop with slicks.

[GLHS60]

Did anyone ever come up with any spherical LCA bushing for L bodys??

I wonder if the Neon LCA spherical mentioned in fixit's post could be adapted to an L body stub strut??

Please discuss.

Thanks
Randy

[GLHS60]

Hey Guys,

I want to discuss the probable causes of wheel hop on turbo-mopars. My 89 caravan turbo converted to a 5 speed wheel hops, even after the following mods:

New struts/mounts
Poly Control Arm Bushings
Poly sway-bar bushings
Solid bobble strut
poly filled motor mounts

What else is left? And what affect does the weight of the wheel have on wheel hop? I am running 24lb steel wheels currently, and am considering lightweight alloy ones.

There must be some underlying issue with some vehicles. My Omni Turbo wheel hopped since new but I never really pushed the issue. Some folks, like you replaced everything and still get wheel hop but I've also seen lots of totally worn out vehicles able to lay long patches without a hint of wheel hop. My unscientific observation is L body's seem the most wheel hop prone and Daytona's the least.

Thanks
Randy

[spiro440]

I had many years of wheel hop on my GLH. Changed every posible bushing, beefed up the sway bar, changed tires, centered engine, loaded the rear mount and still had wheel hop. I looked at every posible thing to change. Changed the rear springs and voilà! No more hopping. My reasoning was that he car would squat just enough during launch that the front rising would let the front tires hang just enough to have the tie-rod pull the tires in a toe out position. The tires wanting to track out would hop because of the load. If your leaf springs are weak that could be the cause. Try removing both row of seats in the back and see if there is any change.

[BIGBRUDDA]

WHEELBEARINGS ,gentlemen,wheelbearings. Bushings,struts and slicks can mask it,or damp it. But a 25 yr old, 150,000mi bearing spinning wildly, weight transfered off the front end.Rapidly changing camber. Worn radial sidewalls. Ever felt that little twitchy twitchy in the steering wheel when ya turn?
And that black goo in your mtr mounts don't cut it either. Aluminum or at least Oak . Ya need to compress the rubber in the mount to make it work.And start with a new mount, not a 90,000mi junker.

[BadAssPerformance]

If you plan to race it at the track... +1 to slicks

[jefo]

I have found that I only get hop when launching or acceleration. I get none when i do a slow or stationary burnout with the ebrake.

[Reaper1]

Well, that makes perfect sense. Wheel hop is caused by the tires gaining and loosing traction while the suspension unloads. The dampers (struts in this case) can't adequately control the springs bouncing. There are several factors that can cause the tires to gain and loose traction rapidly, but it sounds like you've covered most of it. Alignment can have an effect on this problem. However, there are several of us that agree that the Sensa-crap struts probably have a lot to do with this problem.

The reason you don't have the problem while stationary has to do with the fact that the suspension does not unload as much and usually, once the tires loose traction while being in the same spot, or under a large slip angle (spinning is also considered a slip angle) they tend to continue to not have traction until they either slow down or the slip angle is reduced. There can be an instance where a tire can gain traction under these conditions, but that only happens if the tread compound requires elevated heat to have the amount of traction they were designed to have. Racing tires fit this description, as do "Extreme Performance Summer Tires" (believe me, those don't work well in cold weather).