Traction Bars vs. a Ladder bar

[cgrey8]

As I drive to work each rainy wet morning, I'm reminded of how much I need a wheel-hop traction solution even with my underpowered V6. I can only imagine how exaggerated the problem will be with a V8.

Looking through the Summit and Jegs mags, I see various options for wheel-hop traction control that most all boil down to traction bars or a ladder bar. Of either, there are more options of differing prices. However which one is better? What makes it the superior choice?

Personally, I'm leaning more towards the ladder bar that mounts to the rearend housing and bumps the underside of the bed on acceleration just because it looks the simplist to install. However being that I'm replacing my 7.5" RE with an 8.8", access to the leafs and all that is hardly going to be an issue so I'm open to either solution at this time.

Mainly what I'm looking for is people's opinions on which is better (and why), and possibly some testimonials as to what products are quality/recommended and which ones are PITA POS and to be avoided.

Thoughts?

[MercuRanger]

Can't speak from personal experience, but I've heard Ladder Bars aren't very practical for the street - pretty poor handling, and they tend to "bind" (not sure exactly what "binding" entails). They almost seem like they'd be overkill on a street vehicle with modest power levels. I know you've got serious traction problems, but there are guys running 12's and quicker in Rangers at the track without ladder bars. Lack of traction in the rain is a somewhat different animal than dry traction, I suspect.

The other factor to consider is durability. Since this is your daily driver, you need to consider whether you think a ladder bar setup is going to handle the daily commute for 50K+ miles. You can't beat factory parts for durability (in most cases).

Mike

[cgrey8]

That's certainly a good point. I wasn't aware that ladder bars had a "durability" problem over the long haul.

I don't know this myself, however I can "guess" at what they mean by binding. The cheaper ladder bars I've seen have a rubber bumper on the end that comes up and slaps the bottom of the bed when the axle beings to wind up. The bed "catches" the wind up to prevent it from winding any further and thus preventing the hop-hop-hop problems that wind-up causes. The problem is that the ladder is mounted to the rear axle which can move up and down with relation to the body of the truck. I'd imagine the binding is due to the suspension working.

I've seen in the Summit mag, they have ladder bars that have a fixture on the end instead of a rubber bumper. It appears this is to run a bolt through. The best I can figure, there's a slotted track that you mount to the underside of the bed and that the bolt goes through the fixture and the slotted track. This way, the tip of the ladder can move laterally (forward and backward down the length of the truck) as the suspension rises and lowers. This would have the effect of holding the rearend housing stable not just on acceleration, but also on deceleration as well. Can anybody else confirm/clarify if I'm right or way off base with all that?

However for now, that's one vote for the traction bars. Since Rangers have leafs that run over the top of the RE, that'd require traction bars that are ontop of the leafs or traction bars that point backward? Here's where I show my ignroance...what are the traction bar options for Rangers?

[Jimmie]

Here is one of the better traction bars going.
http://www.calvertracing.com/
You can buy them for springs under or springs over the rear axle.

Jimmie

[Injected 5.0]

Chirs I have a set of South Side lift bars on my Ranger they work very well. Down side is that they are out of business. On the up side Mr. Gasket has picked up most of their line. I'll check and see if the Ranger bars are available. You will give up some ride quality, but not as much as a ladder bar set up and if you drive this everyday this is something to keep in mind. Besides that the roads pretty crapy up here unlike the roads down by you.

Mike

[cgrey8]

You are right, I don't want to sacrifice driveability.

Looking into the ladder bars a little bit last night, it appears I was wrong about the sliding track theory. The fixture at the tip of ladder bar connects into a solid mounted piece which seems really odd to me. Basically you've just made a triangle out of your suspension taking away your suspension's ability to BE a suspension which is probably why it drives like crap. At least the bump style ladder bar wouldn't prevent the suspension from moving like the fixed-mounted ones seem like they would. Traction bars are looking a lot better.

So, we have Mr. Gasket bars (possibly) & the Calvert Racing bars that work with Rangers. Anybody else know of other brands that are specifically made for a Ranger Truck setup?

[MercuRanger]

James Duff makes some, too:

http://www.jamesduff.com/broncoII/tracbar.html

Mike

[cgrey8]

I like those James Duff bars. They just look sharp and not a terrible price as long as there's not a lot of BS to go through getting them installed.

Before I slap down the money to get these, anybody got a recommendation/reason why I shouldn't use them or a different product they've used or seen used that would be cheaper/easier/better?

[scperf]

Ladder bars for your aplication are not the answer. Any ladder bar that still retains the leaf springs is just an over priced traction bar. True ladder bars are a poor mans 4-link. They are made to give more adjustability, thus tunability, to your rear suspention. Ideally they would replace your leaf springs and be use in conjunction with coil-overs. The front mounting point is suposed to be an adustable pivot point, thus changing the instant center of the vehicle.

Calvert Racing bars, or CalTacs as they are most commonly called, are the absolute best traction bar on the planet. Bar none! The are designed to give you the most dry pavement traction possible. All most all of the leaf sring cars that compete in heads-up or outlaw shootout competition use these bars when the rules call for stock suspention. The only down fall is they cost a little over $350.00.

I believe with your truck that the James Duff traction bar is your best bet for the money. It looks to be a modified version of the Shelby traction bars that came on the `66 GT350 Mustangs. Competion proven design that is cost effective.

[plowboy34]

Hey Chris, If your just wanting to stop the ole bunny hop and gain some traction in dry pavement moments the traction bars are perfect. They are easy to install, you will almost think there was an easy button...lol. They do a good job, We really improved our traction with a cheap pair of Lakewood bars. Just make sure you mount them right, everybody wants to leave the rubber stop hanging down an inch or two, main reason is they think it looks better, not going for looks with these, going for performance. You want to make sure you adjust it to where the rubber stop is just touching the leaf spring, this does two things. It doesn't affect the ride of your vehicle and it doesn't have to travel two inches before it starts doing it's job. If you really want to get serious there is this page you can go to that really explains things and shows you how to build a cool set of traction bars. Wish I knew how to put it on here where you could just click it but I don't, so you'll have to type it all out unless Malcolm can switch it for me where you can just click it. Here it is www.hotrodsandhemis.com/Traction.html
I think you will really like it, I thought It was kinda cool and I have been at this quite a while, Anyways done babbling, hope this helps.

[MercuRanger]

I always thought the cheap Lakewood bars wouldn't work with a spring-over-axle setup. Do you have a pic? Are the bars at a weird angle?

Mike

[cgrey8]

Plowboy, That's a cool site.

If I were equipped with a metal shop where I could do my own fab work, I'd try to make myself some of these. Since I can't easily fab things together, I'd wind up spending as much money having a metal/machine shop do it as I would buying production parts.

The setup they are describing how to build is pretty much the same as the James Duff setup. There are some geometry differences, but for the most part, they are the same principle.

And yes, the bunny hop is quite annoying. However I'm sure what would stop it on dry pavement is also what would stop it on wet as well which is where I notice it the most. I don't notice it on dry pavement just because my engines aren't powerful enough to easily break the tires loose. If I tried to bark the tires right off on dry pavement, I'd do more pride and clutch damage than rubber burnin'. All-n-all, I'm not a rough driver on my vehicles either. About the only time my tires see any slip-action is in the rain, dirt, or gravel. On dry pavement, the tires do pretty good holding to the ground even in tight turns. I'm sure all that'll change when I get some V8 encouragement under the hood. At least, that's the plan.

One thing to note is I want bars that'll go over the top of the springs, not under so I don't sacrifice any clearance height with two "snag-monster" bars that point forward. Remember, I'm running a 2wd that only has a 2" lift on the back springs because the leafs have fallen. The 2" returned the ride to what I call normal. How do your Lakewood's mount, over or under?

I won't be changing out the factory 14" rims for a while. I gotta go one thing at a time and if I can make existing stuff work, I'm gonna try. So, the factory 225/70R14's will just have to be smoke-show tires. Thus, I'm not expecting great performance (or longevity) out of them but they are cheap. Like I said, upgrading the tires and rims is on the list of to-dos, just way at the bottom for now.

Anybody else have any "spring-over" bars they'd recommend or any feedback about what bars NOT to buy? Right now, my eyes are drawn hardest to the James Duff Ranger/BroncoII 2wd bars at the top-left of their website link above. They aren't the cheapest, but they just look good. On a sidenote about the James Duff setup, do they require frame drilling or do they make use of factory holes?

[plowboy34]

Hey MercuRanger, Yes if you have spring-over-axle it will make them angle up some but they still work. I did forget that, my son wanted his truck lowered so we have the springs under the axle so we didn't have that problem.

[cgrey8]

I went ahead and purchased the James Duff traction bars today so we'll see how they do.

It certainly can't be worse than it was...

[Injected 5.0]

Hey guys the James Duff Bars look just like the stock Ford ones on my 96 5.0 AWD Explorer. I wonder how hard it would be to convert!
Just a thought..

I will post a link on Monday for a picture of Lakewood's bars.

Mike