Suspension for Highland Daytona Racing 427 FIA Roadster and Cobra Daytona Coupe

Highland Daytona Racing covers both ends of the Cobra Daytona Coupe and the FIA 427 Roadster with state of the art suspension technology: up front is the HDR-designed Gradual Progressive Rate (GPR) Camber suspension geometry; following in the back is the Satchel link rear live axle linking system. Steering you in the right direction is a fast ratio LeMans type custom rack from BRT Industries.

The GPR Front Suspension
The HDR Gradual Progressive Rate (GPR) Camber front suspension geometry is the end result of many years experience and several more of engineering and testing. The GPR suspension geometry is a finely tuned and balanced compromise between the good and evil demons of suspension geometry relationships.

Dependent on application, one is forced to compromise some aspects of good handling characteristics in one direction in order to gain a more important aspect in another. The ability to design in the absolute minimum of poor characteristics, while retaining as many or as much as possible of the good is the real trick. The HDR GPR front suspension, we are proud to say, portrays this balance perfectly.

The GPR front suspension is set from our factory with one degree of static camber. The system then travels from that one degree up to approx. 3.5 degrees in its designed 4" of jounce travel. Not only is it important for your front or rear suspension for that matter to continually move or maintain a negative camber condition at all times, it is equally important for it to achieve this movement in a stable and, if possible, slow and steady progression though its designed arc. A slow steady progression will afford a more predictable feel and inspire greater confidence, which always translates into quicker lap times on the track or just safe plain fun on the street.

A highly developed GT race bred style frame and suspension as seen here in our Gen-3 chassis does not mean the car is more UN-streetable or less forgiving in some way than most other Mustang-suspended cars. On the contrary, true GT cars systems need to be much stronger and more reliable through the use of such parts and alloys as seen herein then your basic performance road cars. Along with this, the true GT car needs to be more forgiving of its drivers input and much more predictable then their stock geometry performance car cousins through the use of these tried and true highly developed geometry engineering practices.

Even if you never raced or never plan to, think of the beating a GT car takes during the longer European road races. Also think about the obstacles available for them to hit if they unfortunately ever leave those roads. So, we are not talking about UN-drivability any longer, but rather a much higher level of safety through advanced engineering practices and raw materials on or off the road.

GPR - Upper Control Arms: We have implemented the use of swaged aluminum hollow adjustable arm tubes which attach directly to our front frame upright tubes via right & left hand chrome-moly/Teflon lined Heim joints which greatly speed up adjustments. If no changes are ever desired for racing or any other reason, then there should never be any reason to touch these adjustable tubes.

The upper and lower ball joints are also extreme duty units, and they too are quite easy to replace with no special tools or knowledge. These units are significantly over sized for the weight of car and therefore should also last a very long time.

GPR - Lower GT-1 Type Control Arms: These style arms are gleaned from current Le Mans GT-1 race car technology, re-designed, and fabricated to our spec-geometry needs. First, we produce these arms from 1" diameter, .120 wall, 4130N chrome-moly tubing as per the rest of our car. This would be considered overkill in the strength department for racing; however the weight gain is minimal and the strength gain is substantial. The arms are poly-graphite bushed rather than Heims to better absorb the harsh initial shocks of rough surfaces.

GPR Lower Control Arm Shape: There is a reason for the asymmetrical shape of this control arm. By extending the rear leg further back on the main frame, the design transmits a large percentage of the adverse precession forces generally associated with hard breaking much further back on the frame. This perceived movement of these adverse forces lessens their overall unstable affect on the car while breaking hard. Like the progressive camber gain, this is another area to focus on while designing to further insure driver confidence.

GPR Hollow Tube Anti-Sway System: The HDR Gen-3 chassis has only front anti-sway bars. Why hollow tube? The obvious reason would be weight; however, the hollow tubes are actually much more effective overall. These tubes are custom made for HDR from 4140 chrome-moly. The complete system is totally adjustable to a driver's preference, and is actually very easily and quickly accomplished

BRT Steering Rack
All Highland Daytona Racing Cobras come with a quick ratio custom rack from BRT Industries. BRT produces one of the world best racing racks available and we can order these with several ratios depending on the clients needs. These rack have special ends on them to facilitate bump steer settings in any direction, this system virtually allows us to dial out 100% of the car's bump steer.

HDR Satchell Link Rear Suspension System
Highland Daytona Racing employs the Satchell link rear live axle linking system exclusively because it is proven to be BY FAR the absolute best handling, all around high performance rear set-up obtainable short of an all-out Formula-1 style Independent Rear Suspension (IRS) system, which is exceedingly expensive by comparison.

What makes the Satchell System so unique? It employs no Panhard bar for lateral support of the rear end housing. Panhard bars often cause a very high rear roll centers, resulting in the need for a rear anti-sway bar. The Satchell system triangulates the lower links from their furthest point outboard on the rear housing to the frame pick up points at a 45 degree angle, making a perfect triangle.

The extremely low mounting points of these links under the rear housing make for a very low rear roll center, completely negating the need and use of a rear anti-sway bar system. Lengthening those lower links to a much longer length than those of any other 3 or 4 link or that of any production IRS system gives us the ability to design in several other extremely positive geometry characteristics, characteristics that absolutely need to be found in any high performance handling car, which help eliminate:

• Brake or Acceleration Wheel Hop
• Eliminates rear roll steer in the wrong direction.
• Eliminates rear Acceleration Squat

What does that mean to you? You can stay on the gas longer through the corner, and in most cases all the way through. Basically the design allows the driver to drive into and out of the corners quicker, safer and with a much higher degree of driver confidence.

Yes, but the IRS has Camber! Actually, most production-based IRS rear systems camber incorrectly much of the time. Highland Daytona Racing's custom housings can be ordered with up to 2 degrees of camber fabricated right in, along with 1/64th of toe-in. Rear axle toe provides an extremely stabilizing affect while in a high speed, hard breaking condition and while at high speed cruising. Again, all the best features of an IRS without any of the harmful geometry.

The Highland Daytona Racing custom 9" floater rears, with or without Camber, are rated to take up to approximately 900 HP and our 9" center sections have a lifetime warranty.

IRS vs. Live Axle
The question of IRS versus the live axle has been vigorously debated for some time now. Consider: Tradition for the sake of tradition is a vice in the mind set of the conversant contemporary racecar designer/fabricator, and for those who spend their hard-earned money buying their dream cars from us.

Don't walk away under the misconception that Highland Daytona Racing cars are in some way less drivable on the street, because of their race-bred design or technologies - this could not be farther from the truth. As most pro-road racing has historically and in many cases still does take place on city and country roads throughout the world, it stands to reason those GT cars need to be more than street-able. Because of their detailed and proven race technology, HDR cars are far safer under any and all driving situations, race or street.

Start with the very expensive aircraft alloy chromoly round tube chassis which is standard in our cars, used first for the driver's protection, with all handling considerations secondary. The advanced geometry designed into our car's suspension will prove itself as far safer and will insure driver confidence even if only on occasion inside your favorite back road turn. We believe the first order of good business is to insure our customers' safety by providing a stable, predictable, proper handling performance car.

Contact Highland Daytona Racing - Your Cobra Roadster and Daytona Coupe Experts
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