Quote:
Originally Posted by deckofficer
Richard,
What is your assessment of the '98 JBL? I have tracked down Paul Eckebrecht's car from Idaho. It is now in Pennsylvania with it's new owner who is looking to sell it.
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That car is one of the earliest LWB cars. It has the forged steel front uprights and cast rockers. The geometry is virtually the same as the current chassis except for the steering. The Ford uprights produce a little bit of toe in on dive that the JBL design units do not. This is not really a bad thing as it does add some stability under braking and you can run more toe out for track use which really improves turn in.
The anti roll bar blades are manual adjustment (still cockpit adjustable) as opposed to the current electronic control.
I do not know if the rear calipers and rotors ever got updated from the floating design Ford stuff to the wilwood components that have been standard since the first few LWB cars.
It is virtually the same chassis as Chuck Millers car and that car was not bad at Willow Springs or at Vegas either. It just needed the updated rear brakes to obtain a proper bias balance. When I drove the car at Vegas I could not get enough rear into it and this was mostly due to not being able to get a rear pad pad with the correct COF to match the fronts.
The brakes were good mind you, but just not up the standard that I expect for this chassis. But it does give you a parking brake with the Ford stuff and that is why that chassis went out that way. (I had not yet designed the JBL handbrake system like the one on Mark B's car and others.)
And this is just about all I know about this car. Larry G. may have more info as he was the constructor of this vehicle.