Spohn adjustable Panhard bar

[blackbeautyhemi]

My truck has axle hop something terrible, like when I pull out from somewhere under hard acceleration and it breaks the tires loose it hops like crazy. Both rear tires actually come off the ground. I got to reading about spohns adjustable Panhard bar and that it adds lateral stability over the flimsy factory Panhard bar. Or do I just need adjustable control arms? Just wondering on your guys thoughts and input, or even if ya had the same experience. Thanks!

 

[blackbeautyhemi]

Anybody?

 

[69GWC]

Mine wheel hopped with the stock tires as well but it wont spin the 35s as hard and dont do it anymore.
The axle is twisting, axle wrap and needs traction bars to stop it.
Maybe some better controls arms or bushing might help ?
Once mine stopped doing it I stopped looking.

 

[blackbeautyhemi]

Mine wheel hopped with the stock tires as well but it wont spin the 35s as hard and dont do it anymore.
The axle is twisting, axle wrap and needs traction bars to stop it.
Maybe some better controls arms or bushing might help ?
Once mine stopped doing it I stopped looking.

Dang I wish mine would stop. Even when I’m rolling on a on ramp at like 30 mph and accelerate hard to get on the highway, it just starts hopping bad. I’m afraid it’s going to hurt something in the rear end or driveline hopping around like that.

 

[69GWC]

Mine did the same thing, hopped bad.
One thing with mine is it did not start hopping untill I added the tufftruck springs and air bags, It did not like the stiffer rear suspension.

 

[blackbeautyhemi]

Mine did the same thing, hopped bad.
One thing with mine is it did not start hopping untill I added the tufftruck springs and air bags, It did not like the stiffer rear suspension.

Wonder if mine being stiffer from rough country’s 4” rear spacer is the reason for it? I mean it rides real nice but it has to be a lil stiffer from that spacer. I wasn’t exactly sure what the Panhard bar did and by spohns description of theirs it said it added lateral stability.

 

[69GWC]

You probably have changed to angle of the rearend (pitched the pinion up) with the 4" lift just enough to cause it, that would be my guess.

 

[blackbeautyhemi]

You probably have changed to angle of the rearend (pitched the pinion up) with the 4" lift just enough to cause it, that would be my guess.

So thinking the adjustable control arms would be the answer instead of the Panhard bar? The lift comes with different arms but must not be completely correct I guess.

 

[69GWC]

Maybe, just my best guess I am far from a expert on this matter.. lol

 

[RoadRamblerNJ]

Mine wheel hopped with the stock tires as well but it wont spin the 35s as hard and dont do it anymore.
The axle is twisting, axle wrap and needs traction bars to stop it.
Maybe some better controls arms or bushing might help ?
Once mine stopped doing it I stopped looking.

What springs are on your truck? Leaf or coil? "Traction bars" are used on leaf spring solid axles. Coil spring setups use "ladder bars" to tie the axle to the frame and prevent wheel hop.

 

[S0CAL]

I saw a thread on this here or another forum, the guy put Spohn rear upper control arms on. I just looked on their site to verify, and it looks like they also have an air ride adaptor bracket if needed.


Good luck!

 

[2010 Infantry Vet]

Black sounds like its bad, I would be worried too! Call the panhard and control arm manufacturers and ask them. Hopefuly they give you an honest answer and not just try to sell their product. Almost sounds like something is out of wack.

 

[joshuaeb09]

The panhard may help marginally, but it's role in the 5 link is to keep the axle centered under the truck. I would be looking at control arms to help with the hop or the spohn 5 link upgrade that comes with the panhard and control arms. If your lift came with proper geometry correction you shouldn't need any adjustable links unless something actually needs to corrected under your truck. I've been pretty pleased with the spohn parts on my 392 Challenger, but the application is completely different and I've heard mixed things about their control arms for the Rams. Their panhard, however, seems to be a solid upgrade for the money and is on my todo list to help with rear end movement over uneven bumps.

 

[69GWC]

What springs are on your truck? Leaf or coil? "Traction bars" are used on leaf spring solid axles. Coil spring setups use "ladder bars" to tie the axle to the frame and prevent wheel hop.

So you are calling me out because I just used tractiom bars in a generic since..

 

[blackbeautyhemi]

Black sounds like its bad, I would be worried too! Call the panhard and control arm manufacturers and ask them. Hopefuly they give you an honest answer and not just try to sell their product. Almost sounds like something is out of wack.

Yea i wish I had a video of how wicked it is. Other than that it rides great but I don’t like not being able to accelerate hard when needed.

 

[blackbeautyhemi]

The panhard may help marginally, but it's role in the 5 link is to keep the axle centered under the truck. I would be looking at control arms to help with the hop or the spohn 5 link upgrade that comes with the panhard and control arms. If your lift came with proper geometry correction you shouldn't need any adjustable links unless something actually needs to corrected under your truck. I've been pretty pleased with the spohn parts on my 392 Challenger, but the application is completely different and I've heard mixed things about their control arms for the Rams. Their panhard, however, seems to be a solid upgrade for the money and is on my todo list to help with rear end movement over uneven bumps.

Yea the lift came with upper control arms to correct the angles. I read good about spohn products to but then I saw kustomblacks video and he switched to core 4x4 rear control arms and how much better they were. Not sure what to do.

 

[RoadRamblerNJ]

So you are calling me out because I just used tractiom bars in a generic since..

No Sir, not at all. My experience has shown me there's a lot of guys that are familiar with traction bars or sometimes called "slapper bars", but they've never heard of ladder bars. Ladder bars were not real common to see on the street until recently 'cause coil springs weren't used until not long ago. Sometimes I'm a PITA about stuff. Can't help it. I'm Technical Support for life support equipment at work. No room for generalization there. My wife hates it too. . I'm just an old, gear head PITA I guess.

 

[S0CAL]

So you are calling me out because I just used tractiom bars in a generic since..

Hey man, I am calling you out....

For having an awesome rig!

 

[blackbeautyhemi]

Found this on another forum.

What is wheelhop? Wheelhop is a nasty action whereby the driven wheelsof a car voilently shake, vibrate, hop, grab, and/or thump upon acceleration. It's usually quite obvious when your car suffers from this condition, for it sounds and feels like your car fell off a garage liftthree times every second. Wheelhop doesn't just feel bad - it's bad for your car, too. For reasons that will be explained below, wheelhop can lead to broken drivetrain parts, including axlesand rear differentials on a rear-wheel-drive car, and axlesand transmissions on a front-wheel-drive car. If your car wheelhops - get it fixed!
What causes wheelhop? A lot of people don't know why wheelhop occurs, which often leads to them throwing the incorrect partsat the car in an effort to eliminate the issue. Fortunately understanding (and correcting) wheelhop is not difficult. Here is what happens. When a car accelerates, you can picture the forces involved as something (the ground) pushing the driven wheelsof the car forward. Obviously if you push the wheelsforward, the car is going to move forward also. However, the wheelsare not rigidly fixed to the chassis, so when the ground pushes on the wheels, they move forward a bit in the wheelwell. Normally a car's acceleration is so small that this motion is negligible, but when a car accelerates quickly, especially during a launch, the wheelscan move forward quite a bit in the wheelwells. As the wheelsmove forward, significant toe changes occur. Now, everybody knows that a tirecan provide the most grip when it is perpendicular to the ground, parallel with the acceleration, and pressurized to provide the optimal contact patch. That being said, if the toe of the driven wheelschanges during acceleration, the grip of the tiremust be changing. Wheelhop is a result of this change in grip. Here is the sequence of events:
1.) Acceleration begins with good grip. 2.) The wheelsmove forward, toe changes, and available grip is reduced. Wheelspin occurs. 3.) During wheelspin, acceleration is very small. The wheelsmove back again, toe changes back, and the tireregains grip. 4.) Acceleration begins again, and the process repeats itself.

 

[blackbeautyhemi]

This rapid switching between grippy acceleration and wheelspin is wheelhop. My above description of the wheelhop process sounds tame, but the frequency of the grip changes and the magnitude of the forces involved is what makes wheelhop so violent. Race tirescan prevent wheelhop since they have more grip (i.e., they don't lose grip even with the toe change), but cars that wheelhop with race tireswill do so in a much more violent fashion.
How do I get rid of wheelhop? Getting rid of wheelhop really isn't difficult. If you can limit the motion of the wheelwith respect to the chassis, then the toe changes during acceleration will be small and the tirewill not suddenly lose grip. If the tiredoes lose grip (common on a high-HP car of course), then it won't suddenly regain grip due to the wheelmoving back to it's static position. How do you keep the wheelfrom moving with respect to the chassis? Well, assuming your car has reasonably rigid suspensionarms, then all you need to look at are the suspensionbushings! The wheelcan move with respect to the chassisbecause the bushings flex...especially old, stock rubber bushings. Sometimes simply replacing old rubber bushingswith new rubber bushingsis all that is required. However, on a modified car that posesses more horsepower than the designer's intended, upgrading to stiffer materials like nylon or polyurethane may be required. The ultimate solution is to use rod ends or spherical bearingsat every suspensionjoint, but that is unreasonable unless your car will never again see public roadways. Anyway, by simply upgrading your bushings, the suspensionbushings will not flex as much under strong acceleration, the wheelwill not move far forward in the wheelwell, the toe of the car will not appreciably change, and your tireswill not lose grip. Wheelhop will have been eliminated.
In some cases weak shockscan allow a perturbed wheelto continue hopping up and down since the motion is not damped. This is a less likely scenario, but shocksshould not be ruled out as a potential culprit.
The easiest (and cheapest) method to stop wheelhop is to get a ladder bar, sometimes called a slapper, and attach it to the bottom of the rear springsunder the axle. The axletends to rock back and forth (as viewed from the rear) when heavy torqueis applied. In some old drag strip photos, you can actually see the whole frame of the vehicle twist when launching off of the start line. As the tireon one end gains tractionit pushes the car forward, then the other side can gain tractionby the axlerotating in the other direction. Slappers got rid of this by stopping the axlefrom torquingover too much. As the axlerotated, the slapper hit the springswith a rubber bumper, stopping the rotation and keeping the tireon the pavement. This was not completely efficient, but it did stop the average peel out from the stoplight wheelhop.