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When im setting front ride heights should that be on or off the shocks, same question when scaling the car should i have front shocks on or off the car?

One of my favorite things to do in the off season is look at old notes and watch the race video of the same date to see how the car was with different setups.

Awesome info as usual. I’ve got to get on top of my notes this year I hope I can make myself stick with it. Happy new year Mr Jay!!!

Jay thanks alot for all the time spent on these videos. I watch it all. The way you break things down for us is great. I'll be having u build my shocks for my factory stock this season. I'll be giving u a call soon

The worst nights are when you know what the car is doing, you know what you want the car to do but you don't know how to get there from here.

Thanks Jay!

Do service other brands of shocks? Looking for options for our afco shocks.

Good information. Buddy you are talking about day-to-day life lol.

Cars today much better then twenty years ago, talking less motor is a proven point back in the early 2000, I had a leaf malti spring and with a good 355 we put it on a four bar car with way more motor and it made the car so so much easier to drive. But today that car and that motor wouldn't get the job done, now flex in old cars can be very dangerous on a safety stand point no matter the class you run, it's just not worth the chance.

Jay, This is one thing me and you have talked about over and over this year. Thank you for going in better detail. We braced our chassis up this winter so hopefully we can come back down on RF spring rate. One thing i will say. Our store bought car vs our home build, Our home built is more rigid by all means especially in the cross brace. And has always been very fast comparatively.

Love what your doing. Wish u all the best with your channel !!

My ford 306 is 25+ lbs lighter than a 604, and that’s with iron heads. I’m very much competitive with the crates out there-maybe a tad under power, but it doesn’t matter come feature time when the tracks slicks off.

I have a Chevelle mod can I run a 2-inch spacer on the right front for a wider front for better handling. I'm already running 1 inch just wondering if it would help the car

Chassis flex is really an un measurable variable, and the repeatabillity is not reliable.

When’s the A mod stuff coming out?

Question, I’m in a stockcar I feel like entry/middle I don’t feel secure on my RR. How can I get more side.

Question, I’m in a stockcar I feel like entry/middle I don’t feel secure on my RR. How can I get more side.

Thanks Jay great info. Appreciate you doing these videos.

Great information. I traveled with Wayne Brooks for a few years back in the 90s, and he always liked a smaller motor. Most of the time, we ran 355-358 stuff. Before he went to the v6. Up on heavy tracks we would free the car up until it would turn and he did fine. Once in Texas he caught the fastest local guy that everyone talked about having a big horse 421. And passed him in the heat. We had 4 inches of mud on the nose of the car where the guy was spinning but Wayne out drove him.

Okay so I heard you recommend a Masterbuilt for a late model that turns well what modified chassis turns well

New territory for us with my sons new to him car. I worked on a late model team from 16 to 22 years old. Im 46 now and there is a late in my shop. I prefer a loose car and Rodney is better in a loose car. And I'm happy to hear a mastersbilt is gonna be suited better for us. I just hope the updates dont hurt that. We are very close to their shop.

We have been running a crate in Amarillo tx for 4 years in the modified class. We’re really competitive having won the 1500$ to win imca race in 2022 and won the 1000$ to win usra race in 2020. Problem now is we get to far behind early in the night and it’s hard to pass that many cars in the feature!

I agree - safety has taken a back seat to speed in the last few years.

I 100% agree. Racecars shouldn't flex on purpose. And there is such a thing as too much motor.

Good info

Chassis rigidity creates a fickle setup sweet spot. Every time I increased the rigidity of a car it became much more difficult to setup. In my opinion, cars work harden over time. This makes them more difficult to hit the sweet spot. So, instead of the car being flexed out. They actually can stiffen up. Broken welds are typically due to poor tubing fit at the time of assembly. Some cars could become difficult to set up due to too much flex. I think there's a happy medium. Of course, I could be wrong. That's the challenge with this sport. On the engine deal, years ago a young man was building monster engines for the NCRA sanctioned cars. He blew up two of them and was generally a 8th or 9th place car. They put in a borrowed 355 and went out and won two features in the next few weeks. He was blowing the tires off and didn't realize it.

Well explained Jay! I think one thing A LOT of new racers don't realize is what the final price will be by the time they get to the track. It's very tempting when you see a roller that "just needs a motor and transmission" for 3 or 4 grand but a year later when you finally start racing you have invested 15 to 20 grand and still have tons of unknown issues and blues to deal with. We want to encourage new racers to get into the sport but at the same time help them understand just how high that initial entry cost really is. As far as used cars go, here is my advice: If you see buying a running complete used car as the path you need to take to get into a division of racing, my recommendation is to go to the track with a trailer and the money, observe the car being raced, and it performing all night just like the owner advertised it would do. At the end of the night, it never leaves your site and it's loaded on your trailer instead of theirs. That is the best way to know exactly what you are getting. It doesn't mean things are not broke or wore out but you see exactly the condition as far as how it affects the car overall and gives you the best starting point to have a car you can reasonably expect to be able to race. When you get home, scale and measure EVERYTHING and write it down. A few omissions here or there or just one or two parts swapped out or moved can 100% be the difference between a front runner and lapped traffic! Racing is 100% TRUST BUT VERIFY on any and all purchases every single time ;)

I would always assume a used car has a bent rearend. Factor that repair or at least having it checked into the cost of a used car. Also when did that car last race? Big difference is a car that has sat a while and one that was raced last weekend. Great videos Jay.

I got a 12" 1 7/8 LR spring I use but finding a lower lb at that height would be great. We also have a 12" 90lb but it is on a 2.5 coil. Only reason to run a big body is on the LR due to the amount of coils you have to start with ride height after you get the number you need.

Started out building my own cars. Street stock stuff. Another guy had a new car built. Went and practiced it. Sold the car to me dirt cheap. Worst car ever. So many things was done wrong. Took forever to get it all lined out. Fast forward 20 years. Now I've built one mod chassis. My son traded a mini sprint for a 2018 masterbilt late. It is completely disassembled. Rebuild like a new car. Only way to know everything is correct.

Ever wonder why the car that's fast, consistent, wins all the time anywhere...is for sale? Something to think about

Big tip for buying a used car, make a friend in that division that knows those cars and runs well and have them with you when you go to look at used cars to buy. A lot can be hidden in a complete used car that the uneducated eye won't catch.

If you are not pretty much RICH $$, do not buy an IMCA stock car and think you will be able to compete with the big boys! Ain't gonna happen. If you wanna race for fun and don't care if you win or lose and like working on cars then by all means.

Can you do a open motor UMP modified video

I made it!

Thank you jay. Really enjoy all the videos. Going over and above giving people graphs and things like that really are appreciated. I really like what your doing👍🏼

Awesome video Mr Jay!!!?thanks for what you do buddy

Hey Jay. Nice work on your videos - always good stuff. Back in my Penske days I always thought you and Yvette were the friendliest people at the trade shows. 👍

Lots of great information here. 2 things I would add. In that step where you are thinking about what you can afford and handle classwise, be honest with yourself! And step one is having a truck and some kind of trailer! I get many asking these questions and get the deer in the headlight look when I ask them how they will pickup the car they buy and how will they get it to the track! Lol

Mr Jay Neal you must get a discount on your pitpasses, because they are upwards from 35 to 45 dollars here in Oklahoma at least. 😂

Great video! I built a dyno a few years ago and working with a friend to upgrade it this year to higher horsepower and a better scottish yoke. I used an arduino chip, load cell, linear encoder to measure speed and distance and use microsoft excel to connect to the arduino chip via usb and stream the data directly into a spreadsheet with a chart. Works really good and spent less than $300 on all the components (motor was free but new one will not be Lol) I will be adding a temp sensor to it this year as well. You kinda gotta manipulate your spreadsheet to get a single cycle but if you data capture long enough you can see shock fade as well.

Jay that sounds a lot like why I stopped going to the races on a regular basis after 35 plus years of working with local drivers to national drivers from Greg Skaggs, John Potter, Terry Downing, Randy Fraley, and several others on the local end, then on the regional or national end of things working with Kelly Shryock, Wayne Brooks, Eddie Martin, Mark Noble, John Allen and others. I just was expecting to finally breakthrough and land a spot on a race team that actually paid me to be on the road while I was single. Because I put my time in and learned and work extremely hard in order to be able to actually get a spot. Yet it just came to the point that no one acted like they wanted me working with them, even though they all told me I was good at doing the work on the cars. Certainly there is no one that will ever have a better single season in racing as I was favored to have in 2001. I went to around 200 individual races, and was apart of over 60 individual A main feature wins that year, along with at least seven different championships that I am aware of from that year. Not to mention I was working a full time job, and traveling several hours to some races then traveling back in order to work the next day. Which I did for several years, while going from one job to another, just so I could still go to the races. Then I decided to just not go anymore until I got paid to work on other people's racecars. Which I found other things to do, and only been to the races a handful of times over the past several years.

Thanks for the modlite specific video. Im seeing a trend in AZ of modlite guys running low LR spring rates on the slick. Like 60 or 70 lbs low on a 1 7/8 spring. Another thing I'm seeing is the LR shock location. Some prefer in front of axle, and some have it behind.