RonPorter
SHO Club of America
Stiffening the right rear on RWD cars has been done for years, though I've never seen the football idea. Didn't some factory drag packs in the late '60s come with a higher rate right rear?
I think two footballs would be needed on a FWD based car. You're trying to get the fronts to stay on the ground, not trying to keep the car straight when the fronts lift.
In the late '90s, Car and Driver had an article about a guy turning high 13's with a stock motored 3800 supercharged Bonneville. The only mods were some weight reduction and some tweaking of the suspension. The biggest difference was that he installed a set of airbags between the rear body and lower arms. For normal driving he just deflated the bags, but he jacked them up to maximum pressure to reduce weight transfer to the rear on the strip.
Wheelie bars have also been used with FWD cars, though I have yet to see that on a SHO.![]()
Actually they took that Bonnie from the mid 15s to the mid 14s with non-engine tweaks (I have the article in my crap pile somewhere!), but the idea is still valid. That's what made me look for the Air Lifts for my SHO, but they didn't have any. They used to make a bolt-on setup for cars like my '67 Mustang that didn't have coils, and I thought maybe I could get one of those to work, but never followed up on it.
Later I considered a set of bolt-in rods to effectively lock the rear suspension on a SHO for strip use. Also a set of cable limiters in the front to allow compression, but omnlu allow enough rise to keep the axles straight.
All from the ricer FWD dragstrip playbook.