Show Me Your Race Car Trailers

[fatz]

3 metre ramps awsome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[BezerkR32]

mate of mine has scares all over his head to prove they are no fun.

back in the day they used to chain the cars and use those hook and turn-buckle style fasteners. He fell asleep at the wheel and drove up the arse of something, the racecar lurched of the trailer and onto the tow car.........ouch. Cant be to care-full, so overated straps and safety chains and re-checking the load is all fine by me. I guess at the end of the day if we are not doing what i have seen people do and use pieces of rope, then we stand a better chance of eliminating risk.

trailer crash is my worse nightmare

[Neil]

Pete I'm glad your happy!!!. I don't like selling to friends but thats been a great trailer in the years we owned it and can't see why with some care she won't do the same for you.

I must say Mel and I both love your R31. Those wheels look so sexy on her. Is it a real SVD?. I had one as a company car (136 or 138) and a red one as well.

We stop all the time to check all is good. I also touch the wheel bearing caps to make sure they are not hot. It's a great way of catching a bearing problem.

Neil.

[fatz]

yea mate real deal just with a proper engine ( rb30det)

ive owned number 32, 194 and 164

20 years on they still have tops steering feel ( getter than a gtr) and seats better than a gtr

mmmmmm r31 number 1!

[boxheadmr]

Pete, your comment about the fuel economy got me thinking what does everyone else get towing?

Maybe to give some indication

Tow Car = Holden VZ V6

Trailerd Car Weight Estimated = 1200kgs

Ltrs/100klm = 13.9

Matt

[Duncan]

haha stagea gets 300klm/60l at best

pete do you have any trailer crash stories to share???11ty?

[fatz]

5 tonnes on the roll auto 4.5 litre gu gets 28 litres of lpg per 100km

22 without the trailer

eg shithouse!

my old gq did 20 litres towing or not

[fatz]

haha stagea gets 300klm/60l at best

pete do you have any trailer crash stories to share???11ty?

the reason i own a 4wd is because of the crashworks.... i mean raceworks trailer.... farken death trap!

130 + jacknife next to a B DOUBLE =scary

then got to the race track and scuck the car in a wall

good trip that one

Edited January 6, 2009 by fatz

[Neil]

Pete do you have any trailer crash stories to share???11ty?

Oh nice work Duncan,,,thanks for that,,,.

[fatz]

did i mention where good looking

[fatz]

and the reson why we jacknifed

and why i now own a 4wd

[BezerkR32]

ahhh the old tow car is lighter than the trailer trick.....

and the reson why we jacknifed

and why i now own a 4wd

[Neil]

Yea Stuart,,,Pete could start a thread about what not to do.

Who needs power steering when the front wheels are almost doing a Troy Corser.

Neil.

[mitch_SR32]

K frame is mounted to the body - its a fully sprung component.

tieing down from fully sprung components means if the car's suspension compresses slightly when you hit a bump, the tie down goes slack and then the car's suspension rebounds and shock loads the restraint. A loosening restraint also allows the load to move. Tieing down from unsprung components which stay perfectly still in relation to the trailer keeps constant tension on the load you are trying to restrain. That has to be the best way to go.

the 200% figure was just plucked out of the air. But the idea is to allow a safety margin rather than just speccing them to 8 tenths of the weight they're trying to secure. for example, my old U2L IPRA race car weighed 851kg - your 8/10s rule of thumb whould mean all I need is a single strap rated to 680kg! I use two 800kg straps to tension the front and prevent the load moving rearwards, wheras with your system all i need is two 200kg straps. may as well use Telstra rope!

I don't know what kind of G force a loaded trailer/4WD combo can pull under an emergency braking situation - maybe .5 to .6G?? Passenger vehicles can do .8 to .9G if I recall the wheels/motor tests correctly, so .6G is 50% less braking force than that which is probably realistic enough. There goes 3/4 of your SWL (safe working load) just in braking alone - not much margin for safety left, is there? I'll continue to err on the side of caution. It may be uneccesary/overkill, but it just has to be safer than strap only rated to 8 tenths of the load its trying to hold.

And yes, if there is a crash and parts of the trailer or car that the restraints are connected to bend, I'm fine with that - its much better than the alternative of the restraint breaking and the load flying off to cause more damage. Even if it still didn't hold, it has to absorb more energy before something breaks.

The K frame is bolted to the body and so by tying that down you should be getting rid of a lot of body roll which is not good for towing long distance, or any distance really.

You read the rules wrong, for your car you will need 1x 680kg strap at the rear and 1x 425kg NOT 2x 200kg from the front, since this won't be enough to be safe assuming only one strap is taking the load. This is without factoring in side movement by the way, but nobody can factor in an accident when they are tying something down otherwise everyone would be tying their 1200kg race cars down with 22mm 100 grade chain and dogs from tow trucks to massive oblongs welded into huge thick plates on a trailer so nothing comes apart in this accident everyone is planning on having.

Of course this setup would weigh a good 2 tonne in trailer and bracing for the tie downs, maybe even more, not to mention getting tie down points rated to match welded to your car and I know that isn't happening.

And for Telstra rope or any rope for that matter, if you are not sure how much weight it can take safely the formula is this:

Diameter of the rope x 8 = SWL in kg

[Beer Baron]

yea mate real deal just with a proper engine ( rb30det)

ive owned number 32, 194 and 164

20 years on they still have tops steering feel ( getter than a gtr) and seats better than a gtr

mmmmmm r31 number 1!

more like 31 up ya bum...

[N1GTR]

VTII Berlina V6 auto, towing GTR on cheapsh!t rental trailer, average about 18L to 100 on cruise control with AC on but only doing 100kph. I find the economy gets MUCH worse for that extra 10 kmh so i just sit below the limit the whole trip

[benm]

lol my Hiace has the pedal to the floor empty with just me in it, dreading when I have to pull 1100kg with it

[hrd-hr30]

The K frame is bolted to the body and so by tying that down you should be getting rid of a lot of body roll which is not good for towing long distance, or any distance really.

yep fully sprung, not unsprung as you said. so are you suggesting your 80% and 50% rule also allows for the extra strain of controlling body roll on top of just holding the weight of the load??? The only way to actually prevent suspension movement would be to pre-tension the straps so much that the suspension is on the bump stops!

quite contrary to your advice of never tieing down from the axles (which you even put in bold!), best practice for securing a vehicle on a trailer is around the tyre/wheel (an unsprung component that does not move in relation to the trailer!) like this and these http://www.uscargocontrol.com/wheelnetscartiedowns-c-47.html as used by car transportes and towies.

but however you tie it down, I think it would be a good idea to at least have straps rated to the weight of the car their holding, particularly if you are tieing to the fully sprung parts of the car that can and do move during transit which puts extra load on your tie downs.

anyway, my advice is go overboard in your tie down ratings rather than trying to use the minimum required. it certainly can't hurt.

[benm]

Ideally that's how i'd like to tie down my 600kg vehicle but mounting the d-rings to 2mm floor won't work as it's likely to rip it straight off the frame underneath or atleast try to.

Need to work out a way of mounting the d-rings to the floor, suggestions?

Edited January 7, 2009 by benm

[Beer Baron]

you could consider something like this instead ben.