Car squats to one side under hard acceleration.

[stephen bruno]

Under hard acceleration my car seems to squat to the left and when I lift the back end comes back and the car gets squirmy.

[Michael H.]

Re: Car squats to one side under hard acceleration

Stephen,

Typically, this is a sign of rear wheel alignment problems but could also be non matching rear tire sizes. Could even be as easy to repair as making sure the air pressure is equa in both rear tires. Beyond this, there are several more less likely causes. How does it drive just going down the road? I'm asuming it has radial tires?

[stephen bruno]

Re: Car squats to one side under hard acceleration

Michael

The car drives okay going down the road. The tire pressure is balanced and she has gold line tires.

[Michael H.]

Re: Car squats to one side under hard acceleration

Stephen,

With radial tires, it's often difficult to feel an alignment problem as this tire design will cover up many problems that you may have with suspension or alignment. If a Corvette drives reasonably straight with non radial tires, you can usually assume the rear alignment is close but you can't tell with radials. However, in a straight line, under hard acceleration, even radials will loose their direction and the rear will usually pull to one side consistantly. If the direction of pull is not constant, you may have some suspension or bearing/bushing problems but if it's always in the same direction, I would first look into at least checking the rear alignment. Hope this helps.

[Terry M.]

Re: Car squats to one side under hard acceleration

Damaged rear strut rod bushings on one side will cause a pull to one side on acceleration. IIRC the bad bushing is on the side that it pulls toward, but check them all. If one is bad, the others are not far behind.

[mike cobine]

Re: Car squats to one side under hard acceleration

This can also be a bad left rear shock or a bad right front shock. Aslo mismatched springs at those corners. The alignment would come into play if he is hard accelerating while running down the road, but the shocks or springs would affect it on take off from a stop.

Squirmy is a case of the rear probably being out of alignment, which could also be bad bushings since they would not hold alignment. It could be as simple as the strut rod (camber adjustment) bushings being shot, the strut rods being bent (many bent to adjust alignment), front trailing arm bushings shot, or shims in wrong or missing.

Spend an hour looking and you may find what you have wrong.

[Michael H.]

Re: Car squats to one side under hard acceleration

Alignment would have an effect at any speed under hard acceleration. There are a lot of things that can cause this problem, including a broken cross member frame plate. Big blocks had a nasty habit of ripping that left side plate off the frame. (Mike, I'm sure you have had experience with this condition)

The most logical place to begin would be a thorough visual inspection of the entire rear suspension/drive. If all looks to be in good condition, I would have the alignment checked.

[mike mccagh]

Re: Car squats to one side under hard acceleration

yes, i've had to re-weld the drivers side bracket on several of our mid-year big block vettes.best done with body removed. mike