Birdcages as you can see have made great gains in technology over the pass few years, it was not that many years ago when we were racing on steel on steel with a bunch of grease. Now it has been brought to our attention that some of the manufactures are trying to drag us back ten years in time by putting us on some type of bronze bushing birdcages. As birdcages were being developed for a 4 bar system steel on steel or nylon is what we had to work with at the time, and many races were won using them, but you can’t use that kind of thinking when you are trying to develop a better product. We often do this, we go back in time to what worked for us when we were winning races, and this is what is keeping us from moving forward and getting faster. Now we flash forward to today’s birdcages and the plus and minus to a bearing birdcage, but first we must understand why the grease able birdcage hurts our cars. A nylon birdcage or a bronzed bushing birdcage allows for a lot of drag and bind between the inside of the birdcage and the axle tube, this causes the car to be inconsistent in the position of the rear axle when the car is in hike up. Ten years ago we built some high dollar birdcages that used a aerospace bearing in them, the bearings were about $400.00 dollars to do a car and were the type as they seen more load they would get freer and freer. Although the bearing preformed very well the car still took horsepower and grip to get the car on the bars. We videoed this many times and came to the conclusion that the load between birdcage and the axle tube is to great, we fixed this problem when we started using ball bearings instead of bronzed bushing configuration. Even using a higher dollar bearing, the car was unable to react as fast as the ball bearing birdcages did we tested this product for over two years in hope of having a better birdcage. Now as time has gone on, we have learned and tested for heat expansion of the tube versus the birdcage and for bearing alignment and this has taught us how delicate that a good birdcage is to being right. We have standard numbers for alignment that we check our birdcages to, this is why you are seeing a push right now for a birdcage with a full length liner in it.
This is the only way they can keep the bearing straight in their birdcages. We build our cages the way we do for a reason, and that allows for bearing alignment to the tube to be 100 percent right. What we have been teaching our customers over the years is that it is very easy to lose side bite in the slick because of a birdcage, and when a guy calls in and is looking for a shock to help the car build more side bit and his car is really good in the tacky but lacks in the slick than we go right to the birdcages and many times I have seen where a guy has a new birdcage and the design of that cage is what is hurting the car. In short what BSB feels is the most important part of the car for making forward traction and side bite is often turned in to a marketing tool for someone to sell as a product of profit. People seen an opportunity to get into a market because building birdcages appeared to get easier to do, but the truth of the fact is it got harder to build. We have a process in place to guarantee each birdcage we ship has the proper run out and alignment and can send documentation upon request. We currently private label products for multiple chassis companies and will not sacrifice quality for profit. Without a doubt people are going to win a race somewhere on some real junk stuff but this doesn’t mean what we are doing is wrong, it just means you can't win them all. BSB has not forgot about the birdcage just because we are moving in to other product lines like shock and spring but we are using this to develop a better suspension system for your car. We are trying and test birdcages in both performance and quality on a weekly bases to make improvement, but this is joint effort between you as an end user and us as a manufacture, so please stay involved and have some input because it all matters in the out come of the product.