Help with leaf spring selection,
I might look at the Mickey Thompson sportsman SR tires, they have all common 15" sizes.
How critical do you think having a rear sway bar is with my tire limitations?
Not sure how the Mickey Thompson's stack up, I haven't run a set and they don't publish their treadwear numbers to get an idea of how soft those compounds are. And TireRack doesn't carry them so no testing reviews either. Although it would be difficult for them to be worse than BFG T/A's for handling. This is why pretty much all the performance handling cars go to 17" wheels (or larger).
As far as the sway bar goes, I still think you'd be better off with a front and rear bar, even if they're just stock pieces. I don't think they're
critical unless you're planning on pushing the handling pretty hard, but they'll definitely help. One thing I wouldn't do is run a front sway bar without a rear sway bar with that set up. Either run both or none at all, at least to start off. Yes, the factory offered these cars with just a front sway bar, but the front suspension of these cars was also massively undersprung from the factory. The rear suspension, especially with the XHD's, was not nearly as undersprung as the front. So adding a factory sway bar to the front suspension with the stock torsion bars would still leave the car undersprung in the front. Better, but still undersprung. Going to 1.03" torsion bars in the front goes a long way toward evening up the spring rates, so running a front sway bar without a rear could unbalance things. It does depend on your set up, which includes things like how much the car is raked, how much the tires are staggered, etc. But if you're not going to run a rear bar to start off with I would start without a front bar as well, see how it handles, and then go from there.
