Anybody running the RMS AlterKation? Was it really worth the cost?
Good calculations. .... over the years, thru updates, I have added some weight in some areas....and taken off some weight in other areas, but still close.
From feedback I receive, especially the drag racers.....they love the weight loss, the room, the simplicity, but also love the way they can run more caster for higher speed stability. I imagine that applies to other aftermarket coil over /rack and pinion conversion front ends.
On the rear, for a street car and the best dollar for dollar ride, I am still a fan of leaf springs.....unless you are a serious racer, then there are drag race / auto X specific versions of 4 bars /4-links.
Thanks Denny! I try to keep things factual/accurate. And I definitely respect what you've done for the community with your products, you make great products and obviously know your stuff. Even if I'm constantly telling people they don't need coilover conversions. :p
I will say you can achieve plenty of caster with the torsion bar suspension. I have +7* on my Duster at the moment, and I'm not even running adjustable UCA's yet. Just non-adjustable, bushed magnumforce UCA's I bought used. Peter Bergman runs about +7* as well if I remember right, he has the SPC arms I'm going to next. Before I dialed in my current alignment I was near +8* caster on one side and up to like +8.2* on the other, but with 16:1 manual steering and 275's that was more arm workout than I wanted the few times I drove it with the alignment just roughed in. Just going down to +7* made a big difference. That's not all UCA's on my set up though, I know I picked up some + caster with the poly LCA bushings and adjustable strut rods. I basically set the strut rods as short as I can get them without causing a bind condition, but since my cars are lowered I don't have as much suspension travel to deal with so the bind issue is reduced some, so even tuning for no-bind I think I get a little + caster out of them.
The stock power steering is almost an unfair comparison, that set up is such a boat anchor. I mean, you lose 40 lbs just going to a stock manual set up. But fair is fair, you can drop 70 lbs going from stock power to a manual rack, and the manual rack probably feels a bit better than the stock manual boxes so that probably does happen. But a ~30 pound difference manual to manual rack and a ~35 lb difference borgeson power to power rack is pretty decent. Definitely shows that you don't need to go full conversion to drop some weight.
First, none of the big name kits like HDK,RMS or Gerst are "Pinto suspensions" stuffed into a mopar chassis. I know the only thing they share are the base spindle design. Some like the Gerst are using redesigned/improved mustang II forged spindles. But other than being a spindle that has been redesigned to take care of some of the issues with the mustang II factory spindle, there is no other similarities to that of a mustang ii or the pinto for that matter. Lots of cars use a coil over design, pinto's are not unique to this. The geometry of these kits are totally different, materials are different etc. It's not simply cutting the suspension from a Pinto and putting into a Mopar.
As for your weight savings thing, you've got some valid points there. And I will agree, a properly tuned suspension will almost always outperform an untuned one. The aftermarket now a days has grown to where mopar owners can tune torsion bars quite well.
we've had this debate before, we'll have it again.
They're all MII based designs, and the Pinto is where that came from. Yes, I admit was being a little dramatic, I realize no one is going out and pulling Pinto parts out the junkyard. But, if your argument against them being called Pinto suspensions is geometry and construction based, I could get snitty about people calling the suspension on my Duster "duster suspension". At the moment the only stock parts on my Dusters suspension are the spindles and modified LCA's. And the modified LCA's are being replaced with tubular pieces. So, the geometry is different, the materials are different, by your logic it's not Duster suspension anymore. Heck, same for my Challenger. It even has Hotchkis UCA's that relocate the forward UCA mount, so, not even the same suspension points on that car.
Point being, you can change just as much geometry and keep the torsion bars.
I think the problem is people over estimate what the need/want. If your never gonna corner faster than .85 of a g no point of building a g machine. Which your not gonna hit too often in your daily driving. Decent tires, heavy duty sway bars and a slight lowering go a long way. But if you got the cash and can't find a better way of spending it go ahead nothing wrong with a tricked out suspension just know it's not absolutely needed to make your car handle.
The Hotchkis Challenger pulled .93g's on the skidpad with torsion bars and leaf springs, and you don't even need all the Hotchkis parts to manage that. But skidpad g's are heavily tied to tire compound. Still, that car is pretty easy to replicate from a suspension standpoint, and you don't have to spend a ton to do it.
agreed. and I say that as one who owns 2 mopar cars, one with a full four corner coil over system and the other that's simply has hemi T-bars in it. The biggestest reasons I went with the coil overs on all for corners (All Gerst Suspension stuff) are:
Weight savings, roughly 120 pounds total, roughly half-60% of that in unsprung weight,
Four corner adjustable weight bias, something you can't do with the leaf springs
Adjustable rear roll center, something you can't do with the leaf springs
Adjustable pinion angle, something you can't do with the leaf springs
Adjustable front geometry. something you can't do as much with the factory front
Clearance around the headers, transmission(eventually a t56)
Ditched the big heavy factory power steering box for a rack weighing half as much with better feel (IMO)
and a few other minor reasons including finding more options and cheaper options locally for brakes and such.
But thats in my pro-touring build on my dart. My 64 Polara is gonna retain the factory suspension as its a cruiser.
All really good points. Seems like most of them are tied to the leaf spring rear, and really those are all known disadvantages of the leaf spring rear. It's a pretty simple, not super adjustable design. That can still get to .93 g's on the skidpad in an E-body. But yeah if I changed anything to coilovers on my cars it would be the rear suspension, just a lot more adjustment to be had.
As for the front, I think the torsion bar based suspension is just as adjustable as the coilovers. With a set of adjustable UCA's and strut rods, and throwing in the changes with ride height you can do pretty much anything you want for geometry. Yes, some of it is tied to ride height changes, so you do have to play with that. But with the adjustable shocks and multiple torsion bar options out there I don't think tuning is really much of a limiting factor anymore.
And header clearance and the steering rack are pretty much the biggest pro's of going coilover. You can obviously work around both, but those are two things you just won't have with a torsion bar set up.