The design of our factory suspension was superior, for its day. BUT its NOT sacrilegious to say most of this once "great" design needs A LOT of help. We prove that ourselves everyday with the mods we do and KNOW WORK!
Factory Design has far too little Caster and Camber, so we throw in Problem solver bushings or new UCAs.
Factory Design has far too weak front sway bar OR NO SWAY BAR, so we add one at least 2x thicker than what ever came factory
Factory Design has far too weak of Spring rate, so we gladly throw on 70% stiffer bars(.88" vs 1.0")
That's just the standard list of "must dos" to get our +55year old suspension design to handle decent. You can go on:
The strut rod too sloppy---ok we have 5 different adjustable ones to choose from.
There's too much Anti-dive which was a result of Torsion Bars spec's TOO SOFT but it hurts the Caster curve--Ok Hotchkiss UCA have a fix for that, at least for E and B bodies
The Roll center is too high so the Factory bean counters can save a buck not installing a Swaybar on most cars--So we lower the ride height and throw on "drop spindles" to maintain suspension travel.
The point is we change EVERYTHING about the factory front suspension design to get our cars to handle the way we like. What we wind up with barely resembles what we started with as far as the Factory Design and specs are concerned. But for some reason we have to draw the line at ditching Torsion Bars all together? Its heresy or sacrilegious to speak ill of Torsion Bars?,,, wtf?
Torsion Bars are great and are perfect for a mostly stock cruiser but only because the majority of the time, the Economics of Coil Over setup doesn't make sense for the car's intended purpose. But for whatever reason a guy wants to install a CO front end, GO FOR IT!