DOES THE HDK SUSPENSION K-MEMBER HANDLE BETTER THAN A T-BAR SUSPENSION?

goldduster318 said
1st: Generally made out of cut plate and square tubing at right angles with no gussets or triangulation whatsoever. This might be just fine for a drag only car and possibly a street car but there's nothing stopping any of these from parallelagraming other than the wall thickness which has a minor effect. The entire car does this to some extent also but not having the OEM k-frame in my opinion makes this more likely. The OEM K-shape is much better for this and it also has vertical height in the middle which would resist bending and torsion. The sway bar mounts like this have to just be flexing left and right since they are basically on horns sticking out. It's a real area that can be improved. Another tie bar in front back to the rails of the k-frame, gussets, smaller square tubing with triangulation would make a serious difference.

So far on this thread I have not commented on how much stiffer the car feels with the HDK. I'm sure most will call BS or say it's psychological, but the car feels stiffer with the HDK. Based on the commentary, perhaps I'm the only that has gone from a well built t-bar setup to the HDK for a real world comparison, so I'll understand the skepticism. After the HDK install, a friend that goes to Moparty with me every year even commented on how much stiffer and more responsive the car felt and he was a passenger. This was before any the geometry adjustments. Agreed there is no triangulation on the K and there may be some concerns of paralleling, but I don't feel it.
Sway bar mounts- the picture you shared must be the old HDK design since mine are different. The brackets are made with vertical triangulation for stiffness. You mentioned left to right stiffness on the sway bar bracket. I'm sorry, but if your sway bar is moving left to right any significant amount, you have a problem. The bar itself is meant to float in the bushings, which is likely fractions of an inch. I've never seen witness marks on the bar where it moved outside the width of the bushing.

goldduster318 said
2nd is the LCA with the narrow pitch of the two pivot points. Generally, you want is further apart for stability as you find in nearly all modern cars but how to totally solve this using a front steer rack and such a low pivot point, I am not sure. You'd almost need to go with a strut rod that would ride above the tie rods but this might not be possible. In an original Mustang II / Pinto the strut rod goes to the rear direction but on an A-body it wouldn't have much support even if there was a pickup point due to the location of the k-frame bolts without welding something to the stock frame rails. The pivot points being low is also inviting more flex to the k-frame and movement under load.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean "narrow pinch of two pivot points".

I realize some people do not like the idea of single shear design. I can't change anyone's opinion on that. The shaft for the LCAs is machined .75" steel (don't know what type) with a nice radius at the corners of steps where the threads are. This shaft has a very neat fit into the tube on the K. The shaft doesn't rotate, the delrin bushings rotate on the shaft. I believe all the steel tubing used is chromoly, Denny can chime in on this. These LCAs aren't bending! I don't see the need in a strut rod when there are already two mounting points for the LCA. I've never seen any other high end aftermarket front suspensions or even factory designs using strut rods on wishbone LCAs.