Surely, if you drive it hard anyway. But it is a question of how much more stress. The rear anchoring points for the T-bars are a well known area of stress and are prone to rust. But they are better engineered to take stress than the front end is.
Coil Over vs Torsion Bar
- Thread starter MrJLR
- Start date
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I've been all over. Nothing holds a candle to PA roads. I honestly laugh that most of the roads here look like they are from the 3rd world. State highways cut up and patched together with chip and tar, and the worst section of rt 80 in the country.
GMachineDartGT
Senior Member
That I agree with. Going upstate regularly these days leaves me thinking what's up with PA every time i cut through. The NY roads are good..
Super-Cuda
MOPAR .. Move Over, Plymouth Approaching Rapidly!
Absolutely agree with you dartly !!
That's exactly what Bill at RMS and Denny at HDS have done. They are A-body owners and have disassembled , modified and altered more of these cars than most people on this site. They have taken what they have learned from multiple try's and fails to come up with the systems they sell. These suspension systems are not just some afterthought , they are extremely well engineered and built and far exceed the build quality of the factory pieces. One of the biggest achievements is the weight reduction and, therefore the resultant reduction of weight bearing stress on the factory frame rails and sheet metal. Go ahead , google to your hearts content and try to find one instance of failure of the thousands of Bill's and Denny's suspensions, you wont find one. I know , I tried, All I found was overwhelming praise for how well they worked and how well they were built. Not to mention how well they support their products. There is nothing wrong with the engineering behind the torsion bar systems Ma Mopar blessed us with, there are major issues with these assemblies after they have been used for 50 years. Power steering mounts, LCA pivot mounts , torsion bar mounts etc.. are well documented failure points and can be extremely dangerous if the failure occurs while driving. I don't care what A- body you take apart or how much mileage it has on it, as soon as you check out the suspension components you are going to find very shoddy construction and multiple locations that need re-welding to be acceptable as these pieces were never meant to last this long or perform with the tire/wheel combos we have today.
This is what I think hotrodding is about, improving on what the factory offered and it hasn't changed since the first model T was modified. Basically what you said, do the homework , discover what works and what doesn't and then find a way to safely adapt it to your ride.
dirty white boy
50 yr old Juvenal delinquent
way back when one of the A body uni body advertisements had a dart running down road with no right front tire, ballast in trunk to balance it, to show how stiff the uni body design was!! in early 90s i had a stock duster spent its hole life on drag strip being launched with a 4 speed, i could jack ether front tire a foot off the ground by the bumper and other front tire never come up, woulda jacked it higher just to see but was scared windshield was gonna crack or pop out!! i believe harsh duty will take its toll on stock uni body if something isn't done to help it...something to thunk bout! DWB
famous bob
mopar misfit
how would a $30,000 mustang compare w/ a hellcat ??
famous bob
mopar misfit
I don`t believe the dart running down the road w/ no front tire deal !!!!!!
Super-Cuda
MOPAR .. Move Over, Plymouth Approaching Rapidly!
Don't know about the Hellcat but the demon just flat out performs. This is a pic after a "spirited" run on the back roads outside of town. Shelby was no slouch either but just doesn't have the power as the Demon. Although I was a distant third in the acceleration dept, I had no problem making up distance in the twisties.Both owners were stunned with how well my car worked in the turns!! Mostly due to a better power to weight ratio and the amount of suspension adjustment I now have.
Sorry about the sideways pic as I don't know how to fix it. Taken with my phone.
diymirage
HP@idle > hondaHP@redline
Super-Cuda
MOPAR .. Move Over, Plymouth Approaching Rapidly!
myduster360
Well-Known Member
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 and worse, INCAPABLE of supplying more, 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 stiffer than 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. We can go on:
The strut rod too sloppy---ok we have 5 different adjustable ones to choose from.
The Roll center is too high so the Factory bean counters can save a buck not installing a Swaybar on most cars--So we throw on "drop spindles" and/or taller Spindles or lower the ride height to get it down and improve the Camber/Caster curves.
There's too much Anti-dive which was a result of Torsion Bars spec'd TOO SOFT but so much hurts the Caster curve--Ok Hotchkiss UCA have a fix for that, at least for E and B bodies
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 and the Cost/Benefit can be justified, GO FOR IT! The laundry list of mods we all do are already included.
Factory Design has far too little Caster and Camber and worse, INCAPABLE of supplying more, 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 stiffer than 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. We can go on:
The strut rod too sloppy---ok we have 5 different adjustable ones to choose from.
The Roll center is too high so the Factory bean counters can save a buck not installing a Swaybar on most cars--So we throw on "drop spindles" and/or taller Spindles or lower the ride height to get it down and improve the Camber/Caster curves.
There's too much Anti-dive which was a result of Torsion Bars spec'd TOO SOFT but so much hurts the Caster curve--Ok Hotchkiss UCA have a fix for that, at least for E and B bodies
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 and the Cost/Benefit can be justified, GO FOR IT! The laundry list of mods we all do are already included.
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Okay, so you agree with me completely not. Got it. What you are really saying, probably without realizing it, is that a brand new coil over - without adding any structural additions to the front end - is superior to doing nothing to a 40+ year old car. Okay, I can 'agree' with that. Of course, as I said in other posts, or at least alluded to, one 45 year old car can be very different than another 45 year old car. They also changed between 64 and 77 - upper control arms, idler arms, sway bar mounts, T-bars, spindels ... and you are right in 'agreeing' with me, in that a 1969 A-body was NOT designed with 18" wheels, 40 series tires, and 2X the stiffness in T-bars. But it was not designed to use coil overs either. I did state more than once that it is very possible that the cars had built into them enough structural capacity to deal with the new systems to which you refer. It is possible that they had not as well. Check back with us in 45 years.
Super-Cuda
MOPAR .. Move Over, Plymouth Approaching Rapidly!
Agree totally!!
Not to mention the cost of upgrading the stock stuff is escalating rapidly to the point that it is just as well to upgrade to the newer coilover systems and get the weight reduction, better clearance etc.. It cost me a lot of money,(not to mention time) to repair/upgrade the stock setup and I still had 55 year old technology that only worked marginally better.
Super-Cuda
MOPAR .. Move Over, Plymouth Approaching Rapidly!
Hey Dartly,
I understand where you are coming from in addressing the structural integrity of the stock sheetmetal/subframes,. Correct me if I'm wrong but do you think that removing the factory components and replacing them with aftermarket systems compromises the structural integrity of the car? If so, there is absolutely no proof of this. There are numerous members on here using these components in everything from wheelstanding race cars to street cars (one person who commented in this thread has over 30,000 miles on his). If you can mount a gen 1 hemi to these new k-frames with coil-overs, and support the weight of that motor over the front wheels, I am inclined to think that the structural integrity is just fine. As you said, in 45 years I could be proven wrong but for now , these systems seem to be holding up just fine.
I never said that the coil over systems won't hold up. I said that the cars were not designed for them. I also said that if 'I' were to use one, I would look to implement added structure to the car - exactly what I don't now know, because I have no intention of doing such a thing and so have not done the aformensioned homework so as to know what would be needed. I also said the cars might well be built to withstand the added stress. And I also said that I would not be willing to test that out. 30K miles is not a lot of miles when you consider that these cars often last 200K+ with the stock componenets. I said further that it depends a lot on the year, condition and usage of the vehicle. Best regards,
~Bill
Super-Cuda
MOPAR .. Move Over, Plymouth Approaching Rapidly!
Thanks for the reply Bill.
I guess what I'm saying is that I believe that these new systems seem to be very well thought out and the re-design plus the engineering has been done to ensure that these 50 + year old cars can indeed support the modifications without major structural changes. So far, the results I have gotten plus the comments from others bear this out. As you suggested , only time will tell..
Signetroar
horsepower rules,build to drive
Personal opinions aside I thought handling and safety upgrades were good,there have been so many improvements like brakes,chassis stiffening,injection etc that simply didn't exist when the cars were built.
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Signetroar
horsepower rules,build to drive
Who makes a good set for pre-67 A bodies?I've got a 66 Valiant with a '70 340 & stick.I had to remove ps to install 340 stock headers.Don't want to hack body for headers,not much room on this old narrow chassis!Was considering coil-overs for clearance and serious autocross action. Have done some mods to suspension I won't get into here. What do you think?
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Super-Cuda
MOPAR .. Move Over, Plymouth Approaching Rapidly!
Here's an option.
TTI Headers p/n 636 A
Requires some mods to transmission crossmember I think but fit great!
dirty white boy
50 yr old Juvenal delinquent
maybe not a dart but, it happened!
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Signetroar
horsepower rules,build to drive
Thanks,that looks like what I need!Crossmember mods are no problem.I think with an "s"pipe I can still use use my 4" side pipes(yep, that's right,Corvette-style 4"full length)gives it some character,don't ya know.I've got her hung pretty good,bb torsion bars,sway bars front and back,Konis all around. Thought coil overs would solve steering issues(rack and pinion)now I'll have to rethink my granny front end.Other issues too,it's a hardtop so I'm planning frame connectors,full cage,full seat harness etc for Power Tour.Got a real stout 340,had fun club level races and autocross,gets a lot of talk,impressive performance.Sorry too much talk,can you tell
I love the thing?Had it over 40 years.
myduster360
Well-Known Member
Not sure whats more amazing, the car on 3 wheels or that the trunk is big enough and strong enough to hold 2000lb of "ballast".
Super-Cuda
MOPAR .. Move Over, Plymouth Approaching Rapidly!
I understand the attachment LOL!! Ive had mine for about the same time! Cheap upgrades for you.. Go to united car tool's site and check out the torque boxes and the subframe connectors. What a difference in chassis stiffness they make! Night and day difference in my car! Borgeson Steering makes a very good lightweight power steering box that would help you in the weight and clearance dept. as well.
www.borgeson.com/xcart/home.php?cat=148
famous bob
mopar misfit
total B.S., "did u not see that the engineers put 2000 pounds in the trunk," the older cars were stiffer than a A and B also !
We twisted a hemi belvedere so bad the doors wouldn`t close, before we braced it up.
SpeedyEd
Member
Signetroar, Back in the '70's I modded a set of Appliance headers for a '67 A-body to fit my '66 Valiant. It required two redirected pipes on the drivers side to go around the steering box & two pipes on the passenger side to clear the idler arm.
At that time I couldn't find under chassis headers. One problem I had was with the clutch linkage. Not from the headers but from the clutch.
Stepping on the clutch pedal caused the dashboard to flex. I made a brace from the master cylinder to the fender well. You also will need to reinforce the pivot located on the fender well. Mine cracked.
The z-bar needed help too. Gussets & braces.
My first pressure plate was a 9 1/8" Weber with 9 springs (OEM had 3 behind a 273). The 340 had a 10 1/2" Zoom.
The linkage failure didn't take very long.
Ed
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