Firm Feel Road Race Leaf Springs

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Rice Nuker said:
I have my firm feel "road race" springs on my 73 duster. The are very definetly lowered. Mine were one inch arch or zero arch, I cannot remember. Dick at firm feel said they have been running these for years and had very good results.. Unfortunately the car is mostly stripped/ gutted now, so no accurate judgement on lowered height, nor any point in taking a picture as it wouldn't be a good representation. We were jouncing up and down on the car couple weeks ago and I felt like the springs were fairly soft (no shocks on it).. Based on autox's advise I am going to run them babies with good shocks and see how it acts. Thats good advise, test first, modify if necessary.
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Typical....Rear leafs will act like that. There isn't much rate back there. On my Hotchkis springs, before I put on the shocks, I grabbed the bumper and you could jounce the car pretty easy with one hand.
 
Don't forget to upgrade the front sway bar and balance it with a rear bar.

Cop cars had them for a reason.
 
Yeap, I am going Firm Feel front 1.25 / rear .75 sway bar. Fattest torison bars I can get from Firm Feel. I like the bob truck feel. Hopefully they have the sway bars balanced well as I already have the rear bar and it is not adjustable. Who the heck knows considering the variations in weight distribution of different car builds. I will probably have to buy an adjustable rear bar down the road but I am not too far into suspension tuning knowledge currently.
 
Rice Nuker said:
Yeap, I am going Firm Feel front 1.25 / rear .75 sway bar. Fattest torison bars I can get from Firm Feel. I like the bob truck feel. Hopefully they have the sway bars balanced well as I already have the rear bar and it is not adjustable. Who the heck knows considering the variations in weight distribution of different car builds. I will probably have to buy an adjustable rear bar down the road but I am not too far into suspension tuning knowledge currently.
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If you get those fat 1.18" T-bar you really must upgrade the shocks.

The KYB's have no way of controlling those big T-bars.
 
autoxcuda said:
If you get those fat 1.18" T-bar you really must upgrade the shocks.

The KYB's have no way of controlling those big T-bars.
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KYBs... Yea they are probably great for slant six or mild V8 bar rates. The T bar purchase is a little while off, but I am only buying them once, so the stiffest available. I am currently torn between the Qa1 single dial and others in the price range. I may or may not even run the kybs at all but certainly will not have them on for any duration.

Just like some dont care if they drive around with 3,91s and slicks, I dont care how rough it rides as long as it is optimized for the twisties. I had a 78 forumula and it rode harsh as heck but handled amazing compared to other vehicles of that era.
 
Rice Nuker said:
KYBs... Yea they are probably great for slant six or mild V8 bar rates. The T bar purchase is a little while off, but I am only buying them once, so the stiffest available. I am currently torn between the Qa1 single dial and others in the price range. I may or may not even run the kybs at all but certainly will not have them on for any duration.

Just like some dont care if they drive around with 3,91s and slicks, I dont care how rough it rides as long as it is optimized for the twisties. I had a 78 forumula and it rode harsh as heck but handled amazing compared to other vehicles of that era.
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I have 1.14" T-bars on my car now. For the last 16 years I've had .99" Tbars.

The bigger bars are noticable for sure. But not as much as I'd thought for being 70% stiffer than .99" and almost THREE times stiffer than stock. I think that is due to the Bilstien shocks. You notice it when you really hit a pothole situation or a cross gutter in a street at 30mph that probably shouldn't have a cross gutter.
 
Hi Autox, where did you get / what brand are your 1.14 bars? I heard mopar performance used to make a 1.25 bar, now thats gone..
 
Rice Nuker said:
Hi Autox, where did you get / what brand are your 1.14 bars? I heard mopar performance used to make a 1.25 bar, now thats gone..
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I believe they are old MP bars. They had the green primer on them like MP did/do. I got them at Spring Fling for $80. They had been installed, but didn't look for long as the primer still looked nice and the sockets were just barely paint worn.
 

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Rice Nuker said:
I friggin love sway bars and T bars. I want like ten of each, 2" in diameter, every dang one of them.
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I think I actually have about 10 of each. More than that sway bars, little less than that T-bars.... Then there's the shock shelf. On the bottom cause it would bend the other shelves.
 
Jensen Interceptors rock !!
drove a right hand drive model back in the day, was a freinds car, made the girl on the left side scream big time.
Awesome car ! -pauly
 
autoxcuda said:
I believe they are old MP bars. They had the green primer on them like MP did/do. I got them at Spring Fling for $80. They had been installed, but didn't look for long as the primer still looked nice and the sockets were just barely paint worn.
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Wow.. I bet those are heavy. How much do they weigh by the way? Do you know?
 
bjkadron said:
Wow.. I bet those are heavy. How much do they weigh by the way? Do you know?
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Yes heavy. I should have measured. But you could about calc it out.

Would be cool to have gun drill T-bars.
 
i got them also. they had 2 different spring rates when i get them from MP (the cheapest.) they had left and right for the circle track guys. i got the stiffer and should drop the car roughly 2 inches plus the relocation magic :)
 
stamierdodge said:
i got them also. they had 2 different spring rates when i get them from MP (the cheapest.) they had left and right for the circle track guys. i got the stiffer and should drop the car roughly 2 inches plus the relocation magic :)
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Mine are the same part number I am pretty sure. They are out in the back 40 under a duster currently so I cant easily check. I hope mine are matched. I dont think Firm Feel would sell me the different inside / outside springs, hopefully they sold me matched pair..
 
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