Restomod or Original OEM style?? - Feedback Appreciated!

[barbee6043]

This 100%

My factory V8 K-member was a lost cause, cracks everywhere, I had the same with a crack on the steering box mount. I tried fixing the LCA pivot mounts only to find more cracks.
Yes I could've got another good factory one from out of state, after searching for a month the best deal I got was one in Nebraska, even after shipping the cost was only $100 cheaper than a new QA1 K-member.
And, yes it's $100 cheaper, HOWEVER it was another 45ish year old factory part at the time and pictures don't show everything that could be wrong (cracks and other issues) with it until you see it in person. So I elected to get a new one, might as well for peace of mind.
Again I'm in a barren wasteland of A-bodies (Utah), they closed the last salvage yard here in the area that dealt with vintage iron. I found out they scrapped like 80% of the cars in the yard and sold the rest to "professional" restoration shops... I believe Dave Kindig was one of them.
Idaho is the closest to me when is comes to decent salvage yards for these cars. Wyoming second, Both 3+ hours drive away.

All that vintage iron gone...
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And yes, the last one was a Plymouth Satellite. In fact I ran the VIN on it, it was a 72' Sebring Plus. All gone.

There are reasons they call the junk yards!!!!!

Me, I am old, and I just wan t my old Mopars to drive, smell, and look like they did when I drove them 55-60 years ago!!!

 

[Map63Vette]

I think a hybrid approach might work. My 67 has recently become pretty close to a daily driver with a 35 mile commute each direction, so I've been working on doing what I can to make it more pleasant to drive. I have a 24:1 factory manual steering box and a 73+ k frame, so pretty much 73+ steering parts and vintage E body front disc brakes (brakes were on the car when I bought it, but I replaced all the steering stuff when I did my 5.7 Hemi swap with the K frame). My car was really light on its feet on the highway at speed and took a lot of steering wheel correction to keep it going straight. The bushings and joints were all fairly new as I had a spare kit from a 69 Charger from many years back that I went ahead and put in my car (poly uppers, I think just regular rubber for everything else). Recently finally pulled the trigger on a set of HDK upper control arms to get some more caster in the alignment and I'm kicking myself for putting it off so long. Car feels much more stable and closer to a modern car, though the steering is still a little loose right on center. Granted, my other "daily" is an 04 Viper, so I don't have a lot to compare it against.

That being said, while I'd love to go with a rack and pinion kit, the only way to really do it right is to replace the whole front end, which I'm not sure makes sense for me at least for the use case of my car. I don't recall what size torsion bars are on my car right now, but I'm sure they are on the lighter side. If they are original to the car they are probably still the slant six pieces, though maybe they swapped them with some kind of SB rated ones in the past. Shocks are standard parts store, maybe Monroes (yellow tubes). I did have a factory sway bar on the car when I bought it. Overall I think it's a great cruiser in its current config and pleasant to drive. Sure, it's not nearly as sharp and capable as something like my Viper, but it's not a wet noodle going down the road either. Tires are also going to make the biggest difference in any feel for any car. I just swapped some fresh ones on and it went from feeling uneasy in the corners to feeling more confident. Frame connectors are next on my list to try to address the chassis, but not sure if they are going to make it before winter or not.

 

[BergmanAutoCraft]

I think a hybrid approach might work. My 67 has recently become pretty close to a daily driver with a 35 mile commute each direction, so I've been working on doing what I can to make it more pleasant to drive. I have a 24:1 factory manual steering box and a 73+ k frame, so pretty much 73+ steering parts and vintage E body front disc brakes (brakes were on the car when I bought it, but I replaced all the steering stuff when I did my 5.7 Hemi swap with the K frame). My car was really light on its feet on the highway at speed and took a lot of steering wheel correction to keep it going straight. The bushings and joints were all fairly new as I had a spare kit from a 69 Charger from many years back that I went ahead and put in my car (poly uppers, I think just regular rubber for everything else). Recently finally pulled the trigger on a set of HDK upper control arms to get some more caster in the alignment and I'm kicking myself for putting it off so long. Car feels much more stable and closer to a modern car, though the steering is still a little loose right on center. Granted, my other "daily" is an 04 Viper, so I don't have a lot to compare it against.

That being said, while I'd love to go with a rack and pinion kit, the only way to really do it right is to replace the whole front end, which I'm not sure makes sense for me at least for the use case of my car. I don't recall what size torsion bars are on my car right now, but I'm sure they are on the lighter side. If they are original to the car they are probably still the slant six pieces, though maybe they swapped them with some kind of SB rated ones in the past. Shocks are standard parts store, maybe Monroes (yellow tubes). I did have a factory sway bar on the car when I bought it. Overall I think it's a great cruiser in its current config and pleasant to drive. Sure, it's not nearly as sharp and capable as something like my Viper, but it's not a wet noodle going down the road either. Tires are also going to make the biggest difference in any feel for any car. I just swapped some fresh ones on and it went from feeling uneasy in the corners to feeling more confident. Frame connectors are next on my list to try to address the chassis, but not sure if they are going to make it before winter or not.

How you're able to drive withe 24:1 manual steering is beyond me. We've proven over and over again the feel and performance of the stock style parts can be excellent. We don't have the ad budget of the big guys and most people already have many lower performing parts already on their cars. When you use ALL of our parts, the car is excellent and very stable even at track speeds. The ride is good, parts are durable, suspension travel and turning radius also excellent. Just my .02.

 

[CRUZE 418]

I have 2 cars with Gerst front coil over manual rack and pinion. Which would now be QA1. It is choice, but my 3 rd car is going to have it too. Rebuilt everything on my '72 Dart, I am tired of messing with the all of the issues that I have had with it. Part here, part there, it will be someone else's problem down the road.
Half of the people here saying to keep the old stuff have LED lights and all of every other mod you can think of. So do what you want for you, and be happy!

 

[DionR]

Half of the people here saying to keep the old stuff have LED lights and all of every other mod you can think of. So do what you want for you, and be happy!

That's kind of an apples to oranges comparison. LED's, EFI and things like that are new designs and frankly aren't always an improvement.

Saying the stock suspension design vs. a COC is like LED's vs. incandescent lights is implying the "old" stuff is an inferior design and I haven't seen enough improvement with a COC to warrant a fairly large investment of cash all at once. Certainly a COC is all new parts and has benefits like header clearance, but geometry wise it isn't necessarily a step up. I know people have felt a difference, but only one that I know of has done more of a back to back test and even he had to do upgrades to get to a point where he felt like it was better. There is a know thread about it if you want some (un)easy reading.

Be careful not to fall into chronological snobbery.

 

[Map63Vette]

How you're able to drive withe 24:1 manual steering is beyond me. We've proven over and over again the feel and performance of the stock style parts can be excellent. We don't have the ad budget of the big guys and most people already have many lower performing parts already on their cars. When you use ALL of our parts, the car is excellent and very stable even at track speeds. The ride is good, parts are durable, suspension travel and turning radius also excellent. Just my .02.

Faster ratio is potentially on my radar for sure. I wasn't sure what it was going to feel like with just the added caster, so I didn't want to swap too much stuff at once (plus the boxes are quite expensive). I would probably split the difference and do a 20:1, though I have been toying with the idea of EPAS one of these days as well. If I did that I'd probably go straight to 16:1, so don't really want to buy twice. Might just have to keep my eye out and see if anyone is selling a faster ratio box used. I've also just thought about going to a smaller steering wheel, but I've had a lot of ideas I've never gone through with, lol. Back when I first bought the car I was still in college and thinking it was going to be a pro street / super stock tribute style car, just with a modern Hemi instead of an old one. The more I messed with it the more I found it was just a really nice cruiser. The Viper used to be my full time daily driver, but after a cam swap I did during a rebuilt from a spun rod bearing it's a fair deal less pleasant to drive on a daily basis. Way louder and just generally not as friendly around town. The Dart is super smooth now after my latest tuning and the fresh tires and suspension work, so it's actually pretty nice to drive. Still a little loud on the highway from wind noise, bad weatherstripping, and general lack of insulation, but much more tolerable day to day than the Viper.

 

[CRUZE 418]

Get used to the wind noise, replaced all of mine to no effect. Smaller steering wheel, harder to steer, unless you have power steering. Putting 17" or larger wheels will change the comfort level, no sidewall. My '69 with tubular front, triangulated 4-link rear and 15" wheels rides the best.

 

[BergmanAutoCraft]

Our 14:1 power boxes are the only way to have a modern feel. IMHO its the slowest ratio thats acceptable. We run 7 degrees caster and neg .5 camber so tracking is excellent as well as an improved camber curve. To each his own!

 

[DionR]

This car did pretty well with a stock based suspension. As I recall @AndyF said one time he was running with or chasing down Z06's on the road courses.

https://www.hotrod.com/articles/mopp-1204-1968-plymouth-valiant-track-day-prep/

 

[DionR]

Putting 17" or larger wheels will change the comfort level, no sidewall. My '69 with tubular front, triangulated 4-link rear and 15" wheels rides the best.

There is more to ride quality than sidewall. A cheap set of shocks with bigger TB's can make a car ride like an empty dump truck, for example.

I like the ride of my '74 with 245/45R17's, .99 TB's and RCD's. Certainly no worse than the '15 Challenger R/T STP I used to own. Even drove them back to back and other than the slow 24:1 manual box the Duster had at the time they seemed to ride and handle about the same. Purely subjective, but that's my opinion.

 

[Map63Vette]

Our 14:1 power boxes are the only way to have a modern feel. IMHO its the slowest ratio thats acceptable. We run 7 degrees caster and neg .5 camber so tracking is excellent as well as an improved camber curve. To each his own!

Believe me, I'd love to get there eventually. I don't recall the Viper ratio off the top of my head, but I want to say it's ~3 turns lock to lock. If I had power steering of some variety on the Dart I would certainly be looking at a faster ratio, but back when I did the Hemi swap over a decade ago that wasn't really an option.

And just generally speaking, I was thinking over my lunch break that unless any aftermarket kit is changing the geometry, there's probably not a huge difference in feel/ride quality between the stock and aftermarket parts, assuming both are in good shape. A 100% stock suspension with stamped steel parts and rubber bushings isn't going to handle or feel all that much different than a full tubular setup with poly bushings if the geometry is the same. So the only reason I would even consider an aftermarket kit is if I wanted to fundamentally change something about the setup. Torsion bars to coilovers won't even really make that much difference, though you might get a little better or at least different ride control due to the ability to run variable spring rate springs. The pivot points are going to define the vast majority of how the car handles for anything but the most extreme driving.

 

[BergmanAutoCraft]

Believe me, I'd love to get there eventually. I don't recall the Viper ratio off the top of my head, but I want to say it's ~3 turns lock to lock. If I had power steering of some variety on the Dart I would certainly be looking at a faster ratio, but back when I did the Hemi swap over a decade ago that wasn't really an option.

And just generally speaking, I was thinking over my lunch break that unless any aftermarket kit is changing the geometry, there's probably not a huge difference in feel/ride quality between the stock and aftermarket parts, assuming both are in good shape. A 100% stock suspension with stamped steel parts and rubber bushings isn't going to handle or feel all that much different than a full tubular setup with poly bushings if the geometry is the same. So the only reason I would even consider an aftermarket kit is if I wanted to fundamentally change something about the setup. Torsion bars to coilovers won't even really make that much difference, though you might get a little better or at least different ride control due to the ability to run variable spring rate springs. The pivot points are going to define the vast majority of how the car handles for anything but the most extreme driving.

Our stock style kits change the geometry the most. Our upper arm is the key. A taller ball joint and the ability to get the alignment numbers I mentioned earlier. The tire doesn't care what type of suspension or advertising is behind it...

 

[DionR]

Our stock style kits change the geometry the most. Our upper arm is the key. A taller ball joint and the ability to get the alignment numbers I mentioned earlier. The tire doesn't care what type of suspension or advertising is behind it...

How much taller than stock is the new ball joint? The COC kits need a 2" taller UBJ to catch up with the OEM geometry due to the short MII spindle, will they need to go 3" now?

 

[BergmanAutoCraft]

Our arm has a .5" taller. I run the F spindle which adds about another .5"

 

[racerjoe]

How much taller than stock is the new ball joint? The COC kits need a 2" taller UBJ to catch up with the OEM geometry due to the short MII spindle, will they need to go 3" now?

It depends on the mounting point of the LCA. Not sure where the others besides the HDK fall. They may be able to get away with less based on the LCA mounting point.