RMS adjustable struts - noise, harshness?

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slantsixdan

slantsixdan

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What are people experiencing with the adjustable strut rods from Reilly, in terms of vibration/harshness/noise? My front-end guy refused to install them, saying I'd hate them, I'd feel and hear every crack in the road, etc. I've never tried them so I don't know; I was pissed off he didn't bother having that discussion with me before making a decision without my input :roll: but I'm curious what others' experience has been.
 
Well to be honest it'll stiffen the steering and handling of the car up quite a bit. The front of our cars tend to wander and these being stiffer with harder bushings will prevent the car from wandering as much. As for feeling the bumps and such more, I highly doubt it as the torsen bars are still performing that job.

Will you get a little more vibration? Hard to say until you try them on your specific application.

Harshness - Might feel the road a bit more, but isn't that the point of them? Firm feel?

I say try them out but keep your stock ones and switch back if YOU don't like them. I wouldn't let someone else make a decision for me.

Riddler
 
I think RMS makes top notch stuff. I can't see the change to these strut rods will have that big of an effect on the harshness of the ride. Would see it tighten up the handling , but not the ride. Ask your front end guy how many sets he has used? I would bet none, and he is saying that with nothing to back it up.
Just my 2 cents. Matt
 
Correct: None. He was guessing. Now, he's been at it for forty-odd years and has rebuilt and adjusted more Mopar front ends than I will ever own, so I can certainly respect his guess, but that's all it is, a guess, and he made it without involving me (um, like, the owner of the car and the payer of the bill).:hmph:
 
No rubber bushing in the RMS kit = harsher.

Whether you can live with it is a personal deal. Comparable to - I want a streetable engine. What's streetable to one is a crazy race engine to another.

I do know the kit transfer road noise, much like urethane does. If you can live with urethane bushings, the RMS kit is not a big jump, IMO.
 
i can tell ya i don't even know the heim joints are on my upper arms. i highly doubt that you will notice the strut rods having them.
 
abodyjoe said:
i can tell ya i don't even know the heim joints are on my upper arms. i highly doubt that you will notice the strut rods having them.
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Joe,I hope you meant to say your lower control arms?
I have the hymed RMS strut rods on my 66 Dart,but have yet to try them.Race season starts soon!:burnout:
View attachment 66 Dart project Nov2010 066.jpg

Ah,ok I see what yer sayin now.LOL
 
pettybludart said:
Joe,I hope you meant to say your lower control arms?
I have the hymed RMS strut rods on my 66 Dart,but have yet to try them.Race season starts soon!:burnout:
View attachment 219549

Ah,ok I see what yer sayin now.LOL
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nope. lower arms are bushed. upper arms are heim hoints.


i have the ones on the right.. :)
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alterK089.jpg
 
Dan, other than better handling and stopping, we installed a complete Hotchkis set up on the MATS giveaway car ( 67 Coronet ) and I can honestly say that I didn't notice any noise or harsh ride with the heim joint type.
 
Yeah Joe,I have the ones on the right also.I got thrown off thinking struts,not UCA,s.Simple mistake.:grin:
 
i have em' & love them but i can't tell ya if they make any noise can't hear a damn thing over the big block..LOL have stut rods & uppers w/heims the only thing i noticed was the car stays in its lane and handles a curve as good as a car w/that much weight & soft walled tires can LOL
 
Well Dan if you don't want them I will buy them:iconbigg:

To be honest I haven't heard a complaint from anyone that owns them, will be a future purchase of mine.
 
I have them, along with the UCA's with the heim ends. Are they harsher? Don't know - the whole car is "harsh". lol The car drives fantastic, though.
 
I have the RMS tubular uppers with heims, and the RMS struts, QA1 shocks on all 4 corners, 1" torsion bars, with 17x8 on all corners...cars handles really nice...I am impressed with it...
 
Well, they're installed and I've got my definitive answer: No, they do not create extra noise, vibration, or harshness. Car doesn't forget where it was headed any more when I hit a pothole or streetcar track. Pretty sure front-end guy dialled in another degree of positive caster for me (it was +2°, I wanted +4°, he said no way, we compromised on +3°). Next step…either a front sway bar or a Firm Feel steering box.
(Didn't find the loose bolt or ??? we were expecting to find at the right rear corner that is causing a "Crr-rr-rr-rr-kk-kk" noise sometimes on acceleration from a stop and sometimes randomly while driving along…I now suspect the shock absorber may be faulty. Stay tuned.)
 
Didn't see this earlier or I would have said I didn't notice any harness when I installed mine. I have magnum force upper arms with heim joints and tubular strut rods and I love it. Handles much better than it did when it was rebuilt to stock condition.

BTW: Why didn't your alignment man want to set the caster at +4?
 
He's got very strong opinions about what'll work and what won't. These strut rods were on the "won't" list, so he didn't install them the first time around. 4° poz caster is also on his "won't" list. I'd tell him to just freakin' set the damn car the way the paying customer wants it, but then he'd tell me to FO&D, and that'd be a problem, because he really does know how to work with the torsion bar Mopars, and that is a rare skill any more. If I were to piss him off, it'd be hard to find another reliable undercar man who knows things like you have to set the torsion bar height before you adjust the alignment, etc.

It is annoying that he takes the strength of his opinions to the extent of deciding for the customer what is and isn't going to be done on the customer's car; I don't like it, but I understand it, and maybe I learn from it.

Facts are:

1. In more than 9 out of 10 cases, it's probably the right way to proceed. There are plenty of things under the car that can be done multiple ways and wind up with a satisfactory result, but there are also plenty of things that can only be done one right way or a bunch of wrong ways. The truly knowledgeable customer is very, very rare. Most of those who make out as though they know what they're talking about actually don't. End result of following their nonstandard specs: an unhappy customer who turns around and tries to blame it on the tech, bitches about paying, etc.

2. When I put myself in his shoes, they fit well; I have some of that same tendency with respect to lighting. Very few customers know what they're talking about. Most of those who try to make out as if they do, actually don't. In those cases, I do my best to politely but firmly educate them. Those who won't be educated can go buy lighting equipment elsewhere. The difference between me and undercar guy is that I think I pay a little more attention to discerning those few customers who really do know what they're talking about, and adjust my attitude to match their level of knowledge. We'll see if I am as patient when I've been doing lighting for half a century.
 
glad it worked out for ya. 3* is probably just fine. with a wider tire 4-4.5* would probably be better. thats one stubborn front end guy ya have there.. he needs to get out of the 70's...lol
 
I know what your saying Dan. I only know one guy that knows front end alignment on our torsion bar cars and he's the same way (highly opinionated). I have an appt. monday (if it don't freaking snow again, UGH!) to get mine aligned and I hope to talk him into setting the caster at 4* but I doubt he'll go over 3. I don't know much about front end alignment so I have no argument on why it should be set at 4* vs. 3*. I just know most all of the guys I talk to on the board here say 4 is better.
 
I don't understand why it's so hard to find someone to work on torsion bar cars?? Many later model GM and Dodge trucks are torsion bars!! My 04 Ram is. Camber is camber,caster is caster,toe is toe!! A torsion bar is a spring.....all cars have some kind of spring!! If a tech can't deal with your cars....he better not be dealing with the millions of other torsion bar vehicles on the road!!
 
Because they don't understand them. The new stuff they are somewhat trained on. At that they just know how to turn the adjusters till the light on the machine turns green.
 
mine has hotchkis struts, no extra noise or vibration. get a weird creek and knock when leave the driveway, haven't figure what that is yet. car drives straight and true, no hands at 70mph is perfect. aligner loved them, he dialed in 4 deg caster. can get slight vibration at low speeds but suspect that's the 45 series tires and **** roads.
 
Glad to hear you like them. Where you'll notice a real difference is when you try to steer while braking. The old rubber bushed ones would allow the lower control arm to move, creating negative caster. You won't get that now.

3 or 4 degrees should be fine. My front end guy dialed in 6 degrees, which is a little overboard, but I told him I wanted stablity at the dragstrip. The shop I went to does quite a bit of sprint cars and stuff like that, so the aftermarket parts didn't throw them at all.
 
Dcuda69 said:
I don't understand why it's so hard to find someone to work on torsion bar cars??
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For the same reason it's so hard to find someone competent to install breaker points or rebuild a carburetor—the knowledge is no longer in general circulation. It has passed into the realm of specialty skill.
 
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