Suspension Review

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longarm

longarm

Car sold back to original owners
Joined
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Location
central ohio
Looks like I'm gonna get to start work on my car soon
after a looong hiatis.
Looking for a little advice on the handling.
Looking to maximise what I already have into a
good handling street brawler.
The cars a 1970 Dart Swinger.
It has stock front swaybar, Addico for the rear.
Kyb shocks all round.
New Moog rubber bushings, and steering parts,
a complete rebuild.
New Flaming river manual 16:1 box.
One of the parts I need to change is the torsion bars,
its got a 6 cyl bar on the right and a big block bar on the left
if I remmember correctly.
Right now I've got SS springs on the rear.
Will be running 14 in rubber till I get up more bucks.
I'm more interested getting the bigg stuff done than tires and wheels.
Any advice on the rear springs, T bars and the S bars?
I will be tying the frame in the future.
I'm interested in opions on running the 2x3frame ties through
the floor and weld the body to them or bottom welded like the
Autobodies are.
Just trying to get this thing into street driving mode that
handles well and I can add to with out having to backtrack
too much in the future.
Any and all advice appreciated !!!
 
Oh boy, miss matched torsion bars, a drag racer’s trick that makes the car unsafe on the road. My Dart found its way to me in the same condition, and would carve a nice curve when the heavy bar was loaded, but turn in the other direction loading the /6 bar, and it became a flopping wallowing mess.

I upgraded the Dart with a pair of Firm Feel’s 0.940” bars, and added front anti sway bar, subframe connectors, new stock ride height six leaf springs, and all new bushings. The car corners flat, rides smoothly with no wallowing, and steering is very predictable. It is a pleasure to drive on secondary curvy hilly roads.

The question always asked are V8, cop car, and race bars too stiff; NO! My Dart is still sprung softer than my 300C AWD. /6 and small block engines are close in weight, big blocks will add 300 lbs or so the front end, so if you are dropping in a big block, look at a one inch plus bar diameters, you won’t be disappointed.
 
Your right about the mismatched t bars, but it sure got the nose in the air.

The cars a 360 / 727 / 8 3/4.
Not sure on the weight, probably in the 3400lbs area
I would guess.
The car was destined to be a straight line racer till I got it.
I'd like to try crushing some cones with it after I get it back
into roadworthiness.:toothy8:
Thats why I'm asking for hangling advice, am I on track or
do I need to rethink something.
Not sure how a 508 cam, 3500 stall and 391 gear is going to
act for this purpose.
For right now moneys tight and I'm gonna try and do only
what I need to till the money situation changes.
Maybe just a quick good handling street/car show rod for now.
 
Looking at some 1.08 Tbars, will they be
too much for mostly street with some limited racing?
Something I forgot to add is I run a set of Hooker super comp headers
and a Milodon oil pan and they hang a little low.
 

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I ran a pan just like that the first weekend and the first Manhole Cover got it and made a MESS ! It was just down the street from my House. I am telling you I got to drive it only 200 yards and had to put it back in the shop (had to clean up my mess also) I then put a short pickup on the motor and had a friend weld up one of those "Road Race" Pan Kits for me and all was well....as far as Headers Speed Bumps were still a small issue. Good Luck !
 
I can't say if you will find the 1"+ bars to be too stiff or not, but make sure to give a good careful inspection to the rear torsion bar crossmember. It is much easier to beef it up before it breaks than it is to fix it after it is broken. The rear crossmember is a known problem area and were frequently improperly welded at the factory. Sounds like a gunshot when the mount lets go and it no fun to repair.
 
Milodon makes road race oil pans for small blocks that holds 6 qts and sits about the k frame (the baffles are awesome!).
 
I would loose the ss springs and switch to the HD springs, do a bigger front sway bar, subframe connectors, Reenforce the K frame and LCA's, Larger torsion bars.
Go to this place have everything you need http://firmfeel.com/a.htm.
Also contact Baddart on here. He is the owner of dillingerchassis.com.
Hope this helps.
 
1.08" bars are going to be pretty stiff, that should be about a 270 lb/in bar, give or take a bit depending on the manufacturer.

But, whether or not its "too stiff" for the street has a lot to do with your personal preference. I run 1.12" Firm Feel bars in my Challenger, which is a 270 lb/in bar for an E-body. I like 'em. I have almost 40k miles on mine, and I wouldn't change them, even now that I run 17" rims. Its a small block car, and probably weighs around 3,500 lbs.

By comparison, I'm running 1" Just Suspension bars in my Duster, and I think they're a bit on the soft side. A HUGE improvement over stock, but I think I'm going to go 1.03 or 1.06" for it. Its also a small block car, and I've already fully welded the K member and boxed the lower control arms.

You might also want to look into getting offset UCA bushings, you'll want to run more modern alignment specs to improve your handling as well. With 14" tires it will be a bit soft, but as long as they're radials and not bias ply's you'll want to run 0 to -.5 camber, +3 to +4 caster, and around 1/16" to 1/8" toe in. With more modern tires you can get away with more negative camber, up to about -1 degree before you start eating tires. And if you've got power steering you can run as much positive caster as you can get. The offset UCA bushings will really help with that.

You can do the 2x3" subframe connectors without going through the floor, that's about the biggest you can go though. Hard to say if they're stiffer than the ones that fit to the floor, they're definitely stiffer out of the car but once the other ones are welded to the floor they're pretty sturdy, as they do a lot to reinforce the floor. The 2x3" connectors will be easier to install though, there's a lot more cutting and fitting for the ones that are fit to the floor, and they're not the easiest to install unless you've got the car up on a rotisserie. Otherwise its a lot of sheet metal welding to do upside down.
 
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