Torsion bar upgrade

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Shane

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I know I have seen it asked here before, but I am now wondering about it myself, and need to figure out if its worth the 300 bucks..

what kinda benifet in the ride, drive, and cornering am I going to get if upgrade from the .081 torsion bar, to the .092 bar?

My bars are the small ones, and I have a 340 in the car now...I need to change some suspension parts, which will require the removal of the torsion bars, and of course after its all done an alinement... So my big question is, Is it worth buying the better bars???

(i know it may seem like a dumb question, but this is the first car i have owned that has torsion bars, so I dont know anyting about them or how they work)

Thanks for the input

Shane!
 
Basically, torsion bars are like a spring that's been uncoiled. Thinking of them like that might help you understand them a bit better. Going to a larger diameter will stiffen up the ride a bit. Can't tell you from personal experience how much difference it'll make going from a .81 to a .92 bar will make. I know that I switched my 64 from the stock V8 bars it came with to a set from a 340 Demon & it stiffened up the suspension quite a bit. Not objectionable though.
 
If you have any yards w/old A-bodies, the best candidates are ones with V-8's and A/C. The ends of the bars will have 3 numbers. You want to see 892 and 893, those are the fabled "340" torsion bars. Slant cars with A/C sometimes have the bars as well, and good luck finding a 340 car sitting in a yard...be sure to look under any and all A-bodies, because some came w/HD suspensions, too.
 
The .920" bars are a good choice, but a better choice would be Firm Feel's .940" bars. The different will be HUGE, but adding a sway bar is as important. With .940" bars and a stock small block sway bar you will have a car that handles pretty decent.
 
Thanks!

What I have been thinking about doing next was getting one of those hellwig sway bars, and upgrading the torsion bars while I change out some bushing in the front...

I will look into the firm feels, .940's

thanks again

Shane
 
If you don't have a front stabilizer bar now, try that first. Torsion bars can be changed any time in future.
 
all very good points!

I do have some money set aside for a sway bar right now. From my searches on here, it seems the hellwig set up is the way to go. Any opinions on that??

Also I was at lowes buying some fittings to make my temp gage fit in my LD340(as I seen to do on another post here)

and the guy that worked there gave me an address to a local yard that has some old mopars, So i will check there and see if I get lucky. Whats the going rate for a set of used .920 bars?
 
I used the Addco ACO-150 bar on my 71 dart and some "340" bars (.870 I believe). The car came with a /6 with A/C and had the .850's. The car handles muuuuuch better now. No fitment issues with the sway bar except for a little grinding on the shock bolt bracket to clear the calipers.
 
The likelyhood of finding any torsion bars bigger than .850" in a wrecking yard these days is slim. The largest OEM bars were the .890" big block bars. There were other bars available at different times (came and went only to come again), but I wouldn't waste my time looking for used ones unless it was at a Mopar swap meet.
 
Now you've got me curious as to what's in mine, I don't remember lol. I know they're the /6 bars and I do have an A/C car hmm. I've heard the /6 bars are the way to go if you're gonna race it I guess they lift better because of their smaller size. A friend of mine has /6 bars in his 75 duster with an iron headed 440 in it, it leaves good all stock suspension picks the wheels up and runs 10's on 9" slicks.
 
Shane said:
I do have some money set aside for a sway bar right now. From my searches on here, it seems the hellwig set up is the way to go. Any opinions on that??
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I've seen a few threads on here about the Hellwig bar, but admittedly, I haven't read through to see if they offer any unique feature - with that said, i personally like the Firm Feel sway bars. I bought and installed one on my 68 Charger, and the quality was second to none - the brackets were solid, and they included poly bushings. The bars come in 1 1/8" and you can also get 1 1/4" bar.

And, this might sound trivial, but I really don;t like the hammered powdercoat finish of the hellwig - just looks cheap to me. I'll assume it's not made in China, but it just reminds me of cheap Chinese crap with that finish. The firm feel bar and brackets are all powdercoated black.
 
i put .920 bars in jamies small block dart as per jim's advice. i love it. stays flat in corners and i haven't put sway bars on it yet. it rides nice too.
 
I have the .920" bars and the cornering is pretty decent and it still rides well. I only have the 7/8" stock front bar as well. Personally I'd probably go with bigger ones if I did it again, but I like a very stiff ride.
 
I was talking to my local suspesnions shop that will be doing the front end work for me, and I told him I got the bigger torsion bars and he mentioned that it is harder on the crossmember??

My crossmembers are solid, is this anything to worry about? I wouldnt think so but now its in the back of my head...

thanks

Shane
 
Well ofcourse they would put a little more stress on the crossmember. The stress has to go somewhere. It's not something to worry about unless you have a rust issue.
 
The big block A bodies definitely needs sway bars, especially with the smaller T bars.

Unless you canyon carve a lot, you can probably get away with just the .920 bars with a 340. Sway bars are nice though. Haven't got around to installing mine yet.
 
Bigger torsion bars are pretty much a "must do" as far as I'm concerned. Sway bars will help some, but our old mopars were drastically undersprung from the factory in the front. The .94 bars sound like a good option, it doesn't take much diameter change with the torsion bars to result in a big difference. But you could also go a size larger without any problems.

For some reference, I went up to 1.12" bars on my Challenger, vs. the stock .88" bars (this is a HUGE increase in spring rate, from ~100 lbs to 270!). The handling is VERY much improved, even without sway bars. And although I prefer a stiffer ride with my vehicles, I wouldn't say its harsh at all. The only thing to consider with the larger torsion bars is the ride height adjustment, with 1.12" bars I ran out of adjustment on my torsion bar adjusters at stock ride height, couldn't go any lower than that (which is why I now have 2" drop spindles).

For a small block A-body though I would think that Firm Feels .94" or 1.0" bar would be great on the street, depending on what you were looking for. Even the 1.0" bar should leave plenty of adjustability to get lower than stock ride height if your car is lowered a little. Just Suspension also sells a 1" torsion bar for around the same price, I think JS lists theirs at $250, FFI lists theirs at $285. Larger than a 1" bar would probably begin to invite adjustability issues, and the ride would start to be pretty stiff.

If you look at FFI http://www.firmfeel.com/torsionb_a.htm they list the spring rates with the size of the bar, so you get an idea of how much of a change you're looking at.
 
Everyone has to remember that torsion bars will loose their spring rate over time, especially 40 years later. Go ahead and buy new!!!
 
71duster06 said:
torsion bars will loose their spring rate over timeQUOTE]

I didn't know that.

Does anyone here know where I can look through to identify torsion bars for A-bodys througout the years?

Maybe a Chrysler part numbers book that has the torsion bar number and the car it was used in?
Click to expand...
 
71duster06 said:
Everyone has to remember that torsion bars will loose their spring rate over time, especially 40 years later. Go ahead and buy new!!!
Click to expand...

I agree, your 40 year old bars will not perform as they did new, which was still undersprung. Its worth spending the money on the torsion bars. You may even find enough of an improvement that you don't feel like you have to go to sway bars any time soon, although they will still improve your handling even with high spring rate torsion bars. But the bars will make a bigger difference overall.
 
Just a few comments on our sway bars.

1) They are 100% American made from quality materials. The tubular bars are made from DOM alloy steel and the solid bars are made from heat treated 4140 chrome moly steel. THe sway bar kits feature laser cut and cnc formed brackets for the k member as shown below.

356976020.jpg


2) The hammertone finish actually serves a purpose in that the pockets in the finish hold the bushing lube and break up the contact area with the bushing so that the sway bar tends to run quieter. It also improves the appearance of the heat treated bars which tend to have some "character" after being heated to 1600 deg F, quenched in oil, and tempered in a draw furnace at 1000 deg F.
 
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