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Help with mopar front suspension

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  • Help with mopar front suspension

    I have a question hopefully you all can help with concerning torsion bar front suspension on an early dodge dart. I picked up a 64 dart wagon that the guy before me had lowered with 4 inch blocks in the rear. When I cranked the torsion bars down to level the car out the front became very loose and of course the camber went all to hell. I know that torsion bars are essentially bars wound up to create the spring rate. If you install heavier torsion bars for example big block torsions with slant six motor, can you then lower the car more and still have some spring left. Feel free to offer any other or better ideas on how to lower the front that are somewhat cost effective. One other note the rear will actually be getting raised up probally two inches so the amount that the front needs to come down will hopefully be a little less. I love the way it looks on the ground but want to be able to drive it with some comfort. thanks in advance

  • #2
    Re: Help with mopar front suspension

    Here is the deal on the Mopar torsion spring front ends. Effectively, if you use the torsion bars to lower the front end, you are allowing both control arms to swing upward through their arcs. This will induce a buttload of camber into the suspension as the lower control arm is longer than the upper control arm. Changing torsion bars to a larger diameter will NOT help. You will also encounter some additional problems with bump steer as you lower the ride height with the torsion bars. Moog does offer a replacement offset upper control arm bushing kit that will move the upper control arm outward to achieve better camber numbers but it was not designed to compensate for lowering the car with relaxed torsion bar preload. It was designed to help cars that have sagging suspensions from years of fatigue. On GM cars and S-10 style pickup trucks, drop spindles are THE ticket for lowering a vehicle. The suspension remains in the factory location and the spindle is simply raised in relation to the suspension mounting points. This works great. I have not seen drop spindles for Mopars but that doesn't mean they are not out there.

    Ron
    It's really no different than trying to glue them back on after she has her way.

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    • #3
      Re: Help with mopar front suspension

      I agree with Ron about the camber-issues, but installing a heavier torsion-bar will help in maintaining some 'better' springrates IMO.
      www.BigBlockMopar.com

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      • #4
        Re: Help with mopar front suspension

        why not keep it low ?
        they don't make dropped spindles for gm torsion bar vehicles
        does mopar use a 'pork chop ' at the rear ? maybe somebody used offset ones for lowering

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        • #5
          Re: Help with mopar front suspension

          Can some of the camber issue be resolved with tubular upper control arms. I have seen lowered spindles from fat man fabrication but the description is very vague and did not seem worth the price they were asking due to having to upgrade/replace all the brakes with later disc stuff. I am all for the safety of the discs but hate having a car with different bolt patterns for the wheels front to rear. Hey spidergear what do you mean by a porkchop on the torsion bar and how would that affect the ride hight

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          • #6
            mopar front suspension

            The Mopar suspension-gurus over at www.bigblockdart.com.

            including Bill Reilly, can get you "dialed-in" pretty darn quick.


            (They also have a specific forum for 64-66 A-bodies.) --


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