Anybody running the RMS AlterKation? Was it really worth the cost?
I am one that hears you. I came on here to answer his question and not get into a pissing match with stock suspension guys. I have been a mopar fan since the early sixties. I've owned mopars since the early seventies. I drove a,b,c,m etc. bodies and know how they drove. I also drove my barracuda for ten years before I took it apart. There is no comparison, that is just my opinion. If you never had a chance to experience other suspensions there shouldn't be any comments. Also I could never afford a alter k so I just went up to Bill and asked if I could on payments. He let me pay that way. if you want one I would just call Bill and talk to him. Mark
Driving stock mopars in the sixties and seventies wouldn't give you any idea what the torsion bar suspension is capable of. Tire performance/capability alone would rule out comparing any experience you had to anything now. The torsion bar suspension can be updated with a few modern parts to give it far superior performance to anything it was capable of in stock form.
If you want to go fast, you modify a torsion bar suspension, if you you want to blow thousands of dollars, you buy aftermarket, and if you think steering "feel" has anything to do with performance other than band-aiding your lack of driving skill....well...just know the fastest auto x, circle track, and oval track Mopars have torsion bars
Exactly.
Coming from the guy who bashes Hotchkis leaf springs, upper control arms for being junk and wearing out in 7,000 miles, their kits are too expensive, their sway bars are not the best out there ...
But then he goes onto say that look at the Corvette Z06 type handling that the Hotchkis Taxi got
"putting down better lap times at the TireRack test track than the 2012 3 series BMW's"!!!!!
Yup, that's the guy I want telling me to leave in my leaf springs and torsion bars.
First, the C06 referenced was outlapped by Tim Werner's Valiant, not the Hotchkis cars. Second, you're missing a very important logical conclusion, which would be obvious if you would just listen.
Yes, the Hotchkis taxi can and have beat up on 2012 3 series BMW's with the same driver and tires. Which says a lot, not only because that's a 4 door Satellite but also because you can set up a torsion bar car to handle
better than the Hotchkis Taxi. That's the point you have obviously missed. There is still room for
improvement there, and that's why I don't run lockstep with supporting every single part Hotchkis makes. They make great parts, and their TVS kit is a great start for someone that wants to get all their parts in one place and know they'll work together seamlessly. But, if you do your homework you can build a better handling car for less than the TVS costs by spending more money on the parts that make the biggest improvements and leaving off some of the fancy stuff that doesn't make as much of a difference in performance. But the responsibility for mixing and matching your parts and making sure they all work ends up on
you if you do it that way. Hotchkis makes great parts, but they're not all equally important. And in a few cases there are better performing parts out there.
But on that note, I haven't "bashed" any hotchkis parts, with possible exception of the longevity of their heim joints. And really I wouldn't call that bashing, just explaining the experience I've had. I have wiped out a set of heim's on the UCA's in my Challenger in 7k miles and am working on wiping out a second set. And everytime I mention that I also mention that Hotchkis replaced my first set of heims for free, because they're awesome. They really are, for the design of their parts and their customer service. But the issue is due to running heim joints on the street and it is
not unique to Hotchkis parts. Heims just don't belong on the UCA's of a
street car, at least in my experience. Track car is whole different story, suspension is all about application. I use UCA's from other manufacturers because they don't use heims, but those other UCA's still accomplish the same task of improved suspension geometry. The Hotchkis UCA's would be the nicest on the market if they would just drop the heim joints. I'd rather have double adjustable UCA's, but street cars really don't need those. As for the leafs, there are members here that had issues with the Hotchkis leaf springs, there are members here now (that have purchased recently) that do not. I don't run them because I'm a cheap bastard, not because of their performance. I've just pointed out that others have had issues so people are informed that not everyone likes them, mostly because they lower the car more than most want to lower their cars. Their sway bars are probably the best out there for quality and performance. The Hotchkis sway bars I have on my Challenger are brilliant. They're also the most expensive. For their function I usually recommend the Hellwig bars (that I run on my Duster) just because of their cost-effectiveness. They do basically the same job for less. But the Hotchkis stuff is lighter, and possibly a higher quality. They're just not absolutely necessary, and since most people wouldn't notice the difference for their application (ie, primarily street use) I usually recommend the Hellwig bars.
All suspensions have their merits, pros and cons for everything. You pays your moneys and in the case of suspension, you do-s your maths.
Exactly.
When it all comes down to it, all of the coilover suspensions are un-equal length, double A-arm suspensions. That's your basic suspension design category. Guess what? So is the torsion bar suspension on these cars. Upper control arm, lower control arm, spindle in the middle, ball joints, etc, just like the basic coilover suspension design. The difference is the spring pivot locations and the shape of the spring. Those create some geometry differences (as do the length and design of the control arms), change the center of gravity, and put the springs in different locations. But a torsion bar is a spring just like a coil spring is a spring, and a shock is a shock regardless of whether or not is has a spring over the top of it.
Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Suspension design, and even tuning, is all about compromises and application.
