Wracks71.
That article is from 2018 though. Just another article that suggests you need a coil over swap to have a good handling Mopar.
The shoot out article that was mentioned is here
2013 Muscle Car of the Year - Popular Hot Rodding Magazine
and ironically if you look at the AutoX times, you’ll see that the Hotchkis taxi, a 4 door ‘70 Satellite with torsion bars and leaf springs, put down faster lap times than wracks71’s fully RMS suspended ‘71 Duster
Yep, that’s him. Last active Aug 13,2017.
Seems like he was trying really hard to be competitive in the Optima series. I think that is why he went to the full RMS suspension, because some of those guys said he would never compete using a Mopar on stock suspension because he couldn’t get the rear roll center low enough? Something like that, I would have to go digging. Seems like he posted his reasons on here when he made the swap.
Really hope he didn’t grow disillusioned with the Duster and Mopars in general and jump ship to a Camaro or something.
I recall him bragging about how great his duster handled, then getting absolutely destroyed by a torsion bar car at some event. Dont recall the details
How much of that could be the driver vs. the car?A full SECOND slower in the auto X is MASSIVELY slower, not even in the same universe.
How much of that could be the driver vs. the car?
He was at Moparty a year or two ago with his Duster. Think he just got tired of FABO, which I can understand.
He said things like "every fast car on the track in the country is running some sort of coilover aftermarket suspension,chevy,ford,or mopar.", …
How much of that could be the driver vs. the car?
when i had my yellow dart with full RMS suspension i had a guy trying to get me to the track to run with him.. i knew what he wanted to do. he wanted to take someone who never even set foot on a track with turns in it, box stock 74 360 with 2.94 gears and put it up against his 408 powered car that is set up for and sees quite a bit of track time so he could go out and tell everyone look how slow that RMS equipped car is compared to my torsion bar car.. video isn't always all telling.
My heartburn is over articles like the one that started this thread on Wrack71's car. More specifically, things like this statement "Although the car was a nice cruiser, Eric decided he wanted improve the handling to hang with the Pro-touring cars he saw." Well, guess what? You don't need a fully RMS converted car to do that.
As an example, let me hold up the creator and founder of the whole pro-touring movement (per the magazines), Mark Stielow. What number is he on now for Camaro builds, 75? He fought the poor suspension design of the Camaro for years with custom one off parts and such. Since these cars are the absolute pinnacle of the whole movement, what's a guy to think other than "if Mark has to throw out the entire front suspension, I guess I do to". Doesn't matter if it is a Ford or a Mopar, Mark has coil overs on his Camaro so they must be better.
On a side note, I love that the first year (I think) the Green Brick ran in the One Lap, it was against a Stielow Camaro. As I recall, it was a tight race and the victory by the Valiant might have been influenced by a fuel fire on the Camaro. Really wasn't much to the Valiant, but the Camaro wasn't able to run away from it either.
a **** ton for sure.
when i had my yellow dart with full RMS suspension i had a guy trying to get me to the track to run with him.. i knew what he wanted to do. he wanted to take someone who never even set foot on a track with turns in it, box stock 74 360 with 2.94 gears and put it up against his 408 powered car that is set up for and sees quite a bit of track time so he could go out and tell everyone look how slow that RMS equipped car is compared to my torsion bar car.. video isn't always all telling.
I think there is a perception that all stock suspensions are inferior to a coil over. And I think the major reason for this perception is that most gear heads in the world are Chevy people and most of them love themselves a Camaro.
The reality is, for a Camaro, they really do need an improves suspension. I remember reading a blog years ago where a guy was building a Sunoco tribute car (or something like that) and he went into great depth on the design flaws of the front suspension. Something about the location of the spring on the LCA forcing you to run huge spring rates to get a decent wheel rate causing other problems you couldn't avoid. So, for a Camaro or any other similar GM products (maybe all of them?) it makes sense that to make one handle better you need an aftermarket suspension.
The problem is that a fair number of those same Chevy people are also writers and video personalities and so the "everything old must be replaced" mantra is spread far and wide.
As an example, let me hold up the creator and founder of the whole pro-touring movement (per the magazines), Mark Stielow. What number is he on now for Camaro builds, 75? He fought the poor suspension design of the Camaro for years with custom one off parts and such. Since these cars are the absolute pinnacle of the whole movement, what's a guy to think other than "if Mark has to throw out the entire front suspension, I guess I do to". Doesn't matter if it is a Ford or a Mopar, Mark has coil overs on his Camaro so they must be better.
Not saying I have anything against Mark, he built some cool cars. Love his focus on make it better and evolve the build. Just saying I think his builds have influenced the idea that old is bad, aftermarket is good.
On a side note, I love that the first year (I think) the Green Brick ran in the One Lap, it was against a Stielow Camaro. As I recall, it was a tight race and the victory by the Valiant might have been influenced by a fuel fire on the Camaro. Really wasn't much to the Valiant, but the Camaro wasn't able to run away from it either.
Mark Stielow Built 12 Camaros So You Don’t Have To
"Mark was a member of his college Formula SAE team at Missouri University of Science and Technology. His knowledge of suspensions taught him enough to know that the first-generation Camaro's factory suspension geometry is "all jacked up." His first Camaro used tall spindles and fabricated upper control arms, and his aforementioned bumperless 1967 used a mix of off-the-shelf and custom parts with pie-cut control arms and Corvette spindles in an attempt to solve the first-generation Camaro's inherently poor suspension geometry. Mark admits the car still had bumpsteer. When he built his next Camaro with exotic billet chromoly spindles, there were still compromises. Since then, the market for products that improve handling on 1960s and 1970s muscle has boomed and there are a number of engineered solutions that greatly improve the factory geometry. Take advantage of it."
Interesting, this article about the Camaro Mark built for the One Lap even takes some pokes at Mopar Action.
The Story of “Tri-Tip,” the 1969 Camaro That Helped Launch Pro Touring
I think what they miss is the level of equipment that the two cars had. The Camaro was running a high zoot smallblock with EFI, 6 speed manual, 17" wheels and ZR1 brakes. The Valiant had a crate 360, 4 speed (OD?), 15" wheels, 11.75" brake upgrade and a stock TB suspension with some tweaks. Then they added more HP to the Camaro for the following year and the last year even brought an IMSA champ to drive the car.
in reality it doesn't show any short comings. nothing out of the box is perfect for any desired use. if someone thinks that it just proves how stupid they are. same as someone who thinks they sre gonna drop a boatload of coin on larger bars, sway bars, tube control arms thinking they are going out and it will be perfect without tuning fot their style of driving and their specific car. again it just shows how stupid they are more then any short comings of a system.Right, and while I agree that's kind of shady and doesn't really prove anything as far as the ultimate capabilities of the RMS system it does point out some of the shortcomings too.
in reality it doesn't show any short comings. nothing out of the box is perfect for any desired use. if someone thinks that it just proves how stupid they are. same as someone who thinks they sre gonna drop a boatload of coin on larger bars, sway bars, tube control arms thinking they are going out and it will be perfect without tuning fot their style of driving and their specific car. again it just shows how stupid they are more then any short comings of a system.
It wouldn't be hard to slap that stuff together and make the geometry WORSE
And honestly, I think that's where Wracks got himself in trouble. He bought the fanciest stuff he could get at the time and then said stuff like "all the fastest cars in the country have coil overs", which didn't go well for him when he started losing to torsion bar cars.
By today's standards the Green Brick is half a step over a stock rebuild. Torsion bars are too small, alignment is very conservative, brakes are a decent improvement over stock but no where near some of the big disks available now (although later versions of the Brick got Viper calipers), tires were pretty small although a decent compound. And yeah, the original version didn't have that much power either, although again that was upgraded later.
he says nothing that isn't true. you want to see plots then ask him.. maybe he will show them to you. his page doesn't say that you can't have good control with torsion bars anywhere. define superior. depending what you start with, yes you can bolt the system in (you buy it as a complete system), align it and bang you have a car that handles far superior then it did before. you want to spend 4k+ and shop all over the place for the proper parts for a torsion bar set ups then go for it. to me there is no way all that steering linkage will ever feel like a rack driving down the road.. like i said if you think anything is bolt in and perfect for any intended usage you can dream up you are just an idiot. and from what i've seen posted on various forums and facebook pages there is no shortage of idiots in this hobby..
Based on a recent article, the Green Brick has been in storage for 15 years but is slated to get a 6.4 in the near future.