Hotchkiss Leafs Installed

GMachineDartGT said

The dropped spindles are necessary for two reasons.

At the current height there is not enough clearance at the lower bump stops even though I use 11/16 urethane pieces. The second reason is due to the drop in the current suspension, the roll center is below ground. The front roll center should be above ground in the 5" range. Once the spindles are installed, I get the crank up the t bars to put the height back to where it is now. This will correct these issues properly and should make a dramatic difference.
Once the spindles are installed, I will play with the heights to get an optimal 1.5 degree rake. At this point, I am thinking I may have to raise the rear slightly, but I want to measure the anti squat angle first. I will include pictures of my process.

Click to expand...

Keep in mind a couple of things with the drop spindles-

First, you're not changing the spring rate of the torsion bar by changing the torsion bar adjusters. The spring rate is fixed, and does not change. You're really not even changing the preload, the torsion bar adjusting bolts just change the angle of the lower control arms with respect to the torsion bar/pivot.

Second, you will be worsening your bump steer. By moving the spindle up with relation to the steering arms, you'll end up with more angle on the steering arms. Now, I run drop spindles on my Challenger, and did not actually notice the increase in bump steer. But, numerically anyway, it got worse.

And finally, watch out for the tie rod ends with your rims. The nice thing about using the stock suspension set up with larger rims (17" and 18") is that the tie rod end will actually fit inside the rim instead of interfering with the lip, so you can run more backspace. The drop spindle basically turns a 17" rim into a 15" rim with respect to the tie rod clearance, so backspace becomes an issue again. With 18's it'll probably still be fine, but it may depend on the rim.