1972 Dodge Dart Swinger Stance
If the SS springs are too stiff, then you're too old... :steering:
Damn,some whiners here..S/S 002/003 springs on my Scamp,add good shocks,torque the spring perches correctly (Thanks,Rusty Rat Rod!),they work just fine. This isn't a Cadillac,it's a Mopar...
You are obviously entitled,to your own opine. I would simply recommend some Gabriel /Monroe budget 70-71 Imperial 50/50 stock gas shocks,and a simple set of 245/60 series Cooper Cobra radials... This isn't rocket science......
You know, you guys can call me all the names you want and flame my posts with "disagree" tags all you like. The simple fact of the matter is that a car with SS spring handles like crap because the rear springs are too stiff for anything other than launching at the track. This isn't because "I'm too old", and it's not because I'm whining. I'm the one daily driving my cars, you guys are the ones with modern, comfortable cars for the daily grind. I run 1.12" torsion bars on my cars. My cars do not have a "cadillac" ride quality. Comfort is the last thing on my mind when I build a car, otherwise I wouldn't be running a 16:1 manual steering box with 275 wide front tires and torsion bars with a 300 lb/in rate coupled with the largest off the shelf sway bars you can buy. My car rides like a modern performance car without all the wiz bang computer gadgets to make it easy to drive. It's a bit stiff, it takes a lot of arm to deal with steering under 10 mph and it takes a decent amount of leg because of the manual brakes. No power anything, no A/C, everything has been sold out for handling performance alone. If I needed stiffer springs for better handling, my cars would have them, plain and simple. If anything my car is borderline
too stiff as it's currently set up for the 300 treadwear tires I run on the street, and would be better suited for stickier tires.
The SS springs are too stiff for proper handling anywhere other than the drag strip. That has nothing to do with comfort and everything to do with
physics. Most cars set up like yours are running rear springs that have a higher spring rate than your torsion bars in the front. On cars which are nose heavy. Think about that for 2 seconds. You have a nose heavy car with a higher spring rate in the back than the front. So, no, it's not "rocket science", but it is basic physics. And as a former aerospace engineer, I actually do
understand "rocket science", and this definitely isn't that.
You need higher springs rates up front than you do out back on these cars, otherwise you have absolutely no hope of a balanced car. There is nothing else you can do to the rest of suspension components that will fix that, they don't make front sway bars big enough to overcome it or shocks stiff or soft enough to change it. That's not my opinion, that's physics.
Now, if you guys like having SS springs out back, a big front to rear rake, running hockey puck hard BFG TA's that will spin up if you look at them funny and driving cars that handle like they did in the 70's (poorly!!!), that's fine. That's your opinion, and they're your cars so have at it. But don't try to pretend that your cars even handle "ok", because they don't. If they did, you'd probably drive them more often.
