Bilstein Shocks - Worth The Money??

Johnny Dart said
What are your plans with this car ?
Street, Drag, Canyons, Shows, Groceries ?
It depends on what you are doing with the car. Thats how I would make my decision
On $410.00 shocks.

Yup, good point. Not that the Bilsteins aren't still a better shock, but if you're running stock torsion bars on a weekend car that just gets driven around town you probably won't be blown away by their performance compared to a set of Gabriel's that are a heck of a lot cheaper, you just won't see the performance that makes the Bilsteins better.

MRGTX said
This is great to hear but you bring up a good point...shocks are typically matched with spring rates. Did you find that the Bilsteins were under-damped for the high rates of the 1.12"s? Was it just too jittery?

Road conditions not withstanding, it seems like the more torsion bar you can get under these cars, the better they drive. My roads in northern CT are mixed but with plenty of great two lane country highways...I can't see an argument for going with smaller bars than 1.12" so I guess I'll be giving Hotchkis a call over the winter.

It's kind of hard to describe the difference between the Bilsteins and the Hotchkis shocks. It's not like the suspension was always over or underdamped. The car just felt better with the Hotchkis shocks in terms of ride quality. More consistent. Matching shocks can get pretty complicated. Higher end shocks have more valving, so, they react differently in response to different loads and impulses, it's not just a strictly linear response that's the same regardless of load. The hotchkis shocks just matched the 1.12's better, softer in some situations but more responsive in others, they just felt like a better overall match to the 1.12's than the Bilsteins were. But the larger the bars get the more important that match is. I think for smaller bars the Bilsteins work great, I still like them on my Challenger, but the 1.12" E-body bars are 270 lb/in compared to the A-body 1.12's which are 300 lb/in. And the '72 Challenger is probably a bit heavier too, which makes a difference.