68’ barracuda tear down and rebuild suspension Q’s
I am researching different options for the complete rebuild of my 68’ barracuda suspension. I am planning on rebuilding a 350-400hp 318 meant for street driving and cruising on the weekends.
My current suspension is old and tired. I am strongly considering buying a super front end rebuild kit from PST Suspension with polygraphitebushings, new bill stein shocks, new torsion bars, new leafs.
My questions are:
Which width torsion bar should I buy for my application?
Am I forgetting anything in my list above as far as parts for the rebuild?
Are there any objections to this specific rebuild kit or company that I am purchasing from?
Any recommendations are appreciated, I am not trying to reinvent the wheel here. I just want a nice handling car that will do well in the windy hills I live in.
PST has a pretty good set up. The UCA bushings you'd want are the MOOG K7103's, they're offset to get more positive caster if you're keeping the stock upper control arms. They're rubber, and I'm not aware of an offset UCA bushing made out of poly or anything else for the stock arms.
When I install poly bushings I always use greaseable LCA pins and adjustable strut rods. According to the PST website the polygraphite they use is supposed to be self lubricating, and I'd have to see their LCA bushing design to see if greaseable pins would even work with them because that style LCA pin has a larger diameter to replace the inner shell of the bushing. But for anything other than rubber I like to be able to add grease if something starts squeaking. Maybe
@PST will chime in on the polygraphite bushings.
The adjustable strut rods are very helpful. The stock strut rods were a "one size fits most" type of deal, and them being the right length depended a lot on the OE rubber bushings having a whole ton of flex and give in them. Get rid of the rubber bushings and the length of the strut rod is more important, it has to be more accurate for the suspension to work properly. Otherwise the LCA will bind as it travels, and that doesn't make for good handling. I install adjustable strut rods on all of my cars regardless.
The PST 1.03" torsion bars are a good diameter for decent handling without getting too crazy. They'll work great with a set of Bilstein shocks and that will do wonders for your cars handling ability. You can definitely go bigger, but if you're just street driving and cruising around you don't need to. If you want to do AutoX stuff or have a real corner carver, you might look at 1.06" or 1.08" torsion bars.
Sway bars will still be a good idea even with the 1.03" bars, but you can install those any time. So if you want to do the rebuild and see how it rides and handles first that's not a bad plan at all.
