Coil Over vs Torsion Bar

Okay, so you agree with me completely not. Got it. What you are really saying, probably without realizing it, is that a brand new coil over - without adding any structural additions to the front end - is superior to doing nothing to a 40+ year old car. Okay, I can 'agree' with that. Of course, as I said in other posts, or at least alluded to, one 45 year old car can be very different than another 45 year old car. They also changed between 64 and 77 - upper control arms, idler arms, sway bar mounts, T-bars, spindels ... and you are right in 'agreeing' with me, in that a 1969 A-body was NOT designed with 18" wheels, 40 series tires, and 2X the stiffness in T-bars. But it was not designed to use coil overs either. I did state more than once that it is very possible that the cars had built into them enough structural capacity to deal with the new systems to which you refer. It is possible that they had not as well. Check back with us in 45 years.


Hey Dartly,

I understand where you are coming from in addressing the structural integrity of the stock sheetmetal/subframes,. Correct me if I'm wrong but do you think that removing the factory components and replacing them with aftermarket systems compromises the structural integrity of the car? If so, there is absolutely no proof of this. There are numerous members on here using these components in everything from wheelstanding race cars to street cars (one person who commented in this thread has over 30,000 miles on his). If you can mount a gen 1 hemi to these new k-frames with coil-overs, and support the weight of that motor over the front wheels, I am inclined to think that the structural integrity is just fine. As you said, in 45 years I could be proven wrong but for now , these systems seem to be holding up just fine.