Hotchkis tvs system questions

Hi everyone,

I'm considering rebuilding my 74 dart sport suspension to beef it up before it goes back on the road. Alterkation is too expensive so I have looked into hotchkis. My dart has a 360 hooked up to an 8 3/4 rear. Will be driven primarily on the road and maybe occasionally on a strip.

how well is the rear leaf springs provided by hotchkis ? Are they comparable to super stock springs ?

Are there any interference issues I should be concerned about with the front sway bar they provide? Or any other components in the system they provide?

Thank you for any information!

how well is the rear leaf springs provided by hotchkis ? Are they comparable to super stock springs ?

Click to expand...

completely different springs. ones for the drag strip and the other is for the corners..

I have the entire kit on one of my Challengers. The rear springs lower the car,while the SS springs raise the car-totally different. The Hotchkis kit works very well and I doubt the AlterKation set up handles any better-maybe not as good. It does provide extra clearance.

I didn't have any interference issues on the E-body. Their kits are well engineered.

DartThis74 said:

Hi everyone,

I'm considering rebuilding my 74 dart sport suspension to beef it up before it goes back on the road. Alterkation is too expensive so I have looked into hotchkis. My dart has a 360 hooked up to an 8 3/4 rear. Will be driven primarily on the road and maybe occasionally on a strip.

how well is the rear leaf springs provided by hotchkis ? Are they comparable to super stock springs ?

Are there any interference issues I should be concerned about with the front sway bar they provide? Or any other components in the system they provide?

Thank you for any information!

Click to expand...

The Hotchkis rear springs with their "mid-eye" front and rear and the dropped front hanger will lower the rear end a lot. Most do not run the dropped front hanger.






Below: The Hotchkis front spring hangers is on the left. Notice the eye-bolt is raised up. It's about 1/2-3/4" up front the stock one on the right. I had it on, but it was way to low to make my car even front to rear with the TTI headers. BUT I run very small 24.5" diameter tires. A 26.5" diameter tire will raise the car 1".

Still, I would start with the stock front spring hanger. Then see if you want/can go lower. After your decision, check pinion angle like you should do after any leaf spring change.



This is the dropped front Hotchkis spring hanger being installed. I ran it for a while, but was too low for my short tires and TTI headers.

DartThis74 said:

Hi everyone,

I'm considering rebuilding my 74 dart sport suspension to beef it up before it goes back on the road. Alterkation is too expensive so I have looked into hotchkis. My dart has a 360 hooked up to an 8 3/4 rear. Will be driven primarily on the road and maybe occasionally on a strip.

how well is the rear leaf springs provided by hotchkis ? Are they comparable to super stock springs ?

Are there any interference issues I should be concerned about with the front sway bar they provide? Or any other components in the system they provide?

Thank you for any information!

Click to expand...

I have just finished installing the full hotchkis kit under my 1970 duster. my duster has 406 stroker w/tremec & 8.75. it had ss springs. cannot tell any diff. had no interference problems with swaybar. have taken it to 1 autocross since-found out I need power steering and better brakes. the quality and fit was great.

AutoXcuda is right on, Hotchkis makes great parts. I don't have a full TVS on any of my cars, but I have the UCA's, sway bars and frame connectors for my Challenger. The TVS kit can make your car handle just as well as an Alterkation if you choose your torsion bars and shocks wisely (ie, 1" or bigger torsion bars and Bilstein of Hotchkis Fox shocks).

There are only two things about the Hotchkis TVS that I'm not a fan of. The first is the Heim joints on the UCA's. I had to replace the original heims on my Challenger's UCA's after less than 7k miles. Hotchkis was great about it, they sent me new heims and included boots for them, which they do with all of them now (they didn't initially). Still, I think for a street car the heims are overkill, and still will probably wear faster than a set of bushings, especially if the car is driven in any kind of unfavorable weather conditions (my cars are daily drivers 365 days a year). I haven't worn out the second set yet, but I decided to use bushed tubular UCA's on my other cars.

The other complaint I hear is that the rear springs lower the car too much. There's a few threads on that here, although that was when the kits first came out and I don't know if Hotchkis has made any changes to the springs. The other alternative is a set of AFCO leaf springs. I run them on my Duster. They have a reinforced front section similar to the Hotchkis springs, although they aren't as light (weight, not spring rate). They also have the advantage of being able to choose your arch and spring rate. I run 20231M's, which have a 121 lb spring rate (which works quite well with a large rear sway bar like the Hotchkis or Hellwig bars). They do have a larger rear eye, so you need Energy suspension 2-2117G bushings to keep the standard A-body shackles.

Other than those fairly minor issues, Hotchkis makes great parts and has always treated me well as a customer. They aren't the cheapest way to go, but they take the time and effort to put some real thought into their parts and their construction.

Excellent information everyone. I am questioning the leaf springs from the kit now, I certainly do not want to lower the rear any at all. I have 15" x 235 on the rear and they rub easily if any weight was on the back like if I had a passenger in the back seat.

DartThis74 said:

Excellent information everyone. I am questioning the leaf springs from the kit now, I certainly do not want to lower the rear any at all. I have 15" x 235 on the rear and they rub easily if any weight was on the back like if I had a passenger in the back seat.

Click to expand...

That's a backspacing problem, not a tire size problem. 235's in the back are tiny for a Dart Sport/Duster/Demon body.

I fit 275/40/17's on my Duster bone stock, no modifications at all. I now have 295/35/18's on it in the back, although that's with a 1/2" spring offset and some trimming of the inner quarter lip.

Sounds like you have the wrong rims on that bad boy.

DartThis74 said:

Excellent information everyone. I am questioning the leaf springs from the kit now, I certainly do not want to lower the rear any at all. I have 15" x 235 on the rear and they rub easily if any weight was on the back like if I had a passenger in the back seat.

Click to expand...

If you want, you can piece the kit yourself on Summit. It shouldn't cost you any extra than you buying the kit as a whole. Just get Super stock springs if that's what you desire. I'd be a little worried that the sway bars may overpower your tires in hard corners (if you're ever put into that situation).

DartThis74 said:

Excellent information everyone. I am questioning the leaf springs from the kit now, I certainly do not want to lower the rear any at all. I have 15" x 235 on the rear and they rub easily if any weight was on the back like if I had a passenger in the back seat.

Click to expand...

Sounds like you have a backspacing issue on your rear rims. Do they rub on the outside or inside?

Super Stock springs jack up the rear of the car. Not really what you want for handling. Got a side view picture of your car?

Do you plan to upgrade your tires to something more performance than the 15" offerings?

I think it has more to do with the fact that the stock leaf springs were probably worn out and were definitely sagging. they were basically flat if you looked under the car with no one inside... no mini tub or anything was done on the car so of course the weird contour of the wheel well is not square more like rounded underneath thus causing the tire to rub when weight was added. Bear in mind this was with a 7.25 rear end I have now upgraded to the 8.75 so I will, regardless have to buy new rims for my rear because of the new backspacing. The wheels are just the American Racing Torque Thrust II I can try to get a picture soon.

Sorry, these are about all i have for a side shot of my car.

Nice! :thumbup:

Looks like the wheels are pretty far out toward the quarters, not enough backspacing on those rims.

Did you use an A-body 8 3/4? What size rims/tires are you planning on running?

With the stock wheel tubs and spring locations a 275 wide rear tire still leaves a decent amount of room, a 15x8 with 4.5" backspacing is usually about perfect for an A-body 8 3/4.

Actually it is a 69 charger rear that I found. So I'm going to need to get offset shackles or something soon for it. Now that I will need new wheels for the rear I will have to look into a different size. I have cooper cobra tires on now, I felt they handles much better than the t/a radials from BF , especially on wet roads ! Plus they have the white lettering on the walls.

DartThis74 said:

Actually it is a 69 charger rear that I found. So I'm going to need to get offset shackles or something soon for it. Now that I will need new wheels for the rear I will have to look into a different size. I have cooper cobra tires on now, I felt they handles much better than the t/a radials from BF , especially on wet roads ! Plus they have the white lettering on the walls.

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Offset shackles is only going to give you more room on the inner side (toward the frame rails). If I see and am reading this correctly, your Charger rear end would push the wheels out toward the quarter panels. That's why you need more of an offset and the only way to really fix that is to get new wheels. Those wheels look like they have a +0mm offset. Here's what I found on Summit to help your search...

http://www.summitracing.com/search/...9+4294920184+4294920291+4294915428+4294909922

DartThis74 said:

Actually it is a 69 charger rear that I found. So I'm going to need to get offset shackles or something soon for it.

Click to expand...

You'll need to move the spring perches to use the B-body rear.

I run a 68-70 B body rear in my Duster as well, it's actually a much better fit for the Duster body than the A-body rear. But at the very least you'll need to move the perches from 44" on center like they are now to 43" c-c. I would not suggest using offset shackles "backwards" to attempt to get away with not moving the spring perches.

I used 1/2" offset hangers/shackles to move the perches in another 1/2" as they're intended, to make the spring perches 42" c-c. That gives you as much room in the back as you can get without doing a mini-tub. I figured since I had to move the perches anyway I might as well get the offset kit. Dr. Diff sells a nice 1/2" offset kit.

If you choose to go with the A-body perch width of 43"c-c you can use a 15x8 with ~5.5 to 5.75" backspace. A 15x9" would need ~6" to 6.25" backspacing. You'd still be stuck with a 275/60/15 as about the biggest tire you could safely run without trimming the inner quarter lip.

If you use a 1/2" offset kit and 42" c-c perches you can get a 10" wide rim in there with a 7" backspace. I'm running 295/35/18's on my car with 18x10's, although I did have to do a little trimming on the inner quarter lip to make sure nothing rubbed.

autoxcuda said:

The Hotchkis rear springs with their "mid-eye" front and rear and the dropped front hanger will lower the rear end a lot. Most do not run the dropped front hanger.

Below: The Hotchkis front spring hangers is on the left. Notice the eye-bolt is raised up. It's about 1/2-3/4" up front the stock one on the right. I had it on, but it was way to low to make my car even front to rear with the TTI headers. BUT I run very small 24.5" diameter tires. A 26.5" diameter tire will raise the car 1".

Still, I would start with the stock front spring hanger. Then see if you want/can go lower. After your decision, check pinion angle like you should do after any leaf spring change.

This is the dropped front Hotchkis spring hanger being installed. I ran it for a while, but was too low for my short tires and TTI headers.

Click to expand...

Thank you for this tip. We just install these using the stock front hanger and we love the stance.