Does your Duster "float" at highway speed?

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jcolman

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My car likes to wander a bit at speeds around 70mph. I had the alignment shop put in +5 degrees of camber which helped a bit. My front fenders and hood are fiberglass so I'm wondering if my front end is just light and that's the way it's going to be. My front tires are 235/40/18. Rear Tires: 245/50/18.
 
What's your toe in set at?
 
Factory steering box or aftermarket? Rebuilt (stage1, 2, 3) or stock?
 
Isn't it the air rushing under the car "lifting it" gives it that "light to no steering" feeling...?
 
Factory box. Appears to be pure stock.

Power steering I assume?

The stock steering boxes always have that "over boosted" feel to them. You can adjust the pressure put out by the pump by adding spacers to the pressure valve. Some people have said it really changed the feel of the steering. On my stock box, I didn't notice any change by adding shims to the pressure valve. I sent my Dart's steering box to Firm Feel and they rebuild it into a stage 3. I have not driven the car yet to feel the difference though.

That might be what you need to do. Have your box rebuilt and go to a stage 2 or 3. Then you can fine tune it if needed with the pump shims.
 
Is all the steering linkage tight? Where’s the camber set at? Is the steering column to box coupler tight? Also is the wheelbase square? My are wandered before I rebuild the front. My LCA bushing where shot along with the strut bar bushing. The strut bar at the K Frame on the pass side was pulling the LCA more forward than the driver side and pulling the car left. Once the WB is squared and bushings replace is 1000x better. I’ve had well over 100 on the back roads and super stable... I added sway bars btw.
 
My car likes to wander a bit at speeds around 70mph. I had the alignment shop put in +5 degrees of camber which helped a bit. My front fenders and hood are fiberglass so I'm wondering if my front end is just light and that's the way it's going to be. My front tires are 235/40/18. Rear Tires: 245/50/18.

Mine is not a Duster but I am able to run 80-90 mph for extended periods of time and it feels incredibly stable. It will occasionally want to follow “tracks” or grooves in the pavement but nothing too sketchy. Is your 09 toe positive or negative? Also, what is the camber? I’m set up with -.7 camber, +4.5 caster, and my toe is set dead ahead at a rest. Front tires are 205/55/17.
 
Isn't it the air rushing under the car "lifting it" gives it that "light to no steering" feeling...?

I believe this myself. When I had my ‘73 Cuda road worthy many moons ago, I also had this issue. After I installed S/S springs, the floating feel was less. So I started to mess around with the front ride height. Then read end height as well as front end alignment. These three factors I found were the key.

At the time I also installed a GO wing on the back. Since it was adjustable. I messed around with that “variable angle adjustment” as well.

What eventually found was (obvious I guess) that the faster I sent the more the read would be pushed down on and level the car out. Sometimes to much. So down went the nose. I eventually tinkered with it to hit the speed of 150+ mph on my speedometer.

I have not returned to that speed since.
 
To me, a "float" is just the soft suspension/tall sidewall tires of the day. A "wander" is an alignment problem. My guess would be toe out, not enough toe in for a tired suspension.
Edit: ......with 40 series 18" tires (lots of rolling resistance, causing toe-out?)
 
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My car likes to wander a bit at speeds around 70mph

Define wander
Do you mean follows the groves in the road?

You have to constantly readjust the steering to keep it going straight?

What happens if you take your hand off the wheel? Where does the car go?

The 2 to 3 hundred pounds you removed IMHO is not the issue.
My 67 dart with 319,000 on many of the front suspension parts will drive down the interstate at any speed streight as an arrow ( slight creep to the right due to the crown of the road)

I find my self moving the wheel because I perceive I need to. But if I take my hands off the wheel no need to correct.

I have about 5 deg play in my steering wheel, like 11:30 to 12:30 (2330 to 0030 for you 24hour types)

My front tires are cooper cobra 205-70R14
All 4 corners, alignment is most likely factory spec, dad did not know about the radial spec when it was last aligned.

I had a 56 pickup with 210 BFG in front and 255 BFG the rear. Drove great, I went to the mountains so I bought 2 snow tires for the rear probably around the 205 ti 210 width. 4 hours of driving hell. The back end was squirming all over the place. Not saying that is your issue but it illustrated that tires might be a huge contributing factor.

I have had tires on a commuter car the followed every grove and others that didn't ( same car, same roads, same speed)
 
Power steering I assume?

The stock steering boxes always have that "over boosted" feel to them. You can adjust the pressure put out by the pump by adding spacers to the pressure valve. Some people have said it really changed the feel of the steering. On my stock box, I didn't notice any change by adding shims to the pressure valve. I sent my Dart's steering box to Firm Feel and they rebuild it into a stage 3. I have not driven the car yet to feel the difference though.

That might be what you need to do. Have your box rebuilt and go to a stage 2 or 3. Then you can fine tune it if needed with the pump shims.

I have the Stage 3 box, you're going to love it. Buy a 900 PSI Saginaw box and its like a manual rack in a light car but with enough assist to parallel park with one hand.

To the OP, if its a totally stock power box it will be way, way,way over assisted in an A-body with a light nose. It was way over assisted in my dads Coronet 500 with a 440, can't imagine in a light nosed A.
 
I had a 68 Charger that floated. The stock steering box had play that couldn’t be adjusted out. Make sure your box is tight.
 
on any of my stock builds with all new components and 70 series tires i could let my steering wheel go at 70 mph plus and they were straight and true...that's how i check my alignment.
i'm guessing worn components, alignment or those front tires are too big for stock suspension to control.
 
Too many posts to reply to all of them.

The steering in manual and stock. I think that the steering box may be a bit too loose. It's not that big of a deal that it wanders a bit but I wanted to know everyone elses opinions. Thanks guys!
 
Lotsa of good advice but nobody asked about the width of the rims, the tire pressure and/or the scrub radius. Never mind the shocks.
If the backspace of your non-stock wheels is not the same as the front space, ie; zero offset, like the factory front end was designed for, then the center of the tire's contact patch will not be in the right place relative to the Steering axis inclination; same goes for a tire height that is different from the stockers.
Definitions and Explanations of Suspension Alignment Terms
When this happens, the edges of the tires try to climb up every little rut ,cup or wagontrack in the road. And you perceive it as a constant nervousness. You can mitigate this with lots of tire pressure, but it never really goes away.
You have to fix this or live with the problem.

You can almost make your Duster drive like a SuperCar, you just need to know how. I won't say that my 68 Barracuda drives like a supercar, but it might have followed a newer Corvette for several hours at speeds of on/or about 120mph.

5* castor in an A-body, with zero to .5*neg camber, is very difficult to achieve , even with the Moog offset bushings. My guess is that your tail is a lil low to get that much. If so, then you gotta fix that first. The front has to be a lil down; I set my front ride-height in the center of the best part of the toe-change/bumpsteer pattern, and then adjusted the rear height to be about a half to 3/4inch higher as measured at the extreme ends of the rocker-panels.

Another thing is "bumpsteer" . I had to fix mine which took me hours and hours on an alignment rack. Mine was created by the 5* of castor at zero camber. I eventually dialed it back to 3.5@.5 neg camber. I eventually gave up a lil more camber for street use. which gave me back some castor. But required the bumpsteer to be revisited.
The point is that those angles are ALL inter-related and ALL tied to eachother. And there is no good reason to try to run a race alignment on the street.
BTW
There are a couple of ways to attack/adjust the infamous over-boosted/ numb feedback, of the Chrysler P/S box; and the parts involved are cheep. I now run a very small steering wheel, to make it even faster.Not a faster ratio; just less arm-motion. The factory Barracuda steering wheel is well suited to driving a school-bus; but not at all well suited to driving a street-bomber.
My car is a street-bomber, and a manual-trans; so I steer with the left hand and hang the heck on with the right,lol. I left enough boost in the steering system to make this a pleasant experience.
 
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Here's the info from the alignment shop

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