My Toxic '74 Duster

fantum said
Thanks all for your outstanding input. One of the important things that I forgot to mention is the wheels. One of my friends is a Goodyear store manager and helped me realize there are a lot more options with a bigger wheel, say 17" or 18". Not only that, but as mentioned you get better performance while still trying to maintain that old-school look. Right now, I'm leaning toward the Rally wheels, but have not made a decision (and probably should soon), so if any of you want to add your 2 cents, please do as I enjoy seeing what others have done and might like another's recommendations.

72 Blu, your list is pretty much exactly what I was looking for. I was, pretty much, intending to stay with the torsion bar configuration (unless someone could convince me otherwise given a very modest budget) and was hoping that someone had composed a list of more modern parts that work well together as I do not see any need to reinvent the wheel. THANK YOU!!!!!

Two more things for right now. First, I need to replace the axles as the ones in the rear end are small bolt patter and I want to go with the larger bolt pattern. I've read of a few places, like DTS and (forgive me if I get this wrong as I'm writing this on the fly) Dr. Diff, and was wondering what else may be out there and what your experiences were with the various distributors. I've read here that some have had bad experiences with PST and was wondering if they've improved their customer service and/or their products since.

Second, earlier this year I was enjoying others' projects and saw where one of you replaced the hood hinge springs with hydraulic supports and thought that would be a great upgrade. Does anyone know that build and have a link to it? If anyone has a better hinge system, I'm all ears.

Again, thank you all for your input - it is greatly appreciated.

MIKE
FANTUM

No problem Mike! Happy to help if I can.

I've run through multiple different iterations of suspensions on my Challenger and my Duster over the 100k+ I've driven them. Found some things that worked really well, broke a few things that didn't and have upgraded parts a few times for all kinds of different reasons. I'm pretty happy with what I've got now, so, I try to share what I've learned. Obviously I have my own opinions on stuff and some of that is definitely shaped by the amount of street driving I do.

@DoctorDiff (Cass) is a great resource and vendor. If you need BBP axles that's the first place I'd go. I also run his brake kits on my Duster, currently I've got his 13" cobra style kit on the front with is 11.7" disk kit on the back. In the relatively near future I'm going to be installing his 13" Viper caliper kit on the front. He's got a bunch of great brake kits, I'd go with DoctorDiff before I ran anything from Wilwood. Only way I'd do something else might be if I decided to spend the coin on a Baer kit.

As for the rallyes, the 17" aluminum versions do not have great backspace for the front of an A-body. I really like the YearOne 17" Magnums, but, they're not the best width/backspace combo for an A. For a B/E body they're perfect.

I think these cars can look good with a lot of different styles of wheel, you just have to get things fit right with the wheel specs, ride height, tire height, etc. Even some of the popular "tuner" wheels look good if done well IMHO. But I may be biased. :p