:eek:
But seriously, I’m interested in hearing your opinion on the swap. Not very many people have done as much as you did to make the most out of the torsion bar suspension before doing the swap to coil overs. And that’s always been my gripe, people do the conversion thinking it’s necessary to handle well, which isn’t true.
All things being equal, I still think the chassis being designed to carry the suspension loads radially through the K and torsion bar crossmember VS vertically on the forward frame rails is the biggest issue, and one that is not addressed by Denny’s hoop reinforcement. The Mopar chassis has flex between the frame rails and cowl (“cowl shake”) and running coil overs up front increases the vertical load on the rails, making that problem worse. IMO that calls for additional bracing between the cowl and rails. Stiffening the shock mounts to carry the coil overs is necessary too for the HDK, but additional reinforcement is needed in the form of “J” bars or something similar to USCT’s shock tower to cowl reinforcement. That’s true for all of the conversions, regardless of how the coil overs are mounted.
The HDK retains the factory amount of suspension travel, but some of the competing coil over conversions do not, so while travel may not be an issue with the HDK in particular it is still a valid issue with the others.
Another issue, and I don’t know if it’s relevant for the HDK to be honest, is turning radius. It is an issue on some of the other conversions. The rack used doesn’t allow the same amount of turning angle. Not a big deal on a cruiser, but for AutoX it can be an issue on tight courses.
Camber gain is important, and the torsion bar system is a good one for that. It isn’t an extreme amount by any means either, so again IMO less would not be advantageous. But most of the geometry changes between the torsion bar system and the coil over conversions can be filed under pros/cons, they both have things they’re better at. And some of them are made better/worse by other factors in the set up that can make them more specific to a particular car. Most are pretty minor, so, most drivers aren’t going to notice much.
The weight savings of the entire system depends very much on options. It’s not as much as most people think, I’ve documented it several times. And more than just weight, it’s worth noting that the layout of the coil over system will tend to raise the CG, especially vs a manual steering stock set up. The coil overs are the heavy part, and they’re mounted high.
