DOES THE HDK SUSPENSION K-MEMBER HANDLE BETTER THAN A T-BAR SUSPENSION?

72bluNblu said
As someone that owned CAP products and had a set of their LCA’s fail on my Challenger, and is also a current owner of the QA1 LCA’s that use a similar design I can tell you there’s no “supposedly” about it.

QA1 redesigned all of that stuff and fixed the production issues. The QA1 LCA’s on my Duster aren’t something I’m concerned about.

QA1 did the same thing with the Gerst K member as they did with the CAP stuff. I know for a fact that they changed some of the metal thicknesses and redesigned some of the components to move welds etc.

I agree though, none of the aftermarket systems have the same level of engineering and testing as the factory parts do. Although, I don’t think you could argue that the factory engineers planned on having anyone run 275/35/18’s on the factory suspension either.

The design as far as how its welded/supported is identical. So even if improvements were made, unless they are just that much better welds, this can happen again, easily. The design of this particular one is just weak.

The factory suspension loads exactly nothing in the way that it's loaded in the Gerst/QA1 k-member as well as any of the other ones.

Other than the steering box, the stock part pushes all the load directly into the main member, basically on the same axis with small moments at worst. If you fully welded one of these out, and braced the steering box mount, I honestly don't think you can really break one of these. Everything is a 3D shape and also naturally arched or triangulated. It's naturally quite stiff. The steering box mount honestly isn't though.

Of course my 55 year old one has been taking P275 tires for 10 years (it may only have been 12-14k miles in that time) and it had a lot of miles and questionable weld quality to begin with. For something designed to be mass produced and to a price it's a solid piece. The engineering of it is fundamentally solid, especially for when it was made.