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

JBrian said
I'm going to agree with your assessment. I would guess if Tim and I ran the same wheel/tire combination, with Tim driving both cars back to back, it would be splitting hairs to see which car is quicker. And if Tim's Duster is quicker, how much? Both setups can work well. And one more issue. The Borgeson box, which is great on the street is way to slow on autocross slalom course sections and real tight slower speed turns. It's livable for most of the rest of autocross courses.

HDK: Is it lighter? It defiantly has better header clearance and maybe oil filter clearance on a GEN III Hemi? How about tire clearance? I'm not sure how tight the 265/35-18x9.5 30mm offset would be on my car. I'm sure it's going to rub the inside frame rail on my hub, but how about the outside fender?

Tim would know more than I. Who wants to sponsor an autocross day to get answers?

The Borgeson is 14:1, the racks are 12:1? I mean that difference is like a 1/2 turn on the steering wheel lock to lock. And that assumes you're actually getting the same steering angle from both, I don't know about the HDK but IIRC the RMS doesn't have as much steering angle.

"like to like" the HDK is about 30lbs lighter. So that's manual steering to manual rack, or power rack to Borgeson. It's dramatically lighter than with a factory mopar power steering set up, but I don't think anyone that was trying to be competitive would run one of those.

Tire clearance isn't improved for 18" wheels, the limits for those are the frame rails, fenders, and possibly the UCA's depending on the style being run. But given that the HDK can run the same tubular UCA's as a torsion bar car the like to like comparison for 18" wheels would be the same. The offset on the wheels might be different depending on the hub to hub width on the HDK, but the room for wheels on the car is the same. I believe the HDK has better wheel to suspension clearance for wheels smaller than 18" because the torsion bar set up runs into outer tie rod clearance issues. But I think most folks doing competitive autoX stuff with these cars are on 18's anyway for tire selection.

I'm running 275/35/18's on my Duster, they're +35 but the DoctorDiff 13" brakes kick my track width out 5mm a side. After pushing and rolling the fenders I have some room to the outside, my QA1 tubular LCA's don't have steering stops so the limit on that is the frame rail regardless.