73 Duster 340 Suspension Recommendations

[madhatta360]

Hey gang,

Looking at some small handling upgrades for my car and looking for some feedback suggestions- not a drag race car would like to improve handling on road

Engine is now 418 Stroker/aluminum heads and intake so a lot less weight than stock 340 setup.

Currently front suspension:
.870 T bars Factory
Factory Sway bar- 20.6mm with poly end links/poly bump stops
Monroe’s
Factory upper/lower control arms

Rear:
SS springs
Monroe shocks
Will have welded frame times on shortly

Looking at either QA1 non adjustable or bilsteins for shocks all 4 corners and would there be any benefit increasing sway bar size or just keeping what I have.
Eventually I want to run qa1 upper control arms, my current UCA bushings are cracking so I may just pull the trigger now. I also may upgrade to a 1.03 T bar.

Thoughts/suggestions, mainly focused on the shocks and possible sway bar upgrade if it makes sense.

 

[Oldmanmopar]

Rack & Pinion is a big improvement ,Coil over suspension is another plus, For the street HDK suspension is sturdy. I went with AJE suspension. Its light but I would not recommend it for the street. very weak and should be used with front and mid plated engine mounting.

 

[72bluNblu]

I think you’ve got a good plan already, QA1 shocks or Bilsteins with 1.03” torsion bars will be a big improvement for springs and shocks. And the QA1 UCA will allow you to run better alignment specs, which will help with stability and handling.

You can wait on the sway bars, the change from the larger torsion bars will significant so you may not want larger sway bars too, it’ll depend on what you’re running for tires.

But your plan is a good one for a nice handling improvement.

 

[autoxcuda]

Hellwig sway bar and bilstiens would be easiest for you labor wise. And will be noticeable.

The 1.03 T-bars will be more noticeable than sway bar. The install is a little more involved and a skill level notch up.

You can install moog 7103 offset bushings for more caster on your factory UCA’s and be fine for just “improved street handling”

 

[Brooks James]

Hey gang,

Looking at some small handling upgrades for my car and looking for some feedback suggestions- not a drag race car would like to improve handling on road

Engine is now 418 Stroker/aluminum heads and intake so a lot less weight than stock 340 setup.

Currently front suspension:
.870 T bars Factory
Factory Sway bar- 20.6mm with poly end links/poly bump stops
Monroe’s
Factory upper/lower control arms

Rear:
SS springs
Monroe shocks
Will have welded frame times on shortly

Looking at either QA1 non adjustable or bilsteins for shocks all 4 corners and would there be any benefit increasing sway bar size or just keeping what I have.
Eventually I want to run qa1 upper control arms, my current UCA bushings are cracking so I may just pull the trigger now. I also may upgrade to a 1.03 T bar.

Thoughts/suggestions, mainly focused on the shocks and possible sway bar upgrade if it makes sense.

 

[Mojoe9955]

I put 1.03 t-bars on my 318 Duster which was all good with my rusty old headers.
Later I switched to some nice Doug's Headers and it was a tight fit. You can barely get a piece of cardboard between them and the bars. I also put in a nice 1 inch Hellwig front swaybar and QA1 adjustable strut rods. I reinforced the lower control arms with stiffeng plates then put in new pivots and delrin bushings and adjusters from BAC. On the uppers I used the Moog K7103 bushings for better caster. I cheaped out and used some KYB gas adjust shocks as they were newer. I'm not sure if different shocks would make that a big difference as it rides great and handles pretty nicely with stock manual steering on 17" wheels and decent tires. My big block Satellite in the background has a rebuilt rubber suspension using the Moog bushings on the upper arms, 1.03 t-bars and 1 1/8 sway bar and the KYB shocks and it's amazing what those few things did for the handling on that.
I think coil overs and modern suspension stuff looks and sounds cool but it's expensive as hell so I'm going to stick a modest upgrades to the stock suspension.

 

[72bluNblu]

I put 1.03 t-bars on my 318 Duster which was all good with my rusty old headers.
Later I switched to some nice Doug's Headers and it was a tight fit. You can barely get a piece of cardboard between them and the bars. I also put in a nice 1 inch Hellwig front swaybar and QA1 adjustable strut rods. I reinforced the lower control arms with stiffeng plates then put in new pivots and delrin bushings and adjusters from BAC. On the uppers I used the Moog K7103 bushings for better caster. I cheaped out and used some KYB gas adjust shocks as they were newer. I'm not sure if different shocks would make that a big difference as it rides great and handles pretty nicely with stock manual steering on 17" wheels and decent tires. My big block Satellite in the background has a rebuilt rubber suspension using the Moog bushings on the upper arms, 1.03 t-bars and 1 1/8 sway bar and the KYB shocks and it's amazing what those few things did for the handling on that.
I think coil overs and modern suspension stuff looks and sounds cool but it's expensive as hell so I'm going to stick a modest upgrades to the stock suspension.

View attachment 1716209356

View attachment 1716209359

KYB shocks are hot garbage. Going to something like the Bilstein RCD's will make a night and day kind of difference in ride quality compared to the KYB's. I made that exact swap on my Challenger, and instantly regretted every minute the KYB's were left on the car.

As for the coil overs, all they get you is a rack and pinion and header clearance. Anything you can do suspension wise with the coil over conversions you can accomplish with the torsion bar suspension.

 

[racerjoe]

Hey gang,

Looking at some small handling upgrades for my car and looking for some feedback suggestions- not a drag race car would like to improve handling on road

Engine is now 418 Stroker/aluminum heads and intake so a lot less weight than stock 340 setup.

Currently front suspension:
.870 T bars Factory
Factory Sway bar- 20.6mm with poly end links/poly bump stops
Monroe’s
Factory upper/lower control arms

Rear:
SS springs
Monroe shocks
Will have welded frame times on shortly

Looking at either QA1 non adjustable or bilsteins for shocks all 4 corners and would there be any benefit increasing sway bar size or just keeping what I have.
Eventually I want to run qa1 upper control arms, my current UCA bushings are cracking so I may just pull the trigger now. I also may upgrade to a 1.03 T bar.

Thoughts/suggestions, mainly focused on the shocks and possible sway bar upgrade if it makes sense.

I've got some good used Hotchkis front shocks for sale. These shocks were an amazing improvement over KYB garbage. Only selling because I switched to an HDK.

[FOR SALE] - Hotchkis front shocks

Used but good working condition Hotchkis Tuned 1.5 non-adjustable shock, aluminum body. $250.00 Located in South Louisiana. Will ship at buyer's expense.

www.forabodiesonly.com

 

[RogerRamRod]

All info for the front so far, with the exception of shocks. After you get the front taken care of, I think you would do well to look at changing out the rear springs

 

[Mojoe9955]

I thought that about the KYB's but need someone to say it.
I saw those shocks for sale and can use them on my new project...hmmm

 

[madhatta360]

I put 1.03 t-bars on my 318 Duster which was all good with my rusty old headers.
Later I switched to some nice Doug's Headers and it was a tight fit. You can barely get a piece of cardboard between them and the bars. I also put in a nice 1 inch Hellwig front swaybar and QA1 adjustable strut rods. I reinforced the lower control arms with stiffeng plates then put in new pivots and delrin bushings and adjusters from BAC. On the uppers I used the Moog K7103 bushings for better caster. I cheaped out and used some KYB gas adjust shocks as they were newer. I'm not sure if different shocks would make that a big difference as it rides great and handles pretty nicely with stock manual steering on 17" wheels and decent tires. My big block Satellite in the background has a rebuilt rubber suspension using the Moog bushings on the upper arms, 1.03 t-bars and 1 1/8 sway bar and the KYB shocks and it's amazing what those few things did for the handling on that.
I think coil overs and modern suspension stuff looks and sounds cool but it's expensive as hell so I'm going to stick a modest upgrades to the stock suspension.

View attachment 1716209356

View attachment 1716209359

Nice, yeah I just upgraded to Dougs headers when I dropped the new motor in a few weeks ago- they definitely fit nice and easier to get to everything compared to my old hedmans that were on there. However, down below by zbar and everything, it is freaking tight! I'm almost considering just doing the T bars right now because I don't have the exhuast hooked up so should give me a little more room

 

[madhatta360]

Anyone happen to know the specs on the Bilstein RCD shocks? I scoured the PST website and some google but couldn't find anything, looking for extended height, collapsed height, ride height.

 

[junkyardhero]

Anyone happen to know the specs on the Bilstein RCD shocks? I scoured the PST website and some google but couldn't find anything, looking for extended height, collapsed height, ride height.

from what i can glean, they're bilstein 5100 B8 series that are revalved by RCD. i poked around a bit and came up empty handed on any hard specs, but PST does list them as applicable for C-bodies, which would indicate that they have enough extended length to run SS springs. but i'd take that with a big ol' grain of salt and would confirm before throwing money down on that.

if one could figure out the 5100 part number then i'd guess you can find it in their spec chart.

 

[madhatta360]

from what i can glean, they're bilstein 5100 B8 series that are revalved by RCD. i poked around a bit and came up empty handed on any hard specs, but PST does list them as applicable for C-bodies, which would indicate that they have enough extended length to run SS springs. but i'd take that with a big ol' grain of salt and would confirm before throwing money down on that.

if one could figure out the 5100 part number then i'd guess you can find it in their spec chart.

Interesting, yeah I’m going to call PST and find out if they can’t provide that info then I’m probably going with QA1 non adjustable only because they provide the specs and that’s something that’s important to me to have right now to make sure they are good with my springs.
Thanks!

 

[madhatta360]

Quick follow up- I made a seperate post for specs on the Bilstein RCD for Abodys but wanted to let you all know I got contact info for the wholesaler of these and they were helpful with providing basic specs on these

55-R082 pin/eye shock 10.5 col / 15.75 ext
55-R092 eye/eye shock 14 col / 22.7 ext