Drop Spindles

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Rbob

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Has anyone used the 2" drop spindles and what are your thoughts?
I am upgrading the brakes on a 67 barracuda and will be putting on 15" wheels and don't want it sitting too high.

Bob
 
i have fat man customs on my duster. they are nice,but someone is making some sweet ones! i think it is magnum force maybe?
 
Magnum Force is the ones I looked at, just have not seen one lowered yet or know if there are issues with it being too low.

Bob
 
You don't really need them. Here's my son's Dart with 215-60-15 front tires on 15x6.5 rallyes. It's hard to see in the picture but the wheel openings are full.

P2120100.JPG
 
Drop spindles are great on mopars, 2 inches is not too low by any means. What it does mean is that you can have the car lower but still have the torsion bars wound up to give you great suspension travel. The problem with lowering them without spindles is in the loss of suspension travel and also the softness of the suspension as the tension is removed from the bars. I have lowered stubs in my a body and it just gives you more choices and a much better ride.
 
Drop spindles are great on mopars, 2 inches is not too low by any means. What it does mean is that you can have the car lower but still have the torsion bars wound up to give you great suspension travel. The problem with lowering them without spindles is in the loss of suspension travel and also the softness of the suspension as the tension is removed from the bars. I have lowered stubs in my a body and it just gives you more choices and a much better ride.

took the words right out my.............uh.......mouth!!
 
NO problem with suspension travel in my son's Dart. Never bottoms out even with .890" torsion bars AND a 440 (full iron motor). I set it up with about an inch between the LCA bupmer and frame. Sway bar is also a factory big block unit.

As long as you have any tension on the torsion bar the effective weight does not change with ride height. All you are doing is rotating the LCA away from the frame. You are NOT adding any twist to the bar.
 
I guess its all in what you want it for, whats good for one won't suit the other.1 inch of travel at the bump stop is not enough for my car because i roadrace it. I have.990 torsion bars with a big sway bar in a big block car and i needed the spindles to have a good height plus keep my lca's off the bumpstops. Guess it's just good to give 2 sides to a story so those that ask can make a choice. :)
 
We have a similar setup in my son's 67 383 Barracuda. To gain clearance we removed the bumpstops. He's never had the car on a road course, but has autocrossed it. We started with .990 torsion bars and went to 1.14 bars. From the looks of it your Valiant isn't any lower than his Barracuda.
 
My K-frames hit the ground now with what's left of the travel. What would an extra 2" give me? When lowering the front with the torsion bars, the upper ball joint moves back, increasing caster, which I think is a good thing. I'd really like to see both ways modeled in a suspension program so we can compare things like instant center, roll resistance, and stuff like that.
 
You lose available caster as you lower the car, but I can still get a degree or two out of my son's Dart. My other son's Barracuda has tubular UCAs now so I think I dialed in 3-4 degrees positive caster.

Also, I think Bill Reilly has done all the calculations for adjusted ride height.
 
I have a set of the Magnumforce drop spindles on my Challenger. As pointed out, you can lower the car quite a bit with the torsion bars but this affects suspension geometry. As Jim Lusk pointed out, you ARE NOT changing the load characteristics of the torsion bar, ie, you are not adding pre-load or tension to the bar, just moving the position of the LCA.

The big reason I did it though is the use of larger torsion bars. If you run stock bars lowering your car an inch or so is a piece of cake, too much more than that makes it hard to keep your alignment specs right without using offset bushings or adjustable tubular UCA's. But I upgraded to 1.12" torsion bars to improve the handling of my Challenger (these are awesome BTW!). When I put the car back on the ground I found out that the lowest I could go with the car was pretty much stock ride height. I ran out of adjustment on the torsion bar adjustors, the car just wouldn't sit any lower because of the size of the bars!

I looked at both the Fatman and Magnumforce spindles, as the latter was just recently released. The Fatman spindles are more expensive, and actually are made as separate pieces and welded together, they are a fabricated piece. While I haven't personally seen them, I have heard concerns voiced over their strength, especially in race/autocross type applications.

The Magnumforce spindles are cast pieces similar to the originals, but appear much stronger with material added in all the right places. From an engineering standpoint they look just great, better than the originals by far, and very clean and well done. They also run a little less than the fatman spindles. I can vouch for the full 2" drop as well, they work great. They also use the '73-76 spindle design, so aftermarket brakes are much easier to accomplish. I stayed mopar, but upgraded to '77 Cordoba 11 3/4" rotors. Also a noticeable difference with these. The Magnumforce spindles do use different lower ball joint bolts because of clearance (they come with the spindles), these are flush mounted allen head bolts. You'll want a socket attachment for these, since they use lock nuts and an allen wrench won't get you the torque #'s you need. The spindles also move the caliper location slightly, its pretty tight with the stainless steel lines I have, not sure how it would be on an a-body but long run I want to put some 45* ends off the caliper to clear the lines from the spindle better. I haven't tried it myself, but you can also swap the spindles side for side to put the caliper in the back, but I don't know what additional clearance issues may crop up with that since I haven't done it, although all the aftermarket calipers mount toward the rear...

Here's the spindles and the needed parts for the 11 3/4" rotor upgrade...
IMG_3766copy.jpg


and some before/after of the wheel well...
IMG_3769copy.jpg

IMG_3776copy.jpg


and some shameless photo-whoring :-D

IMG_3821copy.jpg
 
Nice setup 72bluNblu. ARengineering has the brackets to use Wilwood calipers with those Cordoba 11.75" rotors. Where'd you get those rotors from, they look nice 8)
 
will my disc brakes form my 1970 dart fit on the fatman spindles?

I don't think so. I'm pretty sure they also use the later '73 and up type spindle, you'd have to get later model rotors to make it work. The rest of the set up should be fine though.

Nice setup 72bluNblu. ARengineering has the brackets to use Wilwood calipers with those Cordoba 11.75" rotors. Where'd you get those rotors from, they look nice

Yeah, I've seen the brackets for the Wilwoods. Its a nice thought, but I'm not sure I want to go that route, at least not at the moment. I bought the rotors off of eBay, the store is called RotorPros. $120 plus shipping. They're good looking rotors and shipping was pretty quick. I know a few other folks have bought from them and were pretty happy as well. They also sell rotors for A-body's with the 4" bolt pattern as well as rotors for the 70-72 e-body's with a 4.5" pattern. They don't seem to have anything other than the 11.75's for the '73-up spindles, but then again if you need both rotors you might as well try to find the larger caliper brackets and upgrade anyway. Here's a link to the 11.75's

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1975-1983-Chrysler-Cordoba-Mopar-11-75-Drilled-Rotors_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1742Q2em153Q2el1262QQcategoryZ33564QQihZ012QQitemZ220328885601#ht_7800wt_856
 
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