Darthomas
Ashamed to be seen in foreign cars
! Factory torsion bars have a spiral grain to the metal internally and cannot swap sides.
Am I hearing that aftermarket bars do not have an internal spiral grain, and CAN be swapped sides?
Made 11 passes and the pass side front is drooping
- Thread starter 1040Dart
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Am I hearing that aftermarket bars do not have an internal spiral grain, and CAN be swapped sides?
340duster
Well-Known Member
It was a few years ago, but I am quite sure the MP circle track bars I bought had no left and right. They had the same number stamped in them (again as I remember). The oem ones have different numbers.
Maybe the reason the factory marked them was they were pre-stressed in one direction by the spring manufacturer prior to installing in the car - hence the spiral grain structure. Can you imagine the issue if a new car front end started dropping an inch or two after the first week of driving.
We tracked and adjusted ride height on the circle track car before each race when we did the set-up. So you could see the change. It settled out and reached a point where it wouldn't change after a few races. We actually mixed the bars up left to right after one front end rebuild and the same thing occurred with the drop of ride height.
The other thing we did to the bars was turn them down in a lathe to get a softer spring rate. Note the steel was a mixture of hard and soft and was a bit of a nightmare for my machinist friend. We polished the finished surface so there were no stress risers for cracks to start. After that the springs needed to take a set again. So I have lived this.
Darthomas
Ashamed to be seen in foreign cars
Learned something today!
I think I've even seen in a 66 or 71 shop manual a warning not swap sides, unless my memory has made something up.
The combination of hard and soft metal makes sense if there isn't a spiral tempered into them.
1040Dart
Member
Great idea on painting reference marks on the parts, will do before I race again in June. I have never witnessed the headers glowing red, either on the dyno or at the track. At that heat I would anticipate melting the protective covering on the bar?
1040Dart
Member
I agree that they need to take a set. This happened on the first series of races we did with these bars when new. I was very careful to get the bars on the correct sides via the numbers stamped on the end, double checked as I thought that might have been the problem. I will replace the adjusters first as the most cost effective option. I would rather go to coilovers then drop another $380 on a new set of bars. btw this is strickly a drag car
1040Dart
Member
Thanks to all for the great feedback on this topic!
NC Engine Builder
Grumpy Old Man
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You dont need to spend much of anything on another set of bars. You just need to pick up a set of used slant six bars and be done. Mopar performance has outsourced almost 100% of there parts, and they have used differant vendors for torsion bars. Some have been failure prone. If there are no problems with the anchors, then swap bars and call it a day. been there, done that
TrailBeast
AKA Mopars4us on Youtube
That's what I was going to mention because of the "they are brand new bars" statement.
No way in HELL the headers are making that torsion bar soft enough to give in and droop. No way, no how, ain't happenin. You'd have to heat that thing till it was bright reddish orange before that would happen. Just taint gonna happen from a hot surface alone. It would have to be a concentrated HOT flame from a torch....and it would take several minutes at that. So you can throw that ridiculousness out the window.
It's either one of two things. Either SOMETHIN is moving that shouldn't like a torsion bar anchor, or an adjuster bolt, OR the torsion bar itself is bad and perhaps was not tempered right to begin with, so it is slowly losing its spring. Not really dificult to eliminate the torsion bar anchor and the adjuster bolt. You can even mark those too, when you mark the bar itself.
It's either one of two things. Either SOMETHIN is moving that shouldn't like a torsion bar anchor, or an adjuster bolt, OR the torsion bar itself is bad and perhaps was not tempered right to begin with, so it is slowly losing its spring. Not really dificult to eliminate the torsion bar anchor and the adjuster bolt. You can even mark those too, when you mark the bar itself.
Marcohotrod
Well-Known Member
if the headers are coated they will not affect the bars in a million years, uncoated maybe thousands of years. U do not want to swap used bars from side to side cuz they are twisted in different directions, same as axles, like bending a paper clip 1 way then the other. mark stuff with paint and see what is moving
The headers would be droolin all over the ground in a pile of orange goo before they'd EVER get the bars even close to turning dark red.
1040Dart
Member
Yes those were replaced when I did the build.
1040Dart
Member
Interesting you would say slant six bars. I bought a set of mp 6 bars new, installed them and it was like there were no bars in there at all, adjusters almost all the way up to get the pan off the floor. Maybe you have something with the outsourcing of the bars and inconsistent quality.
momoparman
MOISMYHOME
X2 on the torsion bar adjusting block/bolt. I have had two go bad on me and it does just what you say yours did. Droop, adjust, drive a little, droop.
The threads can appear to look OK when in reality they have lost material and thus holding power. The last one to go bad stripped all the way out after I had adjusted and tested, and drooped, and adjusted it a couple times. When it happened it was loud and I thought the t bar snapped. Dropped to the bump stop on the passenger side. Thankfully it was sitting in my driveway when it happened.
The threads can appear to look OK when in reality they have lost material and thus holding power. The last one to go bad stripped all the way out after I had adjusted and tested, and drooped, and adjusted it a couple times. When it happened it was loud and I thought the t bar snapped. Dropped to the bump stop on the passenger side. Thankfully it was sitting in my driveway when it happened.
1040Dart
Member
Scary stuff, I have ordered 2 new adjusters.
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