Tryin to glide

[71drtswnger]

I got a 71 dart with the ol' slanty and i'm lookin to make her glide down the road but hold a corner like it's straight (after uping it's power to 300-400 hp of course) and i'm just look for suggestions on parts to get the best ride to performance ratio.

 

[junkyardhero]

i'll start: what's your budget?

 

[67Dart273]

First thing to do is write out a plan so you don't have to re-do later, something you are going to do now. AKA slants are not gonna have decent brakes, if you want more power. So decide what you want to do. Does it have disc? Doubtful. If not figure out the route you want to take, AKA upgrade to the big bolt pattern, and so on.

You can do really well with stock like components. The basics are you want to rebuild the front suspension so everything is tight, and check the steering box and replace/ fix it if necessary. Look around and ask here, because some brands, including Moog, may not any longer be the best. Unless you know the history of the car and a recent rebuild/ upgrade, I would replace EVERYTHING. All rubber bushings, the lower arm pivots, ball joints and tie rod ends. Take a GOOD look at the balls in the idler arm and pitman. Take a GOOD look at the steering column coupler.

Buy some decent wheels and tires. Here again you want to do this AFTER you've improved the brakes, because you may have changed the bolt pattern. Buy some decent shocks. Buy either an OEM or aftermarket front anti sway bar. THAT ABOVE ALL ELSE really helped my "was factory" 273 67 Dart. Look around for some stiffer T bars. Even 318 stock V8 bars would likely be better. MEASURE them AKA calipers. Or, take an end wrench and measure yours so you know what you started with.

Rear springs. I did pretty well with mine, "lucky." I just took apart some A body leafs, took mine apart, and made new packs using the longest leafs from the two packs. I think I added either 1 or 2 at the bottom more than I had. I could not believe it came out just right.

Don't forget to examine/ replace the rear spring bushings AND DO NOT USE extended shackles.

 

[71drtswnger]

i'll start: what's your budget?

I don't have one yet but I'm trying to look at a mid range budget.

 

[junkyardhero]

define mid-range

basically, the whole thing hinges on shocks. that's the difference between something that handles well and rides nice. and good shocks start at $500

 

[71drtswnger]

First thing to do is write out a plan so you don't have to re-do later, something you are going to do now. AKA slants are not gonna have decent brakes, if you want more power. So decide what you want to do. Does it have disc? Doubtful. If not figure out the route you want to take, AKA upgrade to the big bolt pattern, and so on.

You can do really well with stock like components. The basics are you want to rebuild the front suspension so everything is tight, and check the steering box and replace/ fix it if necessary. Look around and ask here, because some brands, including Moog, may not any longer be the best. Unless you know the history of the car and a recent rebuild/ upgrade, I would replace EVERYTHING. All rubber bushings, the lower arm pivots, ball joints and tie rod ends. Take a GOOD look at the balls in the idler arm and pitman. Take a GOOD look at the steering column coupler.

Buy some decent wheels and tires. Here again you want to do this AFTER you've improved the brakes, because you may have changed the bolt pattern. Buy some decent shocks. Buy either an OEM or aftermarket front anti sway bar. THAT ABOVE ALL ELSE really helped my "was factory" 273 67 Dart. Look around for some stiffer T bars. Even 318 stock V8 bars would likely be better. MEASURE them AKA calipers. Or, take an end wrench and measure yours so you know what you started with.

Rear springs. I did pretty well with mine, "lucky." I just took apart some A body leafs, took mine apart, and made new packs using the longest leafs from the two packs. I think I added either 1 or 2 at the bottom more than I had. I could not believe it came out just right.

Don't forget to examine/ replace the rear spring bushings AND DO NOT USE extended shackles.

I've already planned on upgrading to a 73 style front disc set up. And I've already replaced the whole power steering system with borgenson.

With the suspension I replaced everything I could do comfortably with a floor jack about 5 years ago when I bought the car the only thing left is the control arms, front spindles, cross bar, strut rods, rear leafs (they are on the list cause they are flat and starting to bow up) and t-bars.

As for wheels and all that, is there a good axle shaft to convert a small pattern rear to a big pattern or is it a full replacement. Also what would be a good aftermarket sway bar because I'm thinking replacing everything with QA1 but I don't know if there is something better for my application. And good to know about the 318 t-bars I thought the slant and the 318 shared t-bars.

As for the rear springs the are done for and need replaced. I've thought of replacing the rear suspension with air ride because it shouldn't mess with my front suspension geometry but I can't find any good systems and I'm not sure it'll be a worth upgrade compared to leafs

 

[71drtswnger]

define mid-range

basically, the whole thing hinges on shocks. that's the difference between something that handles well and rides nice. and good shocks start at $500

mid range to me is $500-1000 per part.

 

[junkyardhero]

forget factory t-bars and skip ahead to aftermarket. the general consensus these days is 1.03 bars because that's what's widely available, but anything from a .920 on up will do nicely. bilistein shocks on all 4 corners. out back, HD springs (espo is a good choice) in something around 120#

swaybar- hellwig. get the biggest one and call it done. you may not need a rear bar, so wait on that.

you're on the right track with BBP up front. with the 11" (10.95) rotor you can still run 14" wheels, but if you want the big brakes you'll need to go to 15's, which consequently gets you better-ish selection of tires. unless you want to skip ahead to 17's if that's your jam.

on the front end: you'll need to upgrade your upper control arms to big ball joint for the BBP swap. you can go with aftermarket tubular control arms, repop control arms, OE control arms and rebuild them, or reuse your control arms with an adapter sleeve and rebuild them. the name of the game here is quality ball joints and making sure you have positive caster-- aftermarket tubular arms have it built in, factory arms get rebuilt with moog K7103 offset bushings. one word though, you never know what you're getting quality wise in aftermarket arms with the bushings and ball joints.

factory lower control arms are more than adequate for the application. the topic of bushings was just recently fought to a bloody pointless draw. for your particular application i'd suggest staying with OEM rubber-- use a quality piece like proforged, mevotech or delco gold. if you want to use poly (or delrin) you *should* also employ adjustable sturut rods.

i'll guess that you've got a 7.25 axle out back. while you can get axles made to BBP, if your end goal is that 300~400hp the 7.25 is not going to stand up to that very long and you'd be better off saving that dough and applying it toward a new, stronger axle.