I'd love to but can think of about 4000 reasons, and all of them involve pictures of Founding Fathers like George Washington and Ben Franklin.
I've priced it out, and even if you buy a brand new flaming river steering box, new torsion bars, tubular upper control arms, your total investment in a Torsion Bar Suspension is about 1/3 to 1/2 the cost of Reilly's Alter-K-Tion.
I'm not trying to badmouth the Alter-K, it is a great setup that I wish I could afford, but can't.
The best part is that you can have power rack and pinion steering with the Alter-K.
But even if you buy the Alter-K you still have to decide on a spring rate.
Calculating the correct spring rate depends greatly on your front end weight. For example, my build will consist of a 6.1 Hemi running no accessories. No power steering, no power brakes, no A/C. I also plan on moving my battery to the trunk. All of this will remove 150 LBS to 200 LBS off the front end compared to a fully dressed LA motor.
Further, I plan to do quite a bit of chassis stiffening, a stiffer chassis allows you to run a slightly softer spring, as the spring will compress rather than the chasis flexing.
As a result I can run a smaller diameter torsion bar and get the same results.
Now comes the real problem, all of these companies list their diameters and not the actual spring rate. Depending upon the material the bar is made from it can greatly affect the actual wheel rate. Thus, without the wheel rate you cannot effectively compare the torsion bars from one supplier with another.
The only company that publishes wheel rate is Firm Feel.
I'll probably go with Firm Feel's bars, the 1.00" (195 WR). Since the original 340 bars were .870 diameter, the effective wheel rate will be nearly double.
This should give me firm ride and good handling.
Regards,
Joe Dokes
