The Dodge Challenger Message Board

Made this video at a Chrysler meeting in Holland last year.
Was wondering if I had to save some money for a new one.
I'll keep most of that money in my pocket, and with the rest I'm gonna buy some upgrades like front and rear Wilwood disks, 17" Magnum rims, 0.96 torsion bars, poly bushings and some other power steering (haven't figured out yet which one).

Size matters? Do you mean the hight of the rims? (Sorry if it is a stupid question.. )

It refers to the video.
Read the comments of other YouTubers and you'll understand.

christer wrote:Size matters? Do you mean the hight of the rims? (Sorry if it is a stupid question.. )

Go for 1" torsion bars.

I like you're upgrade plans Roland. Drew should view it. The 'Blackness' will make him 'crazy'.LOL

I like the old one the best. It looks better from any angle. We have had some disputes regarding if chrome looks OK or not. I think that chorme parts looks very good on an older car, keep it a bit modest though.

Well, since it is my own topic I can (ab)use it for some suspension talk, although I know there is a better place for it

I did a lot (and I mean a lot) of reading on this forum and on that forum and came to this setup:
First the already upgraded parts:
- US Car tool subframe connectors
- 1.12 front and 0.88 rear sway bar
- KYB Gas-a-Just shocks
- 6 leafs leaf springs

Upgrades:
- American Racing AR - 500 17" rims (front: 17x7 ET 0 BS 4, rear: 17x9,5 ET 8 BS 5,5)
- Falken FK-452 tires (front: 235/45-17, rear: 275/40-17)
- poly bushings (still looking for a set with poly LCA bushings, but don't know if they exist?)
- 0.96 torsion bars (current 0.88..)(1.00 too heavy for my setup?)
- Wilwood 12.19 disks (front and rear)
- firmer power steering (Firmfeel stage III ?)

Any comments, suggestions, corrections are welcome.
Brakes, rims and tires are already ordered, so that's beyond the point of no return.

Remind me what engine you have up front?

A 0.96 inch bar will give you a wheel rate of just over 170lbs/in. Probably enough if you have a small block.

When I did my car I spent a lot of time first learning how to calculate wheel suspension rates, and also what rates at each end of my car I would need for a good balance given the weight bias. I ended up about 28% stiffer than stock 440 on my car all around. It just understeers slightly with a neutral or light throttle position but is on the edge of oversteer when feeding in the power (as you should when cornering hard).

Every car is different though.

dave-r wrote:Remind me what engine you have up front?

A 1" bar will give you a wheel rate of 200 lbs/in. With that big front sway bar it will handle well. I personally think a 0.88 bar is too much on the rear. You might better off with stiffer leaf springs and a 0.75" sway bar.

The thing is that the spring weights have to be worked out for the springs as well as the sway bars. The effect of these has to be added together to give you a total spring weight for each wheel.

If you go too stiff on the rear it will oversteer. The power from a little throttle will add oversteer anyway so you could end up with a car that spins around every time you try to power around a corner.

But if the rear is not stiff enough you will have understeer and it will try to go straight rather than turn on a corner.

It is EASY to just add bits to a car. Not so easy to add the right bits and get the same result as someone else. Every car is different. The percentage of front roll couple has to reflect the percentage of front weight bias.

Till now I only saw a 1.00 torsion bar at Firmfeel's.
Any other vendors out there?

I think mine came from PST (Performance Suspension Technology)

They sell 1.03 and 1.08
Pretty expensive compared to Firmfeel ($389 vs. $285)

Did mine years ago. Things must have changed a bit since.

I make the 1.03 about 230 lbs/in at the wheel and the 1.08 about 275lbs/in.

When you think that a fully equipped and wet 440 can weigh 800lbs on its own then you understand why you need strong springs.

That's about 362kg, heavy sh*t indeed
Thanks for all the info Dave!