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1968 Satellite suspension improvements.

dave's not here

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Greetings from CT all,

Just looking to gain some handling without giving up too much comfort. Priorities are affordability and durability. The 215 tires are going up to 275/60/15 & 235/60/15. New gas-a-just shocks all four corners. Sway bars? Bushing kits? Adjustments to settings? The 318/904 combo is @ 300 hp at the crank - so no need for insanity. maybe :) Your thoughts?
Thanks!
 
I think the question depends on the condition of your car and what you want to get out of it.

If your car is in good condition, I would start with a front sway bar. You might decide that’s the only thing you need. I’m curious how the larger wheels would affect things.

On my car (318 cruiser) for example, steering box and front bushings were shot, so those needed to be redone regardless. With those changes along with the front sway bar the handling is %1000 improved.

By the way, I also put in the much discussed and recommended Billstein shocks and was not impressed. I really don’t think they were improvement over my working stockers. I guess I might have a different opinion if I was flogging the car at a racetrack though..
 
Front and rear anti sway bars will significantly improve handling in corners.

I remember Herb Adams of VSE, who used to offer GM F body performance kits (Fire Am, and Cheverra) said... mounting the battery in the trunk, is the equivalent of a 10” engine setback. It will give the car more neutral handling.
 
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Probably the most important thing you can do to improve handling is to upgrade the tires. Spend some time on the TireRack web site and see what tires are highly rated for handling. Unfortunately, it seems all of the best handling (stickiest) street tires only come in the larger diameters. I wound up having to go to 18" wheels on my car to get the tires I wanted in the sizes I wanted. On the bright side, my new wheels and tires were about 10 lbs per corner lighter than my old ones.

As SDCoronet mentions above, what you are trying to accomplish and what the current condition of your car is will both affect what will work best for you. If your suspension is worn, I think getting it rebuilt to new condition could make a big improvement in your handling. After that, I agree that anti-roll (sway) bars are a great start if you don't already have them. New dampers (shocks) are probably also a good idea. It is pretty hard to tell how well dampers are working, so I went with the Bilsteins due to them being tuned for by B-Body and my assumption that the people tuning them know more about the topic than I do, and they have the tools to test them.

If you want to get deeper into the topic of handling, I suggest the following books: Herb Adams' "Chassis Engineering" and Fred Puhn's "How to Make Your Car Handle". Both are good reads on the topic.

A good front end alignment can make quite a difference as well and isn't very expensive. The stock alignment specs from Mopar for these cars were intended for bias ply tires and aren't the best for modern tires. Richard Ehrenberg's article on this can be found at:
https://www.allpar.com/threads/turn...ent-for-performance-on-classic-mopars.237041/
The "Skosh Chart" in the article gives some good values to use for alignment for various driving styles. For my Coronet, I went with the Max Performance Street settings and have been pretty happy, although I may go a bit higher on caster. That is with P245/40R-18 Michelin Pilot Sport 4s tires up front, so your best setup may be different if your tires are a different size.

Have fun with your car, what is it? Cheers!
 
First things first. ALL bushings must be in good condition, anything else done would be meaningless. Alignment : Get as much positive caster possible, .5 neg camber, 1/8 toe-in. Front and rear sway bars are a good addition, I have both. Bilsteins are a waste of money.
 
Thank you all for your guidance! It's a fine line between throwing parts and tuning up. The gas-adjust shocks and four tires on the way. Bushings older but seemingly ok. Sways likely next.

IMG_20211120_120435824.jpg IMG_20211120_120455768.jpg
 
  1. Front and rear hellwig sway bars
  2. Moog 7103 offset upper control arm bushings (installed for increased positive caster -do not follow instructions in box)
  3. Bilstein RCD shocks or even HD part store shocks
  4. All rubber suspension bushings except sway bars
Next step:
  1. 383 .90” or 440/Hemi .92” torsion bars
Next Step:
  1. 1” torsion bars (chushy ride will suffer some)
  2. Bilstein shocks
 
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Lots of info, theory and math in the out of print ones. Old but still viable. Andy's adds to them.
 
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