front end knowledge please

[73plymouth440]

trying to get my front end aligned, however the shop i called says that ill need new springs or what have you since it was swapped from a 318 to a 440 so the weight difference could be causing the camber, and the stock components might not adjust enough to make up for this. is this the case in anyone else's knowledge, or should the stock components be fine? (73 barracuda in case that matters) and thanks all in advance  

[burdar]

Your 73 might have come with .89" bars from the factory.  If it did, that's the same size that they put in big block cars. If your car came with smaller bars, you might want to consider upgrading to a larger bar.  That has nothing to do with the alignment though.  If the shop you called isn't familiar with Mopar torsion bar suspensions...call another shop.

The very first thing you do when you align a car with torsion bars is set the ride height.  The actual torsion bar diameter isn't going to effect the rest of the alignment.  There are adjusting bolts in the middle of the lower control arms.  You adjust the ride height by turning those bolts.  Having more weight up front from the 440 will just require you to adjust the bolts more to get the ride height you want.

You might also look into Moog "offset" upper control arm bushings.  Sometimes it's hard to get to the factory alignment specs with all stock components.  The offset bushings will help in that respect.   

[73_Cuda_4_Me]

73's used same torsion bars for ALL V-8 engines in the B and J car lines... so you 'should' be able to adjust just fine per FSM procedures.

1857 774-5 for Standard suspension
1857 778-9 for Heavy Duty Option

That's not saying they haven't 'aged' some over the years...

Most members here would tell you to upgrade to bigger diameter torsion bars for increased handling, though...

When adjusting, make sure you unload torsion bar by jacking front end up before cranking on adjusting bolt - they strip easily and can go flying!

Also loosen strut nuts when adjusting, so you don't preload/distort strut bushings while suspension unloaded. Tighten after car is lowered back down.

[burdar]

Lower control arm pivot-to-K member nuts need to be loose.  Once ride height is set, then tighten nuts.  This way, the control arm bushing is in a neutral position at rest.

[73_Cuda_4_Me]

That's the one I was thinking of... Sorry! This guy.... 

[72bluNblu]

And a friendly reminder, if you have radial tires you should NOT be using the factory alignment specs.

The factory alignment specs are for bias ply tires, and call for positive camber and negative caster. If you're running radial tires, this will result in crappy handling. Unfortunately, most shops with a modern rack and a computer will only use the alignment specs that are in the computer, which are the factory specs. And really unfortunate, a lot of the techs won't even understand that they shouldn't use those specs on your car if you have radial tires.

If you are running radial tires, you should be setting negative camber and positive caster. For a street driver you should be looking at something like -.25* to -.5* camber, +3 to +4* caster (or more if you can get it, but you probably won't be able to), and 1/16" to 1/8" toe in.

If your have radial tires and the shop will only use the factory alignment specs, find a different shop.

[Chryco Psycho]

I would find a different shop , most have no clue hw to set up a Mopar or what to set to anyway
 a bigger T bar will help the handling though

[TelisSE440]

Please tell us how it went. Just a question, did they max out the TB bolts? On a sidenote, i remembered this...

http://www.cuda-challenger.com/cc/index.php?topic=85669.0

[73plymouth440]

im sorry all for the time lapse. in the service and being on a ship means I cant get online whenever I want to. but I brought it to the shop, (after more research on this fine site, and a trusted friend and mopar fan) learned a bit and brought it there. had to replace the front tires because they were showing steel at that point  but the shop wouldn't tough the alignment or camber or anything else. after the new tires were installed they basically pointed me up the road to a private garage whos owner builds classics (mostly chevys from what I can see) and saying they cant mess with it because the torsion bar is for a small block only, and the oil pan is about rubbing a thin bar that runs underneath it (im clearly no expert and cant remember what its called, please forgive my ignorance) but because of all that they wouldn't straighten out my tires and im currently wearing down my tires way faster than needed.

[HP2]

Sounds like they are feeding you fertilizer because they don't want to work on your car. They have now made two different and unrelated reasons for not working on your car. Move on and don't waste anymore time on them.

The small block bars are not an issue with a big block. Way back in the day, drag racers would put  six cylinder torsion bars under a big  block to assist with weight transfer, so that's total bunk that small block bars are a problem. However, for spirited street driving, you certainly could stand to step up the rate to a .96 or 1.0 bar. The smallish .89 bars you have aren't great for street driving and  you will risk bottoming the front end over dips, but you can use them.

The bar rubbing on the oil pan is the center link. Yes that should be fixed. There are two ways to do so, lift the engine by putting a spacer in between the engine mount and isolater mount or by dropping the location of the link via steering box spacers and idler repositioning. Neither are particularly easy to do.

For a stop gap improvement, you can correct the camber and toe of your ride to stop tearing up tires. If you are interested in doing that, lets us know. Given your knowledge level, it will take a bit of explaining, but you can do it with  basic hand tools, a tape measure, and your smart phone.

[73plymouth440]

Thanks HP2. I have been thinking about tackling it myself, at least as a temporary fix. So I've readimg online  articles  and threads here to find the simplest way to do so. Though any second third and fourth opinion and knowledge is always good in my mind. More info is always better to work with.  Also just the put a band-aid  on my ego , while my knowledge of cars and automotive maintenence is still very low due to lack of experience, don't think I'm not good with a wrench. I am a mechanic by trade, just not on cars  But I know i still have much to learn.