Torsion bar woes

[rallyechall]

After removing the torsion bars form my Challenger, I noticed one was quite bent. I went online to see what prices were like even though I don't need them yet. I found a few places that sell them. I am not building a drag car, or a curvy road racer, but an upgrade to my stock Rallye T-bars would be nice. I would have been OK with stock. I was looking at the Just Suspension website and priced out the bars. They had the "Mopar Pro Touring" torsion bars advertised for $199. These are the 1" bar. I emailed customer service, and within about a half hour time frame, I received a reply to my question. I asked about the term "Pro Touring", as to me it means lowering the car. The reply said that they are in fact indexed to factory Chrysler specs (30 degree) and I would achieve the stock ride height. The reply also mentioned I should order them this week as they are on sale. Feeling comfortable with the response, I checked into the price with shipping. Well, the bare were not $199, as those were for A-bodies. The E-body bars were $169 and free ground shipping. Before I closed my order, I googled Just Suspension Coupons. I came up with a coupon code of "up to" 50% off. Actually it took off about $8.50. I completed my transaction for $161.45, and will receive them in about a week. So far I am happy with the transaction. Hope anyone that uses them had a good experience. If you haven't used them, Perhaps you will in the future. I will comment later on the quality as soon as I receive them. I hope it is as good as their customer service I experienced.

[Gumby]

I'm glad that you had a good experience! Good luck with your purchase.  My personal thoughts, are that I will only deal with a company that is willing to innovate and produce  items that will benefit us all. Instead of just a company that "sells" items, I would support companies that design and produce items specifically for us. Firm Feel is the company that I will deal with. And no one else at this time. I'm not a share holder or investor or paid spokesman or anything else, but it is easy to see that Firm Feel is the company looking out for us, as Mopar members in this hobby. I just ordered their "fast ratio" and steering sector support bearing from them a few hours ago. NO OTHER COMPANY OFFERS THESE OPTIONS. I have a stage 2 steering chuck ,that I haven't installed yet, will be doing so soon. I prefer to support the companies that go the extra mile to support us and offer us the components to make our cars work like they were designed to, and go the extra mile to design components to make them perform better. I would gladly pay extra for this, but THEY DON"T CHARGE EXTRA! 

[Road_Runner]

That's a great price for torsion bars!  Double Bonus, I believe they are made in the U.S.A.  That is the same size bar I'm looking to put on the Roadrunner.  Putting .960 bars on the Barracuda since its a small block.  I'm also looking very seriously at Firmfeel for some of my suspension parts, haven't decided if I'm going with their level III kit or if I'm going to piece together parts like I'm doing on the Cuda.

Later, Jim

[cudazappa]

I currently have the just suspension 1 inch bars on my challenger and have found them to be a pleasant upgrade from stock.  You can definitely feel an improvement over stock without the car feeling rough for passengers.

I also run firm feel stuff and have found their parts to be of first rate quality.  I have their stage 3 steering box and fast ratio pitman and idler.  To me that has been the best improvement as far as handling.  Much more sensitive turn in and the stage 3 does take getting used to at first.  Definitely not for everyone.

I have an addco 1.125 front sway bar and that has helped, too, but needed a rear sway bar to balance the car after increasing the front roll stiffness that much.  Also, I had to make my own mounting brackets and end links because the sway bar didn't work on my factory sway bar car.  So that was a big negative.

Now am running a Hotchkis rear sway bar and the car is really well balanced and a dream to drive with 235/60r15s.  17s and stiff front seats make the car a little rougher.  But the girlfriend butt-o-meter had no complaints.

I would do it all again but I don't think most people would want to re-engineer a front sway bar setup.  It's a great street setup as it is.

Currently have planned PST solid tie rod sleeves, RCD bilsteins (10 miles on the rears installed, no noticeable difference to report) and going with Hotchkis upper control arms to get a much more aggressive front alignment.  That's about it for this year unless I find some decent rear springs at a good price to match my 1.22 torsion bars (car is being gradually setup for serious autocross use)

Also,  I am not 100% brand loyal as I am always looking for the best deal possible for what my next upgrade should be.  Firm Feel and Hotchkis are my two favorites but their prices reflect their product/support.  Both race what they sell.  Firm Feel I believe is more innovative overall, but Hotchkis really stepped out of the box when designing their parts.  I fear that they really won't be putting out more product for our cars other than what they have now.  Currently they have been focused on balancing roll rates (springs and sway bars included in their kits) and shocks tuned to go with those rates.  Firm Feel has a wide variety of those to choose from but they don't have a shock line right now.

[brads70]

I had the Just suspension 1" torsion bars. They were good but I wanted better handling so they are now in CUDA JAS  car.   They were indexed great.