What is the best Aftermarket Suspension System for my 71 572 Hemi Cuda Restomod

[josh7965]

I have the xv ones that are laser cut for the floor. But the don't fit that great so I was thinking about just making my own out of some 1.75 .120 wall Dom. I also made my own radiator support out of 2" square tubing.

[Chryco Psycho]

EMCD check that the diff is exactly square in the car , measure to a fixed point forward on each side but also do an X measurement if the rear diff is steering the car it will never go straight .
 I installed a lot of connectors in Mopars , I typically just use 1" x 2" x .125 wall tubing , I put a cut in the tube at the front of the rear foot well [lowest point in the floor] bend the tube to the contour of the floor pan & weld up the cut & then weld the connector to the angled  front of the  rear subframe & the rear of the torsion bar crossmember beside the T bar socket , cheap & easy & barely visable at all .

[1 Wild R/T]

What I find interesting is I've never seen a RMS Alterkation user come into one of these threads & claim the issues with geometry don't exist,  Till I worked on the first car I drove with the RMS system I had little in the way of an opinion but know I've driven three & they all did the same thing, Ok going down the road but glaring issues at low speed..... The OE stuff is basically sound & with minor changes does quite well...

The big issue with OE is the steering box, over assisted & often sloppy....  Firm Feel does a good job of improving the problem but the OE box can only be tweaked so much...  Borgeson has offered a couple boxes which potentially are a huge improvement but they seem to miss the boat on getting the clocking of the steering gear to the pitman arm which creates lots of issues  which people find ways to compensate for either by shimming the box mount or tweaking the tierods...  Either way isn't the right fix, the right fix it for Burgeon to pay attention to the details.. If Chrysler could get it right with the technology available in the 60's Borgeson should be able to get it right in 2016....

It would be nice if there were a properly designed Rack & Pinion option to use the OE suspension but the only kit close to that is Unisteer & it's got worse geometry than RMS & the turning radius of a greyhound bus...

IMO with whats available today I'd use Hotchkis for suspension, Firm Feel for a stage three steering box, & probably US Car Tool for the stiffening kit....

[Chryco Psycho]

 

 We have some very talented people here & I am Sure we could design a proper front steer rack system using the original K frame & have improved or at least similar turning radius  with proper Ackerman , the biggest missing part is the lower ball joint / tierod arm , the factory spindle will work with the ball joint reversed just need a mounting system to the K frame & rack wide enough & with enough travel to steer properly .

On a weird note I have always wanted to build a piece of crap like a Neon using a front steer rack in the rear so when you turn the wheel left it goes right just to mess with people   , the laughs would be endless if we had test drive in a parking lot 

[EMCD]

EMCD check that the diff is exactly square in the car , measure to a fixed point forward on each side but also do an X measurement if the rear diff is steering the car it will never go straight .
 I installed a lot of connectors in Mopars , I typically just use 1" x 2" x .125 wall tubing , I put a cut in the tube at the front of the rear foot well [lowest point in the floor] bend the tube to the contour of the floor pan & weld up the cut & then weld the connector to the angled  front of the  rear subframe & the rear of the torsion bar crossmember beside the T bar socket , cheap & easy & barely visable at all .

Will do. I had the complete rear end rebuilt. I don't believe the unit was removed, just the guts. The car has never been in an accident. could it have been misaligned from the factory?

[Chryco Psycho]

anything is possible especially if it was built before or after a long weekend !!
 could be a bent housing too , I have seem that before

[brads70]

 We have some very talented people here & I am Sure we could design a proper front steer rack system using the original K frame & have improved or at least similar turning radius  with proper Ackerman , the biggest missing part is the lower ball joint / tierod arm , the factory spindle will work with the ball joint reversed just need a mounting system to the K frame & rack wide enough & with enough travel to steer

Im working on it . Swaping the lower ball joints/steering arms won't work

[Chryco Psycho]

Im working on it . Swaping the lower ball joints/steering arms won't work

Works just fine backing up LOL

[CUDA JAS]

Will do. I had the complete rear end rebuilt. I don't believe the unit was removed, just the guts. The car has never been in an accident. could it have been misaligned from the factory?

Have you adjusted the cross shaft on the steering box?

Jason

[EMCD]

I have not. I just dropped the box in, made sure everything was inline and tight and went on my way. The response is Better but not great.

[BobBejeski]

IMO with whats available today I'd use Hotchkis for suspension, Firm Feel for a stage three steering box, & probably US Car Tool for the stiffening kit....
[/quote]

  Thanks for the opinion....... its seems like I may be leaning that way as well,  as no one seems there to defend the AlterKation points.   I know there are normally two sides on these things but its crickets from happy AlterKation users so far.....

[CUDA JAS]

I have not. I just dropped the box in, made sure everything was inline and tight and went on my way. The response is Better but not great.

I suggest trying that...start slow, 1/4 to 1/2 turn at a time and see if it gets better.  If it does great...if not, I suggest backing off the adjustment and seeing if that helps.

Last year, I was struggling with the same condition, very loose steering, car wondered down the road and required lots of steering when input to stay straight.  Turn out I likely had the cross shaft adjustment to tight. 

I rebuilt the steering box myself this past winter...had the same issue with the rebuilt box.  I have been slowly tightening the cross shaft adjustment.  The car no longer wanders and the steering is fairly tight.

Apologies to the OP...

Jason

[jordan]

My 71 cuda has a mixture of XV motorsport level 1 kit, and Hotchkis parts that make up almost everything for the front and rear suspension and steering.  I have the XV subframe connectors, radiator support, and US Cartool shock tower to firewall bracing.  I have a FirmFeel steering box.  I topped it all off with 18"wheels, and adjustable Afco shocks.  I love my hydroboost brake system going to PBR calipers with 12.5" rotors. 
 
     Overall, the car drives great.  Goes down the road comfortable.  Not too stiff.  I can feel the road. It really does feel like a modern car ride. The car is not very flexible and I can tell the suspension is doing its job of keeping the wheels on the ground.  Chassis stiffening and sound deadner will prevent creaks and rattles. Steering feel is good during transitioning, with vague feed back from the tires to the steering wheel when at the limit of traction.   
The car seems to have understeer, and that can be better tuned with the correct sway bars.  Hotchkis rear bar is adjustable.  The steering feed back is good when applying pressure on the wheel, but can still be vague when going straight, requiring a lot of corrections.  There is some small amount of play in the steering.  Any play it too much play in my opinion. The car seems to fall into sweeping corners and keeps going until I have to correct the steering to hold the line.  To summarize, the steering is better than stock, but still requires frequent inputs to keep the car going straight, and requires corrections to have smooth corners.  The one thing to make my car be much closer to perfect, would be precision steering feedback.  I don't think we will ever get that with 45 year old technology.  I may work on tightening my screw too as pointed out in this thread. 

[1 Wild R/T]

Yup. 1/4 turn at most, I,d suggest 1/8 turn increments... If you get it to tight the car will not want to go straight... With what you describe it's close but some minor adjusting will help quite a bit....

[EMCD]

Do you have picture of the cross shaft on the steering box?