Are all torsion bars created equal?

[priderocks]

After reading your posts about improving the handling of my challenger, I think I have decided on what would be a good combo for me. And thanks for taking the time to give me your suggestions.

The first thing I'm going to do is replace my stock torsion bars with .960 or 1 inch. So, my question is all are torsion bars created equal? In other words, are they all made from radioactive scrap iron from obsolete Chinese nuclear reactors, or are some better quality than others? Seems I've heard to stay away from Mopar bars, but that may have been something sles.

[HP2]

There are not any big differences in materials used for torsion bars that I have heard about and there are only a few places making them for classic mopars. I've not heard of any quality issues about mopar bars, but they are all made with the same hex offset which means you have to install them differently than normal when going to sizes 1" and bigger. Some others are advertising a zero offset hex ends, which may save the installation issue.

I'm bummed Halibrand quit making bars and anchors as they offered sizes and sockets up to 1.5". Certainly not a size you would ever want to consider for the street, but a necessity for some competition applications.

[brads70]

I'm " in the market" too. I got a feeling I'll be spending quite a bit of cash here! Lots of interesting goodies!!
http://www.firmfeel.com/e.htm

[Chryco Psycho]

Firm Feel has good stuff
 I have had no issue with the Mopar bars , they are not made in Mexico like the rear leafs are

[72bluNblu]

Just FYI on the firm feel bars- They are not zero indexed, so if you want to go low with big bars you'll have to re-index the  t-bar sockets. I have 1.12" bars in mine, and it sits about stock for the front ride height with no tension on the adjustors, just screwed in enough to seat the ends of the adjustors in the cup on the adjustor arm...

[Pale Rider]

..., but they are all made with the same hex offset which means you have to install them differently than normal when going to sizes 1" and bigger. Some others are advertising a zero offset hex ends, which may save the installation issue. ...

Reviving an old topic.
I've installed 0.96 T bars instead of the 0.88 I had. Since then my car wants to go to the right. Been to the wheel aligner twice; caster, camber and toe-in are ok.
The adjuster bolt of my right LCA is much less 'screwed in' (is that proper English?) than the left one to make the car level correct.
You mention an 'installation issue'. Is that only for 1" and up or also for this 0.96?
And what is this issue?
Getting tired of convincing my car to drive straight by giving a little pressure to the left on my steering wheel. 

[72cudamaan]

Are you sure its in the steering and not a misadjusted front brake(if drums), or sticking caliper? Just a thought.

[72bluNblu]

This is an alignment/steering deal, the torsion bar should have no effect on it. Even if the ride height was different side to side it still shouldn't pull if the alignment is right. By "ok", what specs do you mean exactly? Most alignment shops give a little more caster on the right side to correct for road crowning. For example, on my car my caster is set at 3.5* on the left and 4.1* on the right. So, on flat ground, the car will pull slightly left. But on most roads, it drives straight. If your caster is the same side to side, on most public roads it would "pull" to the right.

[Pale Rider]

The spex of the alignment after the Tbar swap where made the same as it was before the swap:
Caster left 2.3, right 2.3 (couldn't get much more caster with a camber of appr -0.3)
Went yesterday to the alignment shop again (monday as well to another one), and made the caster at the right side 2.9 to compensate for that pulling to the right, even then it pulls to the right heavily.
This is not a wheel alignment issue.
When installing the rightside T bar I had to remove strut rod, swaybar and spindle connections and force the LCA down to make it slide in. Didn't have to do that on the left side.
So I guess there is something wrong now on that side. Gonna disassemble the whole stuff again on both sides and try to analyze why there is/was a difficulty with one side and not with the other and start the install process all over again. A hell of a job in my garage; spare space on both sides of about 10" 
I was just wondering what HP2 meant with this 'installation issue'. It might help me with my 2nd attempt.

[Chryco Psycho]

I would not pull it all apart again
 check the right bar for an even # on the end of the bar , right side should always have an even part # secondly the second bar is always harder to install if the sway bar is attached .
 something else is the problem causing the pull , it could be as simple as the valve on the top of the steering box not being properly centered causing the power assist to constantly make the steering want to turn right ,where the return hose attaches to the body of the steering box there are 2 1/2 bolts holding the housing in place , the housing can be slid up or down very slightly to neutralize the effect of the power steering & keep it centered , try that first .
 I doubt you have a bent or incorrctly installed parts if the alignment is coming in properly

[Aussie Challenger]

     As Chryco said but also some people when setting the toe in don't centralise the steering box before adjusting so the steering wanders in the direction whether it be right or left.   

[72rtchallenger]

you have to be careful these days on who does the alinement,,when i took my car in i was told i had the wrong tierod ends as he couldnt adjust like some newer models,,they actually thought i had the wrong tierod sleeves,,morons didnt know the sleeves were factory it just took him longer to set  right  your torsion bars shouldnt cause a problem of pulling to that degree,,but what the hell, i have been wrong before,,check your rims and tires maybe possible 

[72bluNblu]

This is not a wheel alignment issue.

Then its not a torsion bar issue either. The torsion bars, even installed backwards, can not cause the car to pull to one side by themselves. The ride height would be incorrect because of the backwards indexing, which could cause problems getting the alignment right, and indirectly cause the car to pull because of the alignment, but if the alignment is right the torsion bars can not be your problem even indirectly.

I agree with CP and the others, with the information you've given now it sounds like you probably un-centered the steering box when your removed the steering linkage off the spindle.

[HP2]

Roland,

what I'm refering to with bigger sized torsion bars is that the bigger the bar, the closer to ride height you have to install them at. 1" bigger t-bars put so much load into the suspension that they do not require the pre-load on them that smaller bars do. With a 1.22 bar, you need to install them as close to the correct ride height as possible to get the nose down low enough to maintain a low ride height.

With a .96 bar, this is not an issue. I've put several sets of .96 in cars and never had one that caused any odd height adjustment issues. Granted, you do not need to screw them in as far as the old .88 bars, but they still need a little bit of twist to them.

So, the assumption here is that you did not have any wandering issues previous to the install. Then the bars were replaced. Were only the bars replaced, or was other work performed as well?
 
I would wonder of they were installed wrong right to left, like CP asked about. If swapped from side to side, you may need to crank one bar in significantly more to get an even ride height.

[Pale Rider]

Hi HP2,

Before the T bar swap there were no alignment problems; ride height ok, wheel alignment ok, no pulling into a direction.
After the swap a big pulling to the right, even after 2 visits to two different alignment shops (were I've been before longer ago and where they did a good job, no doubt about their qualities).
What worries/puzzles me the most is that to get the right one in, I had to loosen the LCA completely (no connections to strut rod, shock, UCA and sway bar) and push the LCA further down so the LCA socket would align with the T bar end.
On the left side I could just follow the steps from the manual; remove bump, loosen adjuster bolt and slide in.
As a result on the right side there was already a preload on the T bar and on the left one not, so left adjuster bolt is much further up than the right one. And this was not the case with the old T bars. And indeed the left one is less screwed in than it was with the 0.88 T bar.
So hence my plans to start from scratch to see why there is a difference.
What I hope for a little bit, in a twisted way, is that I pushed that LCA too far down, in stead of lifting it up a bit. Theoretically there are 6 postions of the LCA to let the T bar slide in. At least 4 of them are practically not possible, but I wonder if there are maybe 2 and I chose the wrong one, causing this problem. Sounds perhaps stupid, I know, but I just had to find out what's causing this sh*t.
Perhaps there is an old problem with my suspension that is only noticable with bigger bars...