Exotic suspension or stock?

[optiview]

I am now totally confused about which way to go and could use some advice. I am on a budget that will allow me to just barely build a protour with either xv motorsports, hotchkis, controlfreak, Alterkation or just plain jane upgrade stock suspension.
My mechanic is all about XV, He thinks it is the best but I have read some old posts that do not favor them as worth the cost or reliable. It seems nothing has been posted in a few years pro or con. So with a potential 8-10k to spend on the suspension, is it worth upgrading at that cost? I want a very streetable daily driver but not if cost is going to improve handling minimally.

Have any of you seen or driven any of the exotics? Do they handle that much better? Your advice is welcome.

 

[Jim Bob The Dancing Bear]

My car handles much better with a Hotchkis TVS. Check out Pro-Touring Mopar and you will see everything from home built cars to XV stuff. XV isn't as popular becuase of cost, and the service has less than favorable results. I have yet to hear anyone complain about the product once everything was dealt with though.

Personally I would do Firm Feel or Hotchkis. My car is a daily driver (1K or so miles a month) and is a **** ton of fun.

 

[5.7 hemi]

Go with the Altekation, no one has any complaints about that set up and Bill is a real pleasant guy to talk, and will answer all your ?'s. Xv is just outta of their minds with the price they want for their setup, great setup, but as you have read, there are complaints about it. Hotchkis just has parts for a factory style set up, nothing exotic about it and will be cheaper for the pocket book, gives a real nice ride/handling. Controlfreak is good, but not too many people use it, gotta ask yourself why is that??

Bottom line is this, what do you want, factory style, or exotic? If it was me, Alterkation all the way hands down, but that my opinion and I'll help ya spend your money, lol!!

 

[optiview]

The XV is only about 1k more than the Alterkations. So with price being almost equal, Maybe alterkations is the way to go because of the reputation.

 

[Powerflite]

Here is one more opinion to mix in the fray. Stick with the stock suspension. The most important components to handling are:

1. Tires -use a short sidewall tire like 45 or 50 series
2. Wheels - use lightweight alloy wheels that are stiff enough to take the side loads.
3. Sway bars
4. Shocks, springs

In other words, the most significant components to impact your handling have nothing to do with the exotic suspension upgrades. Personally, I use offset bushings in the upper control arm to give me more caster & stability, use KYB shocks, a little stiffer t-bars, and large hollow sway bars from Hellwig. This makes my car handle very well on the street. If I were to use 50 series tires, it would handle a lot better. Will it outhandle a new corvette? Of course not, but it still wouldn't even if you throw all of that money at it. Stock suspension components are probably easier to maintain on a daily driver than exotic stuff as well.

If you plan to use 60 series tires on rally wheels, don't even bother with exotic stuff, because the weak link will be your wheels and tires and you won't feel much difference.

 

[Jim Bob The Dancing Bear]

Dan Wiseman in a 69 RoadRunner is out doing new cars with stock style suspension. He is using a Hotchkis TVS as his main suspension components. Last I heard Firm Feel torsion bars, 18's, wilwood brakes, 5 speed and mild big block.

 

[dangina]

i'm using a mixture of hotchkis, firm feel, helwig, bilstein, hypercoils ect. trying to keep the "stock suspension" I priced it all out - for the price of the alterkation setup (front only) I could go with all aftermarket components and afford to do both front and rear - so i went this route. If price was no object - i'd go alterkation over XV hands down. Alterkation bolted into my buddys dart perfectly, no flaws. Alterkation has had no breaks or bad reviews since it came out. On the other hand XV has put out some mixed (good/bad) products, with terrible customer service.

 

[shag766]

i use hotchkis on another build and i was quite impressed. the other build was a coil over though. quality stuff.

 

[black bitch]

dont touch your car!i spent alot on sus. and its alot of work plus alot of set up! car was better and funner stock! still cant get it right!brakes are a farc also ,if you have disc now then thats just as good stopping as willwood,ECT1 if i could get all my money back i would ! after upgrading brakes car stopped worse than before,then i put hydrostatic booster for new brakes(700.00) plus youl never get that money when you sell?

 

[Supershafts]

Here is one more opinion to mix in the fray. Stick with the stock suspension. The most important components to handling are:

1. Tires -use a short sidewall tire like 45 or 50 series
2. Wheels - use lightweight alloy wheels that are stiff enough to take the side loads.
3. Sway bars
4. Shocks, springs

In other words, the most significant components to impact your handling have nothing to do with the exotic suspension upgrades. Personally, I use offset bushings in the upper control arm to give me more caster & stability, use KYB shocks, a little stiffer t-bars, and large hollow sway bars from Hellwig. This makes my car handle very well on the street. If I were to use 50 series tires, it would handle a lot better. Will it outhandle a new corvette? Of course not, but it still wouldn't even if you throw all of that money at it. Stock suspension components are probably easier to maintain on a daily driver than exotic stuff as well.

If you plan to use 60 series tires on rally wheels, don't even bother with exotic stuff, because the weak link will be your wheels and tires and you won't feel much difference.

Yeah people think many things, then i brought my JEEP out and schooled many a new car in the handling dept, salleens, vettes and even a purpose built trans am with race tires wasn't so good and even a t-rex. . . All with a Jeep mainly set up to go straight very fast, good sb, locked T-case and very tight LS front and rear diffs on goodyear eagle gt's. . .


If i was the OP i'd go with Bill at RMS

 

[Cranky]

You might be surprised at how much of a difference it makes just by lowering the car some, better wheels and tires (wider at least and already mentioned), shocks, and a performance alignment geared toward cornering. My 66 Belvedere surprised me and the thing didn't even have sway bars on it! Just how serious are you wanting to be in the handling department? Top rated road course racer or just better manners on the street? For better manners....actually, for much better manners on the street, the stock parts will surprise you imo. Do you know what negative and positive camber is? How bout pos/neg caster or toe in/out? Those are the basic terms in front end alignment. Ackerman is another but not a whole lot can be done with that unless you change some parts in the front end. If you don't know what the basics are, then you need to learn them before asking about different brands of front end parts. At least then you can be more informed when you ask the different manufacturers questions about their product.....

 

[benno440]

go magnumforce tubular just put it in my 68 charger really awesome.

 

[benno440]

magnumforce use chromolyt tubing same as drag cars not like those other companies with there crushable box section, just my opinion

 

[Sixer]

Econoline straight axle on leafs up front, Dana with leafs and airshocks plus extenders in back. Turning is wayyyyy over rated.

 

[Cranky]

Econoline straight axle on leafs up front, Dana with leafs and airshocks plus extenders in back. Turning is wayyyyy over rated.

I drove a lot of 71 and 72 Dodge pickups back when they were new and the 71's actually handled better than the 'new for 72 front suspensions' did....and all were factory stock. The 71's would kill the 72's on twisty roads. All the trucks were short bed reg cabs and equipped with 318's and 3.91 gears.

 

[super-bee_ski]

So, I'm still trying to decide if I should stay stock OR upgrade. The 70 Superbee is stock. I put the 70 Hemi in it and kept it stock to remind me of the 60s & 70s muscle cars.
The 63 Max Wedge clone Polara, well, it too started out stock with everything "blasted & powdercoated"
But after reading all of this w/ everyone upgrading, well I might try it too on the 63.
BUT, I'm not going to do a road course with these cars...so there in is the dilimena.
Kind of like: why dress up in a tuxedo to go on a date...

 

[Cranky]

Cars of the 60's and early 70's sucked in the handling department from the factory IMO and I always wanted to make my cars handle better and accomplished it using stock parts but used larger wheels and tires (wider wheels and lower profile tires), better shocks and sometimes springs and non stock alignment settings to do it and for sure used a rear sway bar as part of the package. A stock headed Hemi is somewhat heavier than a 440 is and needs to have beefier springs etc imo. It just comes down to how much better do you want it to handle? I mentioned that in post #11. If you only plan to handle better on the street I feel that can be done without spending thousands of dollars to get there. I also do my own alignments and knowing how to set things up is an important part of the whole package. If you don't know how to set things up, it won't matter how much you spend on trick suspension parts. Lousy settings with even the best suspension will handle.....lousy.

 

[Supershafts]

So, I'm still trying to decide if I should stay stock OR upgrade. The 70 Superbee is stock. I put the 70 Hemi in it and kept it stock to remind me of the 60s & 70s muscle cars.
The 63 Max Wedge clone Polara, well, it too started out stock with everything "blasted & powdercoated"
But after reading all of this w/ everyone upgrading, well I might try it too on the 63.
BUT, I'm not going to do a road course with these cars...so there in is the dilimena.
Kind of like: why dress up in a tuxedo to go on a date...

Then leave it alone . . .

If you drive like me, move the motor back 3" or more depending on the work you want use elephant ears, move it down, make a new oil pan, lower the car until the x member is 3" off the floor, heavier spring rate t bars, rear springs, sliders to replace the crap shackles, nylon bushings, race sway bars with adjustable ends, add a little camber some more caster, tuck the oval custom 2 into 1 exhaust....
Then do the brakes.....

Hunt some exotics, let them lead till you're board of being held up and pass on the outside....

.

 

[optiview]

Ok so it turns out that the mechanic needs the xv suspension because it uses the corvette spindle?( cell was garbled) And it would be easier to adapt the abs from the late model donor car. I do not understand what he is doing but he sounds pretty confident.

 

[kamkuda]

used some XV stuff on a cuda build. Fit was not great. Some parts had to go back but they were very good about it.

As Cranky said, you can get a LOT out of your car with decent shocks, sway and torsion bars. Good tires and rim package made a huge difference as well.

With that said, heard lots of good things with both Hotchis and AlterKation