Hey there,
With torsion bars, it is easy to determine what is going to be firmer....Just compare diameters. A 1.24 is going to be stiffer than a 1.0.
With leaf springs, how do you determine the rate? Common sense tells me that leaf thickness, width and the amount of leafs in the pack are a big factor but are there different rates of the spring steel? The car I have is a '70 Charger.
In 2006 I installed Mopar Performance 440/Hemi spec XHD leaf springs even though I do not drag race the car. I wanted something firmer than a 318 car would have had. I currently have 1.15 torsion bars in the car. I was just curious as to how the leaf spring rate is determined.
The most straight forward method is measurement as already stated. Weight over distance moved.
We have no information on the MP springs. So pretty difficult to compare what it originally was when installed.
Yes there are different rates of spring steel as a finished product but not enough for us to be using a design factor.
Main leaf thickness is important.
How well the second leaf supports the front eye is important.
How much of the rate is controlled by the front portion vs the back portion must have an effect and make calculations more difficult. The DC books call this spring ratio.
Stanley has a pretty wide selection. Stengel has pretty good spec table. Might find a local retailer.
http://www.stengelbros.com/suspensi...-coronet-charger-super-bee-leaf-springs/As you mentioned, and the reason I responded, there are other factors on the balance. Most closely tied to roll rates is where the weight is. DC called this the neutral handling line.,
Best I could determine was that there was no single Neutral line for all situations, but rather a line that could be established and used for guidance. I summarized this here
http://www.heritech.org/cuda/mgcudah.html regarding my own car.
Some discussion here about this.
https://board.moparts.org/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/2195534/1.html
