For a friend that is building a 68" Coronet 4 speed car that will see mostly street.
He wants to know which size bars and brands (Mopar, Hutchinson, Firm Feel) should he use with this Hemi/stick combination. Car will see some strip tease action but mostly tooling around the town on weekends. He has KYB front shocks and using HD leaf springs out back.
Don't ask! I don't know the weight as of yet.

Iron block, and heads? Aluminum heads? Aluminum block? Iron intake or not?

All iron, heads, iron bell housing, 833 new process iron box.
But what does that have to do with what Torsion bars to use if I may ask?
Is it front end weight?

.890 bars would be my preference.

Based on above info, anything over 1" dia for starts, a skinny bar (.89") IMO, will not help enough at the strip vs the wallow handling when driven mostly on the stree,t trying not to wrap it around a light pole.

He also will be running a factory sway bar and 6" rims up front and 7's out back with Redline tires if that helps in the info department.

I prepared my smallblock a body front suspension this summer for a hemi transplant. Used 1" bars from firm feel, as they are clocked properly. Spent the extra money on Bilstein shocks. The KYBs are not the hot ticket. With the smallblock the car rides firm, not harsh. Handles excellent. I say 1" bar min for a real street car.

You are too kind.

My year round daily driver in Oregon (lots of twisty roads) has .890 bars, all iron bog block, 5.5"rims and it rides nice and comfy. If I want something that rides like a new 300C I take our 300C SRT8 to town.

.890 bars are stock 383 bars IIRC. The car rides nice and does not try to imitate a Ferrari by letting you know the condition of the roads crack by crack. Nobody has ever ridden in it and commented about the harsh ride either.

In contrast my year round previous daily driver when we lived in the snowy mountains/high desert of Oregon was a '66 Charger (iron 440, 1.08" t-bars, front/rear sway bars, 8" wheels). It was an awesome handing 4300 lb car but again...every crack in the road was evident. Every passenger that ever road in the car other than my wife commented on the "ride" or lack thereof. Don't get wrong, we drove it all over the Western states in all types of weather and loved every minute. The car would four wheel drift with precision, ever with studded tires in the ice lol.

My point in all of that rambling is that if the driver of said car is not into having their dental work jarred I'd steer clear of t-bars over 1.04ish, low profile tires and polyurethane lower control arm bushings. Oh, and KYB shocks as said. They are the Rancho 5000 of muscle cars.

Didn't hemis come with .920 bars?

You have to buy good shocks or youll get a rough ride with big bars. What shocks did you use in this set up?

I see a couple of mentions here about ".890" bars.
I found listings for b/e bodies of .880 and .900...... Didn't see any for .890.

I don't think I'm knew there was a .900 bar, I just thought there was the 6 cyl bar(.860), v8 bar(.880), 440/hemi bar(.920).
Apparently there is also the .900 bar(383-4bbl).
Guess I'll have to check the numbers on mine to see which they are.
In theory, if they're original, they should be .900 since it's a 383-4bbl car.
I thought I measured them at something less than .900 at some point.

Yes, I was thinking about front end weight on the street, not strip, and drivability.

Yes sir, that was the "HD" 440/HEMI bar.

41", brown stripe from the factory.

I checked the bars that came out of my car.....I'm not certain they are the original bars though.
776/777, .880 ......... The std v8 bar, not the. 383-4bbl bars.
I guess if it didn't come with HD suspension, for 68 it would just get the std v8 bars.

All three of my original 383-4 cars have bars that measure .890. Probably .880 w/ .010 of black paint. I'll have to double check my '66 Coronet w/ HD suspension (on f-tag IIRC) and see if they are closer to .900 OD. Come to think of it the 383-4 A/C equipped convertible should have HD suspension too the way it was optioned. I'll check that one too.

Koni's for a while. Then for a short period some QA1's I was going to replace them with the Bilstiens (QA1's were destined for other Charger) but sold the car when we moved.

Are you finished with your questioning counselor? lol

It was only one question. Defense may cross examine.

Have a nice day.

Without sugar coating:
1. you are stating the obvious
2. Op asked what he should use, not if a larger size would "help"
3. There are numerous threads in the Handling forum here that have pretty well supported the agonizing slow awareness/consenus that our mopars have been undersprung for decades, and a single step increase from OEM on a TB, without reason, is just plane wasting money

6" wheels at the front, 7" wheels on the rear, redline tires; I don't think the owner is interested in 'good' handling that much, so anything bigger than 1" probably won't be chosen anyway.

I've got 1" torsion bars on my '73 Dart, upgraded from 0.870 bars.
But wouldn't be opposed to upsize even further to 1.06 or more.
I believe 1" bars should've been standard on A-bodies to begin with.

(A-body bars are shorter than B-body, so they are firmer than 1" B-body bars)

We have 1" torsion bars on our 70 RR with a stroked 400 (452) with Edelbrock heads and a Weiand tunnel ram. I do not feel they are too harsh. Have been thinking adjustable shocks stiff on compression a little softer on rebound will go a long way to helping our oil pan survive (road race pan and have managed to dent it, of course, the car was stuck on top of a large rock at the time...). With your description of your friend's car with all iron engine get the spring rate up, go 1". I think our's are Mopar Performance.

My '68 Hemi 4-speed RR had its stock bars & springs. No problem lifting the nose on acceleration, and though I never considered it or drove it like a canyon carver, it did handle pretty decently (I have another car for that purpose). Main problem was traction: at 540 dyno'd HP, 295/50 Radial T/As on 15x8s were useless until 3rd gear. I ran 265/50 fronts on 15x8s.
A set of M&H DOTs were needed to accelerate the thing under full throttle.

Topside. What was the stock bar diameter?

And fellas, which company would y'all consider to get the T's from? Mopar, Firm Feel, Hutchinson, etc.

Thank you guys. This stuff is black magic and rocket science all in one.LOL.

I don't recall the measurement, it was a long time ago when I was verifying the car; but they were stock Hemi bars, which IIRC was .920...sway bar was also stock, BTW. I did lower the nose a little but not too much as it had a pretty big Milodon pan.

My combo fwiw,...

70 RR 475" Hemi iron block, Al head, tti 2&1/8", 4spd.
.920 bars, & Bilstiens all around.

Two different friends, one with a 69 Hemi 4spd Superbee, other with a 70 V code 4spd Superbee, have both ridden in mine and commented "it rides like a Cadillac".

So it's time to improve?
I would be insulted with comments like that

I have the Mopar 0.96" T-bar on my Charger and Coronet. They have a good ride on the street. The Charger has the old KYB gas shocks, and PST sway bars, poly bushings, and stiffer rear springs. The ride is about like most new cars, maybe a bit on the firm side, but not harsh.
The Coronet Convertible (a bit heavier than the Charger) has the RCD Bilstein shocks, Mopar replacement HP rear springs, and stock R/T front sway bar. The car rides smoother, almost soft, most likely the difference in shocks and having rubber bushings. It could use larger sway bars in my opinion.
The 0.96" bar is not great for drag racing. If you want the front end to lift at the track, the smaller bars would be better. Also, I think the 0.96" bar is the largest that is still indexed Left and Right? I think the 1" and larger bars have the same index and can be used on either side of the car?

The Hotchkis 1.03 bars that I have are labeled L and R. I haven't installed them yet maybe next weekend if I can get the K frame ready and painted today I can install them next weekend. I also have a set of 0.96 T bars new in the box and the stock 0.92 set. I always thought that the stock bars were to soft.

One thing that came to me after my suspension upgrades;

Wrong (cheap) shocks can make a ride 'harsh'.
Thicker torsion bars just make a ride 'firm'.

Shocks are best to be matched to the torsion bars.
Thicker bars need better performing shocks to handle them.

I still use the factory T-bars in my 63. It was a 383 car and going by the chart Dwayne posted they are .900. I have the CE 90/10 front shocks also which works fine on the street. I have no complaints as my car is mostly street and it handles fine and works fine at the track . Ron

I went with the 1.15 bars from bergman, will probably go with the viking shocks down th road. tim