Has anyone ever done a mono leaf swap?

My brother has been buying up a bunch of mono leaf spring sets. They are mostly for application in dirt track. But he can get me spring info for each.

I was considering the idea of changing my 92 5.2 Dakota over to a mono leaf setup if it would help with performance.

The truck is used as a car, not used to haul anything. But I do have an 8.75 rear diff, 4.30 gears, a 2200 stall, and a few mods to the 5.2 Magnum.

So its a fun truck, a bit of a sleeper, and I would like to find some more weight transfer and traction to the rear.

I don't think that a mono-leaf would work well by itself. I personally wouldn't trust it. Leaf springs take a lot of abuse and they are usually used with Cal-Tracs. In that application, the springs only hold up the weight of the car. The forces generated by the launch are concentrated through the Cal-Trac bars.

Might work, kind of an obscure performance upgrade. I've seen guys with mono leaf setups, even some guys using fiberglass springs and stuff like that. You usually only see it where the rules are super restrictive so guys are trying everything they can to get a small weight advantage.

IMO, you will need a very strong shock or something like the Cal-Tracs bars that Myron mentioned. The mono leafs do not have the leaf to leaf resistance of a multi leaf spring so they can be bouncy.

Thank you for the input guys!

I have run monoleafs without caltracs on a stick car no less. They were ok for a while(about a year) then they rolled over and died. I didn't think they would work real well especially with the stick. They worked fine till they gave up

So how about a mono spring, and those Gabriel load handler coil over shocks that give you some extra weight leveling abilities?

I have caltrac mono springs and traction bars on My 67 R/T....I ordered the 1" over and the car sits nice....I just need a better tire for traction. (no wheel hop)

What - do you think your Dakota is an old Firebird or something?

I have considered an LS swap...