Torsion Bars?

I'm putting torsion bars back on my 63 Dodge. Don't have my old ones anymore, went
to coilovers. Couldn't get the coilovers to 60', so back to torsion bars. Car weighs probably 3600 to3700?? Big block, 727, dana60, full interior, exhaust, all steel. Runs 10.0 @135. Any recommendations on torsion bar size? New or used? Also a good double adjustable shock??? Have strange double on rear now. Also, the engine is in stock location, 63 k-frame. (nose heavy )

You can order new torsion bars. I have seen Several places here advertise them.
Do you want to just drag race the car? If so, then just go with the thinnest bar you can order. Or call Stephens and order a used set of 6 cylinder bars for yoru make model.
IF you are going to street drive it, the 6 cylinder bars will be a little too flimsy on the street. Go with Small block or 383 torsion bars.
I like the QA-1 Shocks. Available in double and single adjustable and reasonable priced.
How free are your front control arms (upper and lower) without any springs or torsion bars on them. Try to get those freed up as much as possible.

I have the MP drag bars on my 70 B body now.Also BB,727. Same weight as you. They are .850 bars I believe.They seem to work well and still hold up the weight.
Mike

How long are your coil overs.. eye to eye

Firm Feel has T bars also. Call and talk to Dick and he can help you get the correct bar.

I think that I would continue to work on making the coil overs work
How much travel and what rate and length springs are on them now?

The front shock is mounted in the stock shock tower. The spring is a 10" . I've tried everything from 350# to 500#. Front end travel is about 3-3 1/2". The car hooks, then unloads the rear tires. It kind of porpoises. The front end is like dead weight.

Also, i forgot to tell that the rear is mono leaf and caltracs.

would more front travel [5-5 1/2" range] help with this ? if so, maybe a new upper mount would be the easiest fix ? shocks topping out, unloading the rear suspension ?

What do you have for rear shocks? After having gone through the porpoising with the barracuda, I switched to ladder bars. But after thinking about it, I think I could have solved the problem with much stiffer rear shocks. The caltrac shocks could not control the motion. Just a thought...

Man do I know how you feel, I went to a Bob's pro fab front with Afco double adjustable front shocks and QA1 double rears. I adjusted them til I wore out the adjusters and did nothing but spin. Got advice from many great folks here as well as the shock manufacturer....Still spun. I was right at the same place you are but was determined to make my $5000 race stuff work. I've finally after over a year of adjusting, got my car to leave. Looking back I wouldn't have changed over to coil over front end but like you I was running 10.0s @133 to 135 on a good day but the car always shook the steering wheel when it came down pretty bad and moved around on shut down. I'm now going 138 to 140 and is much more stable on the top end and doesn't have that violent shake after the launch as it doesn't pull as High as it use to. Best 60 Foot with the stock front clip was 1.38 now it will do 1.33 which I think I can improve with converter adjusmet. Don't want to sway you one way or another, just my experience.

I don't think i can put any longer spring in the front. With the 10" spring i can't get the desired 5-5 1/2" travel. I did straighten the rear shock so it isn't hitting the end.
The Strange dbl adjustable rear is tightened up all the way. The rear bounce or porpoising got better, but still not right.

I loosened my extension all the way and put 4 clicks of compression in the rear and started comming around. I set the fronts right in the middle and tightened them two clicks at a time til it started to improve.

I think you need to have a stiffer front compression setting or shock
Are the fronts double adjustable? If not, they should be

I’m not a big chassis tuner, so take this for what it’s worth......

I don’t think 3.5” of front travel is enough for a nose heavy 10.0 car.
At that performance level, the car still needs a fair amount of “help” from the front suspension.

If you had enough power to run about 1/2a second(or more) quicker I think your current front suspension would work better(be less of an issue).

For the t-bars, I agree with the /6 or 318 bar option.

I still use the stock torsion bars that came in my 63 Sport Fury that was a 383 car. I drive it alot on the street but these work fine for me on my car. Ron

Do whatever you can to get some more travel up front. Around 5" is what you need. I still use the factory 340 torsion bars in my cuda.

Afco doubles without the springs will work with the torsion bars. Before condemning the coil overs did you run the rebound close to full tight? If it's unloading the front it may well be topping out with 3.5" travel. This may be because the rebound allowed it to get to the end of travel to early. Mine runs Afco doubles comp full tight, rebound -5/40 from full tight,6 cylinder bars. Normal 1.29-1.30. Best of 1.240, foot brake, 10.5 tire
Doug

The car is porpoising (SP?) for a reason, you need to see if the rear shackles are swinging past straight up and down under hard acceleration, if they are move the upper shackle mount on the body towards the engine so the lower spring eye doesn't swing past straight up and down and jerk the rear end up leading to the bouncing
Let us know what you do and the results

That is precisely the problem I was having. (caltracs/monoleafs) At one point I had all 4 wheels off the ground (tried hitting harder) A wise man told me to add weight to the trunk and test. I added 2 40lb bags of salt and it did help. It did not solve it completely. I think with much stiffer shocks and orienting them vertically, it would have corrected the problem.

The 3 best moves w/Caltracs for me was moving the shocks almost straight up n dwwn, adding sliders and going to the 25" ft. segment...............My car now hooks from a roll n stomp w/new Hoosier QTP'S...........

Correct, we did this same thing on my car also.

Tell me more please...What is that?

I agree 100%. Granted our cars are stickshifts, but i had the same problem pretty severely. I originally had my double adj shocks in rear set at full tight extension and about halfway on compression. After analyzing the videos, it occurred to me to tighten up the compression fully and that made the world of diff. The tire was being hit very hard and was over powering the shock bouncing back up. So tightaning the compression kept it more planted and stopped the rear from bouncing.

The front also likes about 5 in of travel as stated