In some respects, you can go crazy trying to make things better, by observation. NOT that they can't be improved upon.

As for the A-body handling, check out "The Green Brick" which "Mopar Action" built and road raced with great success. Not sure were it might be online, but it's an interesting read! Especially when they went to Road Atlanta!

To get an idea of Chrysler suspension geometry, there are some factory training manuals online at either OnlineImperialClub or MyMopar.com. In that book, you'll understand that Chrysler engineers knew about "controlling the contact patch", even back in the 1950s. Plus, an explanation of camber angles in cornering!

As for spring rates, f/r, there were some excellent articles in the old "Car Life" magazine, circa 1966. About how the f/r stiffness balance affects how the car bounces and comes to "flat" after a road disturbance. This orientation keeps the car more level and comfortable in general driving, such that one end doesn't bounce more than the other, with good shock absorbers.

There was a graphic of a car encountering a dip and how soon the car would be level again. "Number of bounces" at each end. This relates to spring AND shock absorber issues . . . AND can vary with speed.

Back when I was driving the '66 Newport all the time, with a good set of HD shocks (first the Chrysler "MAECO" stamped factory HD shocks and later a pair of Gabriel Strider adjustable shocks on the front), the car was flat and stable "at speed" and pleasantly firm otherwise. The observed natural cruising speed on the highway was the 75-90mph range. Faster, it felt "busy", slower it felt "bored".

Until you spend "road time" with a torsion bar Chrysler product, you cant really feel how good they are, by observation. I mean on a trip of several hours, not just going across town. Keying into the engine response/throttle input, the way you don't have to slow down for corners, the confidence of the 11x3" drum brakes, and other aspects of the driving experience.

Go into www.allpar.com and read the sections of the Chrysler "squads" and LAPD testing. Quite outstanding, even in the later 1950s!

Chrysler didn't like to use a rear sway bar for many years. They chose to use stiffer rear leaf springs to help with that rear roll stiffness issue. But in the "Police and Taxi" section of the 1970 parts book, there is a listing for a rear sway bar with the note "LAPD". Not sure if they co-opted the Helwig rear sway bar (aftermarket).

The first rear sway bars were on the radial tire cars circa 1974, B & C body in particular.

Pontiac used rear bars on their GTOs and such first, then Chevy came out with their F-41 package for many cars, which helped handling a good bit.

In a 1969 issue of "Car Life" magazine, they did an article on "Power Cars", which were full-size cars with larger engines. In that time frame, they had a test corner where they had a camera set up to picture the front suspension and tire/pavement interface. It clearly showed how the Chrysler products had superior front suspension geometry to the other cars, which greatly aided their cornering performance.

As the MasterTech book shows, the outside wheel goes into negative camber such that the outside tire is better braced to take the added load. The inside tire goes into positive camber, to help with the cornering load, too. GM and Ford geometries kept the tire perpendicular to the body, so that as the car leaned into the corner, the tire was not perpendicular to the road surface, resulting in greater outer tire wear and decreased cornering performance. ONE reason the rear bar and less lean made so much difference in their handling!

What has not been mentioned here is tire pressure bias f/r. Factories generally wanted an understeering car, so the front tire pressures are generally lower than the rear (especially in the C-body wagons! and when "full load" is planned for.

What I found, going back to the tire's load and excess load potential at a particular tire pressure . . . one of the "Car Life articles on tires had a chart of tire pressure and tire load by tire size (in 2psi increments between 24psi and 32psi, the pressure ranges back then). On a Chrysler C-body (or others) with a 55/45 f/r weight distribution, here's the strategy I prototyped and found to work well for me . . . proceed at your own risk.

The minimum tire pressure for "high speed driving" (in the owner's manual) was 4psi over "normal". That meant 28psi in the tires. Adding in the correction factor for the front being heavier, by the pressure/weight carrying/tire size chart, adding 2psi to the front balances out the load which each tire sees, proportionally. For a 60/40 split, a 4psi front bias yields the same situation. Key thing is that EACH tire had the same static percentage load it supports. That would mean that each tire should "slip" at the same time in a corner, as a car with a 50/50 f/r weight situation. i.e., "neutral" handling, rather than the front sliding first (understeer.

Understeer, for the masses, is deemed "safer" as you'll hear tire noise before you get into trouble and, as a result, slow down to a safer cornering speed. In a Mercury Marquis I rented in '97, that speed was 25mph in a city setting with Michelin Symmetry radials. Any Valiant would out-handle that car!

One thing on many Chrysler suspensions. When factory a/c was ordered, the front torsion bars were upgraded to the HD bars due to the added extra weight. Just the bars, not the shocks. The full HD suspension added the shocks and heavier rear springs/shocks to the mix. That's the way it was on the C-body cars. Check the respective service manual for specs.

Using the f/r tire pressure bias I mentioned also tends to result in greater tire life. Reason is that EACH tire tread is flat against the road surface. No wearing on the edges from too-low air pressure, no wearing in the center from too much air pressure.

One other thing you can do to check the contact patch is to be on a dry concrete surface and with the car parked, turn the wheels from lock to lock. Then back the car up a foot or so and check the resultant rubber marks left on the concrete. With the factory alignment settings, with the 2+psi pressure bias in the front, it should be a solid patch.

With the wider tires and rim width of more modern times, such a solid patch might not be possible, but with the 5.5 and 6.0 inch wide wheels of the 1960s, it worked fine for me.

From the luck which "Mopar Action" had with The Green Brick Valiant 2-dr sedan on the road course, it proves that a stock Chrysler suspension can be easily upgraded to handle very well with few modifications. But then, this was in the 1980s, well before the hyper-touring orientation came along.

KEY thing is chassis/body stiffness. Chrysler's UniBody was a better "unit body" than GM knew how to build, back then. Ford too. This stiffness helped give the suspension a stable place to work.

The assymetrical rear leaf spring configuration helps in acceleration performance, as did the r/l spring stiffness bias on the HP cars of the '60s.

And then there are shock absorbers! Of which we have fewer options than in the 1970s! And then there are some new options, too.

One of the things which, to me, made Chrysler products such great cars was the "Torsion Bar Feel" (which encompasses the whole gamut of their suspension design orientations). It was the greater high speed handling which made Chrysler products the desired vehicles of so many state police and other law enforcement agencies. Check out the "It's a Wild, Wild, Wild World" video and watch the several Chrysler products in the "racing" scenes. Watch the suspension dynamics at work on those cars, even a '62 Imperial convertible.

Also, find the "On The Test Track with the 1957s" video on YouTube where 1957 Chrysler cars were compared to "the competition" from GM. It's easy to see how much better the Chryslers were! And how much flex were in some of the GM body/frame cars in an unexpected encounter with a train track crossing in the country.

To me, when you start putting new k-frames and even frames under a Chrysler product, with the lowered ride height and 8-10" wide wheels, to me the great chassis feel of the stock Chrysler chassis is lost. Be that as it may, but I suspect lots of money can be spent for a very specific gain in a specific application. You can spend money, get "the look" and performance increases, which leaves the only reason to have a Chrysler product to be its styling rather than otherwise . . . for which a Camaro would do the same thing.

Sorry for the length, but these are the things I've researched and pondered over for a good while, but I still believe that what the factory provided is better than some might suspect or realize. Others might not agree, which I respect.

CBODY67