Aftermarket parts - what works and what is a waste of cash?

[DGatzby]

I'll start, because currently I may have the largest stock of uninstalled parts in the US! Hope I have the "right" combo this time! First time on the '15 required much rework, and then in the end as most know, it still was not right.

Let's start with a front sway bar links discussion.

So one of the items I have is the big beautiful 38mm hollow front BMR sway bar to put in. Great, huh? Anyone want to tell me if those worthless stupid looking weak OE double jointed shit sway bar links will even not break or bend? I can't find squat for fixed sway bar links, except one company that wants nearly as much as the sway bar, and those are not in stock. I WILL NOT put a pair of adjustable links on the car. Been there, done that, I have them in the garage. They make the suspension sound like it is a popping-squeaking loose mess of shit is under the car. They still squeak and pop just handling them!

Anyone know of an aftermarket link that will work besides the SX product that is not in stock and that is not adjustable? Or give me a guess that I should hook up the OEM links that I swear looked defective to me since the first time I put my eyes on them?

And, hey, feel free to discuss and ask questions on this thread relative to all aftermarket suspension parts that make these tanks get over their weight handicap.

 

[Stormtrooper1320]

I have used Hellwig sway bars on several of my vehicles either while upgrading, or installing due to lack of a factory swaybar. They have always fit, and are great quality. I had to use their customer service people one time and they came through with flying colors beyond what I expected. They sent me the wrong bar kits at first. I called to get the right ones, they shipped them out next day shipping, issued a pickup for the wrong ones, and refunded my entire purchase price. I got my swaybar kits for free. I told them that I wasn't looking for that, just get me the correct ones. They insisted that they wanted to make it right for my inconvenience, etc. I purchased 3 more swaybar kits from them after that wit no problem at all. I guess they got their money back out of me afterall

 

[TrackDay]

I have the Bwoody poly endlinks on mine. I've used them for a little over a year. I don't know if they made a substantial difference but they have held up and it stands to reason at least the bushing stiffness is a benefit. They are certainly beefier than stock.

 

[motorhead]

Part of the problem is the amount of rate gained in the bar design (material, diameter, etc) is going to be lost in a sub-standard link through deflection. I've looked at the various aftermarket endlinks (even though my rule set limit me and I cannot use them) and there are some that are better than others. Obviously the NVH goes up with denser materials - but, as @DGatzby I have discussed there are just certain areas that you don't want to compromise. These are fun cars to race, not race cars.

Heims are pretty crap for NVH and longevity, even if they offer little deflection. Then there are roto joints and other options, and polyurethane is a pretty common solution too. Think outside the box to more extreme solutions: http://www.lowrangeoffroad.com/off-road-builder-parts/creeper-johnny-flex-joints-xaxis.html

I'd say that the biggest issue facing these cars is the fact that they place the endlink balljoint in a cantilevered position at the point of highest load (the end of the bar). Consequently they tend to try to pull themselves apart. Moving the lower end of the link, at the bar, over the bar into double sheer and compression would potentially alleviate the failure point and better transfer the energy into the chassis/bar. Basically by building a clevis. I'd have to look at the upper mount to see if there was a way to improve that too.

This is all pretty acheiveable at home as the design of the endlinks is very basic... and most of the compromises designed into these are for ease of assembly at the plant/servicing at the dealership.

 

[DGatzby]

Thanks @TrackDay I see those are cheaper to buy four than the competitor for just the front two and the competitor don't even have them in stock. I thought I looked at BWoody, but may have said no because they only sell all four. I don't need all four, but I may just have to add the short rear pair to my collection of spare parts in case I want to try it out with some appropriate size rears for the strip. I don't understand how a company don't have stock this time of year if you are in this business. I do have a pair of the helm joint equipped adjustable fronts, at worst I could bolt them on for going to the track. Maybe spray some silicone lube on them and it may be okay for a day or two.

I am struggling with actually allowing the big BMR toe rods I have bought installed because of that joint. Frank with them was telling me to keep them clean and sprayed, they have a bit of a hybrid of materials incorporated now. He recommended some boots to cover them. That was a joke! I received the recommend package of six little miniature rubber boots from Summit and there is no way those will begin to stretch around that item.

 

[DGatzby]

Ref. BMR adjustable 38mm sway bar. Good product maybe, but is missing some simple replacement hardware for us.

First the BMR saddle assemblies VS OE saddle bolts. Not enough washer bearing surface area!!

First they are metric spec 10.9. Second and most important I will be buying new boots with LARGER washers today (yes I know to also get the correct specified washers to go with the bolts). The little tiny small washers locked onto the stock bolts supplied by FCA went through at least one of the large slots made on the new saddle assemblies, when attempting to just get 44 ft-lb torque. That pissed me right off! IMO opinion all four bolts need replaced, and should be included with the product. No way I want to worry about not enough bearing surface holding my front sway bar to this huge thing while turning it to its max capabilities! Would that be a fun day at the track as you basically pull your sway bar loose from the structure?

Also what is missing from the product is another set of thermal barriers like the OE covering the bushing saddle protecting it from the heat radiated off the converters. With the larger saddle assemblies, the OE barrier/protectors won't come close to fitting back. I imagine the heat radiating from those converters are just going to bake the great silicone grease I used. Again, not a good thing to worry about and probably a new necessary at least annual inspection and maintaince item.

BMR we certainly would pay a little bit more for you to complete your package appropriately!

I'll post more later today about what I found with my old rear sway bar links and the need to prep my NEW Trailing Arm bushings. Damn aftermarket shit, and a reminder to look closely at EVERYTHING!

 

[DGatzby]

So, the mods carefully continued.

After purchasing new metric spec bolts, that are 1/4" longer, I simply added some nice fender washers to get bearing across the large slots they provide for the brackets.


The NEW Trailing Arms have home made barrels on them. How special. One was too long, so had to grind it down to fit. Cleaned the other side ends. THEN had to prep them all over again with some silicone grease, because they came totally dry.

Then it was time to simply bolt on the rear links. Nice, that lower bolt that nearly scrapes the rear rotor? If I would tighten the lower bolt it would be way too close for comfort. Going to get a couple of nice fender washers (one for each side of the bushing). That will help isolate them and back that bolt end enough.

Anyone who thinks those OE rear links are even up to a fraction of what we throw at them, look at this difference btw an Energy Suspension bushing and whatever they call the units that came on my $91k car! After just over 3000 miles they were already showing signs of permanent deformation at the cheap little pieces of rubber. Never mind that the new steel barrels were made in someone's garage and sold to us for over $200! It will work. I cleaned them up along with the trailing arm barrels as best I could. My guess is they need to be a bit longer, but I'll sandwich them in spacers and watch what happens.



Another thing I did was take a bolt and wiggled the bushing that is in the OE trailing arm! Wow, wiggles like it has little or no resistance to deflection! A guy can just imagine wheel hop in action as they spring from compression on acceleration.

Next.....since I cannot find any front links I like, to stand up to that big new bar, I am completely refurbishing the old adjustable RE brand of literal clunkers I took off the '15. Maybe I will just bolt them on for my race version when I change the brakes. After speaking with Frank at BMR he advised me to protect all helm joints with rubber boots (fun to get over the joints) and lube with silicone spray. I have completed the task and they seem smooth now, I'll use them and we shall see after a couple of track days if they make noise or not. They did before and were awful for the street.

 

[motorhead]

You have to remember these cars are built to a price point, so the trade-offs are obvious in certain locations. Same with your aftermarket parts, a 10% increase in costs will chase off a lot of potential customers. $199 is a lot more appetizing than $219. Bolt-ons never are.

I've been studying the stock suspension pieces and it seems that a simple bushing replacement alone would yield massive improvements.

 

[DGatzby]

You have to remember these cars are built to a price point, so the trade-offs are obvious in certain locations. Same with your aftermarket parts, a 10% increase in costs will chase off a lot of potential customers. $199 is a lot more appetizing than $219. Bolt-ons never are.

I've been studying the stock suspension pieces and it seems that a simple bushing replacement alone would yield massive improvements.

Yes, I agree. If I did not want/need the rear camber adjustments I would have just ordered a kit of bushings. Damn are the OE bushings much different to the extreme soft side. No wonder the tires suffer in extreme cornering, the body lean coupled with the limits on the soft bushing travel must yield settings off the chart. AND the tire edges look like it! It will be interesting to watch the differences that I hope to achieve.

 

[motorhead]

Yes, I agree. If I did not want/need the rear camber adjustments I would have just ordered a kit of bushings. Damn are the OE bushings much different to the extreme soft side. No wonder the tires suffer in extreme cornering, the body lean coupled with the limits on the soft bushing travel must yield settings off the chart. AND the tire edges look like it! It will be interesting to watch the differences that I hope to achieve.

I will I admit that our discussion the other day (and watching the Woman Driven BMR suspension vids on YouTube) prompted me to look closer at some stock parts, weakness, and start formulating solutions. Those so inclined to build their own parts should consider parts like:

http://search.store.yahoo.net/yhst-...=https://www.globalwest.net/1012.html&x=0&y=0

and (my personal favourite):

https://www.umiperformance.com/home/product-category/replacement-parts/roto-joints/

Because the stock parts aren't the problem in isolation, it is a sum of the whole situation. Again it is all relative to the pain you are willing to endure when compromising. I may have to start shopping for a small lathe.

 

[Finface]

Gatzby and MotorHead and All,

Hello from Northern Kentucky. I have the same car as Gatzby - 2019 RE Wide Body - and I'm intrigued by his efforts to improve the handling of these cars. Gatzby invited me to come over from the challengertalk.com forum so here I am. Gatzby was kind enough over there to give me a rundown on some ideas about how to improve the handling of our Challengers. I'm going to attempt to distill his advice, and the advice of others in the know, into a probable "to do list" for my purposes, which are to maintain a comfortable ride on the street while enhancing the fun, and safety, of participating in HPDE events near where I live.

Coincidentally, almost the first thing I see here after joining today is a similar thread about upgrading suspension parts. I'm such a neophyte about high performance cars and suspension - despite reading a lot of reviews lately about our cars, mustangs and camaros - that the stuff you're talking about is over my head. For example, Motörhead's comment, "I've been studying the stock suspension pieces and it seems that a simple bushing replacement alone would yield massive improvements.", lights up my interest. And yet I don't even know what a bushing actually is, where they are located, or what they look like. Lol! That's okay - I can google the hell out of subjects and no doubt there are books about suspensions and such I can find. It's just finding the time. Who doesn't want shortcuts if they can find them?

I can see a lot of trial and error is involved in swapping out parts, with one change potentially affecting other parts for better or for worse. Also complicating cause and effect are the variables associated with the various suspension modes - Street, Sport and Track.

I'll be following this thread and hope to learn a few things!

Best,

Finface

 

[DGatzby]

Stay tuned, I take a picture of the pile of cradle bushings Whiteline sends us tomorrow after I get back. Probably some other jewelry I have also to show you some.
My post #7 above compares the very small bushing on the rear sway bar link to a common aftermarket replacement. Same post that giant red unit is the upgraded front sway bar connection bushing. It don’t even fit within the OE slot the stocker is mounted in.

 

[Confuzed1]

While my knowledge of the kind of aftermarket parts it really takes to improve track and road course performance on these Redeye's is non-existent , I have however, done quite a few "upgrades" to a Thirdgen Camaro I own. From what I see, the Camaro aftermarket support seems a bit better than what is offered for the Challengers.

I went through most of the suspension in the ole Turdgen back while I was putting it together. Most of the aftermarket bars I have on it - (Panhard rod, Front sway bars, end links, TQ arm) are all UMI, Spohn and BMR pieces. All the rubber bushings throughout were replaced with Energy Suspension Poly bushings. I just bought an entire kit and installed them.

Most guys don't care for the poly bushings since they can become dry and cause binding. Luckily all the aftermarket bars come with greasible fittings for all the bushings so I give them a shot of silicone grease every once in a while and it "seems" to work well. I had also added a 36mm front sway bar and Bilstien HK struts/shocks and Eibach Sportline springs which I think made the biggest difference in handling....it stays pretty flat even on the hardest turns....to the point I really need a seat to hold me in the car better than the stock ones. But - the suspension is super stiff.

Unfortunately, its so stiff it feels like I'm in a school bus while driving on the street, but that's the trade off I guess. I've heard Delrin.... or the Del-A-Lum bushings are better since they allow a little more deflection than any poly bushing will...but I'm not going through the hassle of changing all those out!!!

I should really try a road course with the car, but I'm sure I'd get embarrassed by people like DGatzby and others with cars better built from the start to handle....like Corvettes, newer Camaros etc... I've seen some of the Go-Pro vids you road course racers make...you guys are flying !!!

 

[DGatzby]

I like what you say here...

"Most guys don't care for the poly bushings since they can become dry and cause binding. Luckily all the aftermarket bars come with greasible fittings for all the bushings so I give them a shot of silicone grease every once in a while and it "seems" to work well. I had also added a 36mm front sway bar and Bilstien HK struts/shocks and Eibach Sportline springs which I think made the biggest difference in handling....it stays pretty flat even on the hardest turns....to the point I really need a seat to hold me in the car better than the stock ones."

Not good; "But - the suspension is super stiff."

I have the BMR on the center hole. I will be tracking it before I street it. Then you may have a hint there, when I take the brakes out, I'll crawl under and move it to the "softer" hole. A little stiffer is fine, I felt the difference right away as soon as I drove the RE around my street corner from my '15, which was changed in a similar way.

Also good advice on the bushings. I took a good look at the poly VS the Energy Suspension units. WOW! Your right, I am using the ES units.

Also agree, right on with the silicone grease. Researched the shit out of that. Right on again! Great post @Confuzed1 !

Don't let us kid ya, BIR was made for the big Challenger, it shines up there easy. I bet on that Hallett track I am going down and meet @sad at in a few weeks, it won't do so spectacular. But, I'll get into how it handles technically more for two days. I need that time in the new car. Ha, then watch out BIR, I have a lap time goal in my head to beat. Then I will be one happy MF. A lot of our competitors are not going to be happy at all.

 

[DGatzby]

Continuing the discussion. Yesterday I changed the camber on all four corners with the AAD hardware. The front worked smooth and easy, the Allen Head tops are two metric sizes, as are the underside nuts. For the camber I used the next tab for more negative. All six arms; four in the back and the two in the front actually all contain the same tab for their street setting, which is very convenient. The fronts use the tabs going one direction and the rears the other direction. Again convenient, since I have a collection of about all their sizes.

The rear was a bit more messy to screw with. First I am glad I did not wait until Saturday morning. I had a damn flashback of working on custom bikes!

1. A regular key/wrench has a problem both itself or if a guy has a longer reach variety of some sort. The shock is in the way, of any straight shot.



Little work with a saw, and now I have another custom tool in my collection..


See the other little problem with mixing aftermarket parts??

Solid sway bar links that bring the sway bar so low it contacts the arms. That pisses me off because it will be smashed worse after Saturday. Now is that inhibiting some movement of one arm and causing a misalignment at full compression?? Probably!!



The rears are more difficult to move. A spacer between the arms plus I added a couple of nuts to the rotors and yanked on them a bit to seat the new tabs in the right spot. Not going to screw with these until I restore it to street. Much mire PIA than the fronts.

 

[sad]

Man I’m jealous of your adjustability.

I will be seeking something for the vette.

 

[fubar569]

Where those Links advertised as being substantially shorter for clearance reasons?

I was looking toward a 17in beadlock and then upgrading suspension as I go for sort of a dual purpose car.

 

[DGatzby]

They are primarily to get the sway bar out if the way. I have some of the brand X adjustable which are longer but they make stupid noise. When I get home I’ll need to shop for something just a bit longer.

 

[fubar569]

Sounds like I may be in the same boat depending on wheel.

Bummer.

 

[Phizzle]

Waste of cash:

• CAI - all it does is make you whine louder.
• Mid muff delete - makes you louder, no performance gains.
• Driveshaft upgrade when you're completely stock and don't track the car.
• Catch can?

Mods that work:

• Better rear tires/wider rear wheels
• PPF on the front (widebody panels)

I feel like these cars don't need any additional aftermarket upgrades, other than for looks. They're turn key and do what they're supposed to do, run in a straight line really fast.

That being said, I have two of the waste of cash mods on mine. To each his own hahaha!

My 2c