I have a 65 Beaumont sd with a 383 stroker putting out 470hp and 510lbs of torque. I plan on doing some recreational drag racing but want something that will perform great on the street. I am plan on putting a high end pro touring suspension kit on it. My questions are, is pro touring good for drag racing, is the worth the money and how much of a diffence will the kit make.
The rear pro touring suspension is better for drag racing than the stock setup. It's stronger and shouldn't allow tire hop so it's just plane better but generally speaking, a pro touring style front suspension isn't the best for drag racing. It's great for overall handling but the springs and shocks are usually stiffer than what you'd want for an ideal drag race only setup. It's not like the pro touring suspension will slow you down a lot when compared to a stock suspension but for drag racing a car like yours, soft springs and shocks will allow the front end to rise more easily. That will transfer more weight to the rear and improve traction. Here's a picture of a Mustang that runs in the nines on regular Polyglass tires. You can see that his suspension has a lot of travel and no doubt it would also be setup very soft. Great for racing but not so good for the street, especially if he wanted to go fast around corners.
Pro Touring is about cornering. More auto cross/road coarse racing. It's not gonna help you at the drag strip but you will notice a huge diffrence in the corners if you do it right and get the right wheel/tire combination. It can be big $$$ do your homework and find out whats best for your car.
Could be springs/shocks, air bags, coilovers...then you need big brakes, big sway bars, tubular A arms and rear control arms....and so on.
go to lateralg.com forum they have the corner on pro touring. Usually the frame needs some support especially A cars . Back suspension can work for both, you can drop the front sway bar links and use adjustable front shocks to get a pretty good launch I would think for drag racing a touring suspension
