[Pyrotechnic]

I was gonna wait till you posted pictures to confirm how it was done but from your description, I believe what you have is square tube bolted from the spring pads to the front leaf hangers. The bagged crowd uses this suspension because it is dead easy to make, and as far as being slammed, axle wrap, and all that stuff it works way better than air over leaf.

Here's the problem. The suspension can't articulate. From an engineering perspective, the suspension is flawed and incorrect. This design lets the suspension move up and down just fine, for example hitting a speed bump straight on. However, lets say that you drive one set of rear wheels up a curb and the others side is still on the pavement. THIS is the problem.

The arms are solidly attached to the axle, and they want to be at different angles, so they try and twist the whole axle housing which isn't going to budge. You end up with a suspension that gets in a huge bind for movement that requires one side to be higher/lower than the other.

What this amounts to is INSANE roll stiffness. Around corners, the inner wheel may lift or you will get snap oversteer. Parts will be under a lot of street and may eventually break. I have heard of cars that used this setup having the perches ripped off the axle while the car was moving and the car runs out of control into a ditch.

This style of suspension is seriously flawed as you can see. Many bagged guys do it and get away with it. I'm sure for shows and driving carefully you may get away with it too. It's a risky shortcut to get the up/down everyone loves so much.

Towing at speed on the highway? No way I would recommend that for this suspension. In a hairy situation, I wouldn't trust it to perform as well as the stock setup. Get a proper 4 bar setup, or put the leaf springs back on.