Thanks, i had definitely thought about going that route. However my partial view contains dynamic data and a varying length of textbox fields depending on the selections. I havent been able to figure out a way to get that data without using jquery. 

So far what i have done is use jquery to post the whole form to a controller with my new ViewModel which works fine. I can see all the right data when it hits the controller.

public ViewResult dummyCreate(ZITS_DAL.Equipment equip, List< ZITS_BO.boCustomProperties.ajaxPostData> custData)
        {
           
            return View(equip);
        }

But now my concern is what do i wire this up to? If i wire it up to a submit button inside a form then i need to add a controller and action (which it shouldnt hit). it seems that the action will execute as well as the ajax request which is exactly what i dont want. If i wire it up to a regular button with just an onClick then i lose my client side validation. Is there a way to call the client side validation manually? Here is the ajax post,

function saveFormData() {
            

                var equipDatas = new Array();
                var customPropertyList = new Array();
                equipDatas = {
                    equipmentType_ID: 1,
                    SerialNumber: 1,
                    Manufacturer_ID: 1,
                    BusinessUnit_ID: 1,
                    CurrentStatus_ID: 1
                };
                for (var i = 0; i < $("input:text[name^=txt]").length; i++) {
                    customPropertyList[i] = {

                        equipment_ID: 1,
                        customPropertyName_ID: $("#Hidden" + i).val(),
                        Value: $("#txt" + i).val()

                    };
                }
                var url = '@Url.Action("DummyCreate")';
                $.ajax({
                    type: "POST",
                    url: url,
                    contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8",
                    data: JSON.stringify({ equip: equipDatas, custData: customPropertyList }),
                    datatype: "JSON"
                });
           
        }

Thanks Andy