I want to try a rear swaybar this year. Hopeing it will help correct the twisting. I don't want to install an antiroll bar. Do you think the rear swaybar will help it launch a little straighter?
Rear swaybar or not?
- Thread starter footbrake
- Start date
They both do essentially the same thing, they prevent body roll and twisting. I prefer the anti-roll bar, but I don't street drive my car. The sway bar setup is more street friendly.
In a nutshell, an anti-sway bar is a torsional spring connected to both sides of a suspension that helps control body body roll in corners by trying to lift the inside tire in a turn. When they're properly sized they assist the suspension, not override it. An antiroll bar has little to no torsional flex, but accomplishes more or less the same thing on a rear suspension in a much more dramatic way by forcing both tires to lift the same amount when the rear axle moves away from parallel to the body. Since they have so much torsional rigidity, they more or less overpower the rear suspension's ability to allow the tires to move up or down independently of each other. That's why an anti-sway bar may help a car launch, but an antiroll bar won't make a car handle better.
Tommy
Tommy
So what you're saying is that in my application, where it's also street driven, the rear swaybar may help. Do I understand this correctly?. Thanks-Russ
footbrake said:
Yup, but it will also change your handling characteristics. The car will want to oversteer a bit more, especially if you don't have a front antisway bar.
Tommy
ls6 tommy is correct.
I went from leaving like your avatar, to almost dead even (see pic lower right) by adding a 7/8 Fbody bar.
Over the winter I picked up an HR&Stuff bar that will be going on in a week or 2.
Nice thing about the bar, the leave was less dramatic. The driver can worry about shift points and such instead to staying off the wall.
I went from leaving like your avatar, to almost dead even (see pic lower right) by adding a 7/8 Fbody bar.
Over the winter I picked up an HR&Stuff bar that will be going on in a week or 2.
Nice thing about the bar, the leave was less dramatic. The driver can worry about shift points and such instead to staying off the wall.
The only real difference between what the OE's and cornering enthusiasts call (variously) a stabilizer bar, "sta-bar", antiroll bar, or more informally as a "swaybar", and what the drag strip enthusiast knows as an antiroll bar is the stiffness of the bar in question.
How the bar is connected to the axle and the chassis or whether it is simply bolted to the LCAs is a difference in detail but not function. That said, the length of the LCAs ends up making the LCA-connected bars on these cars (and the B-bodies and the Fox/SN95 Mustangs as well) softer than if you hooked the very same bar to the axle and chassis instead.
The reasons for both the cornering and straightline groups to use a rear bar of some sort is actually pretty much the same - to attract some of the resistance to chassis/body roll back to the rear axle. It's only the amount of load transfer you want to drag back there that differs, hence the huge difference in bar stiffness.
Normally, the cornering enthusiast wants only a little more rear roll stiffness in order to help balance the front stiffness, so a relatively small bar is all that is required.
The dragstrip guy wants lots more of the lateral load transfer to go back, as rear roll stiffness helps plant the RR back down by using the engine torque reaction carried back through the chassis. Hence the huge bar . . .
Incidentally, disconnecting the front bar also shifts the distribution of roll resistance rearward, at least up to the point where you've pulled the LF tire up.
Less roll also means less rear axle roll steer (another rear suspension property defined by the angles of the links/arms), which equals less tendency for the car to go hunting for walls and other things outside the lane. LCA relocation brackets can actually help fix this problem as well. This axle roll steer itself is sort of a separate topic but is related to the discussion here.
The OE F41 rear bar is 22mm. The Hotchkis bar is 1" (making it maybe 70% stiffer than the OE bar, though still far below the stiffness of a dragstrip "antiroll bar").
On (earlier) edit because I came across it from an entirely different direction - check out the "SPOHN/SC&C ProTouring Swaybar" toward the bottom of the page at http://www.scandc.com/spohnarms.htm
Norm
How the bar is connected to the axle and the chassis or whether it is simply bolted to the LCAs is a difference in detail but not function. That said, the length of the LCAs ends up making the LCA-connected bars on these cars (and the B-bodies and the Fox/SN95 Mustangs as well) softer than if you hooked the very same bar to the axle and chassis instead.
The reasons for both the cornering and straightline groups to use a rear bar of some sort is actually pretty much the same - to attract some of the resistance to chassis/body roll back to the rear axle. It's only the amount of load transfer you want to drag back there that differs, hence the huge difference in bar stiffness.
Normally, the cornering enthusiast wants only a little more rear roll stiffness in order to help balance the front stiffness, so a relatively small bar is all that is required.
The dragstrip guy wants lots more of the lateral load transfer to go back, as rear roll stiffness helps plant the RR back down by using the engine torque reaction carried back through the chassis. Hence the huge bar . . .
Incidentally, disconnecting the front bar also shifts the distribution of roll resistance rearward, at least up to the point where you've pulled the LF tire up.
Less roll also means less rear axle roll steer (another rear suspension property defined by the angles of the links/arms), which equals less tendency for the car to go hunting for walls and other things outside the lane. LCA relocation brackets can actually help fix this problem as well. This axle roll steer itself is sort of a separate topic but is related to the discussion here.
The OE F41 rear bar is 22mm. The Hotchkis bar is 1" (making it maybe 70% stiffer than the OE bar, though still far below the stiffness of a dragstrip "antiroll bar").
On (earlier) edit because I came across it from an entirely different direction - check out the "SPOHN/SC&C ProTouring Swaybar" toward the bottom of the page at http://www.scandc.com/spohnarms.htm
Norm
:shock: :? :?
There's quite a bit of chassis tech in that post that is going to be new to lots of folks here - and even when people know that a given fix "works", the reason why it works is not always obvious to everyone. But knowing why is the key to getting better/smarter/more successful at this stuff.
Try taking it one paragraph at a time instead of trying to swallow it whole. (I'm going to break it up a bit more)
Norm
Try taking it one paragraph at a time instead of trying to swallow it whole. (I'm going to break it up a bit more)
Norm
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