Anybody use 36mm swaybar w/HnRParts rear drag bar?
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blackmonte
New HP Technology !!!
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I am wondering the same thing?Would the car be to stiff?
turbofish38
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Sway bars do nothing to the ride of the car. Look at them as an auxillary spring. Well it would be firmer through a fast corner but in straight line driving it wouldn't effect the ride much.
IMO big sway bars on both ends of the car are over kill and actually hurt the handling. Put a big bar on either end but not both for the best results.
I disagree 100%. It is best to match front and rear. If you have a big bar in the rear, in order to make the car handle, you need a big bar in the front. If you have a small bar in the rear, put a small bar in the front. If you are drag racing only, dont use a front bar. If you arent using the front bar on the street, the car will track everything in the road. Look this info up or contact any professional suspension/chassis shop and they will agree. Th HR bars arent too bad for the street but are very firm (they do their job).
I have been there done that with 9 different Pro-Toured/Drag/Street cars. Never used the HR Bar though. The reason for balancing the front and rear swaybars is around cornering, you want all four wheels to stick. In and excessive amount of unbalance, one wheel can lift. Example, you have a very stiff rear bar and no front bar, you hit a corner that swing towards the right. The front left suspension loads, the front right suspension is free to any sort of pressure to hold it. Now, what does this do? The rear is tight and one corner doesnt want to give more than the other but the drivers side still loads more than the pass side and the left rear wheel gets sucked into the wheel well more than the right. Now you have your pass front wheel just loose and not absorbing any load. Do you see the unbalance? Now if you have a good front and good rear swayber on the car, everything balances out during cornering.
turbofish38
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Ran around for years with the 34/36 up front and the old Herb Adams 1.5 in back. One oversteering pig. Removing the front bar made it damn near neutral through a corner. Hey I agree the bars need to be matched. But this combo(36/HnR) aint matched. You fail to mention what you are going to run for springs. Like I said the sway bar is just an auxillary spring. You don't need big bars with stiff springs. Bigger everything aint neccessarly better.
What are your goals? Straight line hook or ZR1 speed through a corner? Learn how to drive the car and you may not need some of these bolt ons. I ran around for years in Solo2 with the stock parts. Understeer? Heck just give it a ton of gas and let the rear kick out. It may not be the faster way around a corner but I didn't have to spend a dime doing it.
What are your goals? Straight line hook or ZR1 speed through a corner? Learn how to drive the car and you may not need some of these bolt ons. I ran around for years in Solo2 with the stock parts. Understeer? Heck just give it a ton of gas and let the rear kick out. It may not be the faster way around a corner but I didn't have to spend a dime doing it.
ttypewhite
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I am going to wave the BS flag on this one. I have been driving for years (12 years plus) without my front sway bar on my car. I had the big ATR rear swaybar before switching over to the Wolfe bar (best purchase I have ever made). This car drove like a loose piece of sh it. Felt unsafe like something was going to drop off during a turn or lane change. I bought the 36mm front sway bar and put it on the car. What a difference. The car is tighter then a pair of butt cheeks. The control, stability, driviability handling etc is night and day. It feels like I am driving a bone stock GN again. Be very mindfull of the advice you post. A lot of people can read your post and take it for the Gospel, thus steering them down the wrong path. I know now that the little weight saving you get from removing these bars is not worth the effort of taking them off. If its a track car then yank em off. If its a track car with lite street use, you have to roll the dice on what you want. IMO, even for lite street use I would not remove the front swaybar. Take the weight off the front by putting on light weight brakes, fiberglass hood, RJC pulllies etc. This bar will not come off my car again. I don't know what I was thinking when I removed this in the first place.
Eric, first of all I wanted to say I have a ton of respect for you and you have helped me on quite a few things but dude, I have to completely disagree with you on this. First off, matching ta front swaybar to an HR rear bar is virtualy impossible. From my research, there is no bar larger than the 36mm so that would be my only choice for the front bar. I prefer the ATR bar in the rear and the 36mm in the front. This is a perfect match in my opinion. As far as the bars being only an extra spring, I also have to disagree. The bar connects the two sides of the car to decrease "SWAY." I will agree that it has some "spring" affect in a way but the point is to decrease sway from side to side. Even while running stiff springs, the car still sways wthout a bar.
I do also want to make a point that if you are running a Big "n" Little combo, the car is going to track while driving straight no matter what bar you are using. Not bad for the strip but not good at all for the street. Were you running Big "n" littles when you were having these issues?
This discusion has gotten interesting. Eric, you're partially right and one of the things no one relizes is that a sway bar is nothing more than a torsional spring, simular to one on an old chrysler cars or toyota truck. What the intent of one is to equalize the torsional effect of body movement. As the body shifts in a corner it will roll. With a sway bar the effect is lessend. Depending on how much roll is done by the suspension depends on the size of the sway bar. The larger the bar the more equalizing of the suspension compression is done up to a point. The other factors are the end links and spring rate. If you have a heay spring rate there is less compression in the suspension. A lighter one will do the opposite and create a greater "roll" effect. The best way to find out your best spring rate is strip the car to the point of where you will be using it and have it scalled on all 4 corners to determine spring rate. The factory spring rates are kinda light and increasing them to where the car is as neutral as possible is the best solution. Once this is determined then worry about sway bars and end links. Ride height is also part of this and will effect the use of a sway bar. The lower the center of gravity in a moving object the harder to "roll" the body to one side or the other. Your yaw and pitch are lessened and you can control the car better. You can use bucket and springs simular to what is used in some of the IMCA classes like the sport mods that use metric GM frames for the base. The buckets will allow you to adjust height and the springs are shorter than the factory ones with different rates avalible. This means that once you determine the correct setting of chasis height and weight per corner then your handling will be easier to figure out. Also if you change the legnth of the end link on the sway bar it changes the reaction time of the bar. By using the shortest legnth avalible it will stiffen the handling without stiffening the ride. One other trick is to cut the rear spring perches off the rear axle and reverse them. The springs are behind the axle and by posistioning them over or in front of the axle you get a better spring compression for the rear on a launch or in a corner. Neet little tricks and a long post but I hope it helps. If nothing else you might be able to sleep easier after reading it.
I was thinking the stock height stiffer springs that Kirban's sells. My goals would be to have a great handling car more than drag. I wouldn't have even considered the drag bar but everyone that has one raves over how well it handles. And it would be nice to hook up well too
I have the 36mm bar now, and am still wondering about the rear. I don't like how the drag bar hangs a bit lower than stock, but I might be able to get used to it. But despite my limited knowledge, I do know that you can't just throw parts together that individually might be great. It's always what the complete setup would do. That's why I'd love to get inputs from people that had done both bars.
Thx again for all the discussion.
T-CHRGD
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I agree with this, at least as my car is currently set up. I have lowering, stiffer springs with a Suspension Techniques heavy front bar. I used to have their heavy rear bar also, but when I broke the rear bar, I put the stock bar back on. The car felt MUCH better to me. Much more balanced. It just flowed through the corners Much better.
That being said, I am planning to completely re-do the suspension. Adjustable arms front and rear, tall ball joints, a Watts Link (just picked it up, it is Gorgeous !) and when it is available, a Spohn Pro-Touring adjustable rear sway bar (I saw the prototype at Savitske Classic and Custom) Can't wait :biggrin:
Well, I think I'm going a different direction anyway, but thanks for the thoughts. I called Marcus @ SC&C today and he confirmed another post that the pro-touring rear sway bar is coming out soon (in testing now) and its a great match w/the 36MM F-body bar. I think I'll be going that route--I am interested more in handling than hook up.
