and glad i did it! took it off to help lower my 60ft times and lighten the car up a bit. was a bit woried it would handle terrible, but once i did it i could hardly tell the difference! my suspension consists of new hd springs, cheap gabriel gas adjust shocks, metco billet aluminum lower and adjustable uppers with poly bushings, atr big rear sway bar, two air bags. i cannot wait to get this thing down the 1/4!
front sway bar gone!!!
- Thread starter matt87
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in retrospect to others who have stated very bad handeling w/o the front sway bar is that there is problems elsewhere in the suspension. sagging/worn springs,shocks,bushings etc. get all that staightened out then see what its like w/o the front sway bar. my other gn in my sig has an all original 168k mile suspension with air bags and kyb shocks. i repalced the end links and decided to take it for a spin while they were off. dam it felt like it was gonna tip over!
Another thing you notice when you take the front bar off is a lot of the little rattles the car may have had seem to vanish. Now I'm not advocating removal for a never raced daily driver, but if for just cruising around, styling in a T-top car, take off the front sway bar and see if you don't like your car better.
Remember this, when you have to avoid an accident sometime.
It would be a heck of alot safer to just remove an end link when at the track, and safer.
How much faster is removing 15 lbs on a 3,500 car going to really make?.
Never mind you've made you mind up.
FreddieWilliams
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- May 26, 2001
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- 118
Some food for thought!
Allowing the front to lift too fast is also bad for traction.
My 60' times actually improved after re-installing my front sway bar.
I just don't want you to be disapointed if your 60' times don't go the direction you planed for them to.
Good luck.
Allowing the front to lift too fast is also bad for traction.
My 60' times actually improved after re-installing my front sway bar.
I just don't want you to be disapointed if your 60' times don't go the direction you planed for them to.
Good luck.
i dont think it will lift to fast with stock shocks, maybe with darg shocks. as said before i notied very little roll as apposed to having the bar so in my book its a good move. i took it on the highway and made some fast lane changes and it took it in stride. this car is not a daily driver anyway, thats what the other gn is for and that has the bar.
G
GNSCOTT
Guest
I never weighed my front sway bar but i'm willing to guess its in the 30lb range,not 15. 30#'s off the front like that really helps in weight transfer, an if your above 30mph, you can't do an evasive maneuver in these cars anyways
When you take off the front sway bar, like I did. What should ones air pressure in the air bags be for the street and the strip.
Currently I have them both set at 22# for street and 5/25 driver/passenger for strip. But I still lite up the tires at the strip and lose traction resulting in bad 60's.
Currently I have them both set at 22# for street and 5/25 driver/passenger for strip. But I still lite up the tires at the strip and lose traction resulting in bad 60's.
Greetings all,
My advice would be to remove the front bar with extreme caution of your car is driven on the street. As more than one person wrote here, you'd hate to have the rude surprise of finding your car handles like a top-heavy boat when you have a split-second to avoid an accident.
And these cars really * can * be made to handle with precision at high speeds with the right modifications...
But every sway bar manufacturer I'm aware of warns never to run the rear bar without the front if the car is driven on the street, as the car may tend toward an unstable oversteer condition which can make the car "get away" from the driver in an instant if he's not careful.
But then again, at low speeds, the car may seem deceptively docile and well-behaved. In fact - this is precisely the danger:
that the car's normal behavior may hide a latent tendency toward poor dynamics in a crash-avoidance scenario.
Best,
MAP
My advice would be to remove the front bar with extreme caution of your car is driven on the street. As more than one person wrote here, you'd hate to have the rude surprise of finding your car handles like a top-heavy boat when you have a split-second to avoid an accident.
And these cars really * can * be made to handle with precision at high speeds with the right modifications...
But every sway bar manufacturer I'm aware of warns never to run the rear bar without the front if the car is driven on the street, as the car may tend toward an unstable oversteer condition which can make the car "get away" from the driver in an instant if he's not careful.
But then again, at low speeds, the car may seem deceptively docile and well-behaved. In fact - this is precisely the danger:
that the car's normal behavior may hide a latent tendency toward poor dynamics in a crash-avoidance scenario.
Best,
MAP
FWIW, I just put my front bar back on and took the 90/10's off...we'll see what happens to my 60' times, but the car was worthless on the street that way (and I do have new springs, ATR bar, bags, uppers, lowers, etc) old 60's were high 1.4...we'll see
Compensate in that the car will still turn, yes. You run into problems when you run small tires in back (or slick tires on slick surfaces), a big rear bar and no front bar. The car will understeer plow, but then could just snap around without warning... In theory.
I have always run big tires in back with my big rear bar and when I had my front bar off, I slowed down for corners to the speed limit and never had any bad experiences.
Back in the bad old days, cars didn't have swaybars and had drum brakes all around and 5" wide tires and no seat belts. Its amazing any of us were born.
Here's a scary thought read something like Fred Puhns How to make your car handle, or Herb Adams Race Car engineering, maybe even Door Slammmers.
Suspension design is making the best of compromises, for every good thing you do there is an equally bad trade off, that just the physics of the situation. If something aids you in intial bite, it will unload the rear tires on heavy braking. More yaw in accleration, more yaw when turning, meaning the car won't go where it's pointed, as well.
GNs *not being able to handle* is a silly statement. Rates right up with saying something like, all v6 powered cars are slow. It's non sense. Maybe the stock configuration is not that great of combo, but with some work they will use the limits of adhesion that the street provides as well as most good handling cars. The steady state and closed road testiing that the mags use to rate cars on are rarely found in normal street driving. Also just because a car does 1.0 on the skid pad doesn't mean it can do it on the street. And some of your **good** handling cars ride like a buckboard, and handle poorly on less then glass smooth roads.
Suspension design is making the best of compromises, for every good thing you do there is an equally bad trade off, that just the physics of the situation. If something aids you in intial bite, it will unload the rear tires on heavy braking. More yaw in accleration, more yaw when turning, meaning the car won't go where it's pointed, as well.
GNs *not being able to handle* is a silly statement. Rates right up with saying something like, all v6 powered cars are slow. It's non sense. Maybe the stock configuration is not that great of combo, but with some work they will use the limits of adhesion that the street provides as well as most good handling cars. The steady state and closed road testiing that the mags use to rate cars on are rarely found in normal street driving. Also just because a car does 1.0 on the skid pad doesn't mean it can do it on the street. And some of your **good** handling cars ride like a buckboard, and handle poorly on less then glass smooth roads.
since this post came back....I'll offer an update...with my front bar and "good" shocks back on, my 60' times suffered a bunch...best I could muster was 1.60 (compared to high1.4's low 1.5's)
needless to say....the bar is off again and the 90/10's are back on!
needless to say....the bar is off again and the 90/10's are back on!
