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Off-road sway bar install

Just use a quick disconnect and have the best of both worlds. At least thats what i was thinking.
 
these bars are either tuned for the street and suck offroad, or tuned for offroad and suck on the street.

That is my understanding anyways. You have to find a mind ground compromise between it being too soft to controll roll, or too stiff to limit flex.
 
Just use a quick disconnect and have the best of both worlds. At least thats what i was thinking.

Yea, and the way the axle bracket on this kit is set up, it lends itself PERFECTLY to a disconnect.

In any case, I just got back from a work trip so off to work on this some more!
 
Yes my comment didn't fully make sense the way I worded, my bad for that. My friends buggy has a double triangluted four link in the rear with 16 inch coilovers, running 7" up/9" downtravel. We haven't measured to see excatly the amount of flex the rear has but it probably only lost about an 1.5" maybe 2" of travel overall when the suspension is fully flexed out. It's hardly noticable when setup correctly. The small amount that the swaybar limits the overall flex is a offset by the huge gains in stablity.
 
Yes my comment didn't fully make sense the way I worded, my bad for that. My friends buggy has a double triangluted four link in the rear with 16 inch coilovers, running 7" up/9" downtravel. We haven't measured to see excatly the amount of flex the rear has but it probably only lost about an 1.5" maybe 2" of travel overall when the suspension is fully flexed out. It's hardly noticable when setup correctly. The small amount that the swaybar limits the overall flex is a offset by the huge gains in stablity.

A rear swaybar makes total sense with a flexy coil setup on all 4 corners, since it really helps avoid trail rollovers. On our leafsprung boxes, however, I don't see a benefit. My XJ is far flexier than my Chevy, and I tossed those swaybars long ago. Yes, it has a lot of body roll, but who cares? The rear leaves give it enough stability to keep the shiny side up.
 
Well, I got this all finished up this weekend. Pics and a review when I get to the office this afternoon.
 
Ok, first of all, let me do the review. I drove up to big bear on Sunday morning and did a little snow off-road so I got a good mix of both on and off-road driving

1) The drive up there was AWESOME! I went over some known trouble spots on the freeway and there is still some body roll but the amplitude of it is WAY less than it used to be. This is going over bumps at 70 mph. In terms of going around corners and freeway on-ramps and stuff the body is way more flat, I actually can't believe how much more solid it feels.

In general, driving it just felt sooooo much more stable, I am totally happy with it.

2) Off-road I had an issue. I think in a normal design the main bar is supposed to be long enough that it pretty much touches the arms but in my instance it isn't so the actual bar has some lateral movement in it. This lead to the actual support bushings coming out basically killing the purpose of the sway bar. I am going to get a couple of shaft collars put on there to prevent the lateral movement and then I will know more how it performs off-road.

3) The drive home sucked cause with the bushings out of play, the sway bar basically did nothing and it drove like it did before with lots of body roll. Definitely confirmed I wasn't just imagining the improvement on the drive up, hahahahahaha.

Here are some pictures of clearance around the steering pump, pitman arms and tires at full lock. I gotta take everything off and paint it all and get the shaft collars on and then I will take some full installed pics.

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You really need the 1.5" tube going from end to end so the arms keep the bar captured.

For now make up some smaller tubing with a flange on each end that touches the bushings and the bar arms. that should keep it centered.

Your next issue that I could see happening will be that the swaybar itself could bend on the ends, it will probably take a long time for that to happen but it can.

After that you are now stuck with that size bar, you can't go down in dia. or up for that matter as you have moved the bushings in on the bar and the typical area for them to run is right at the end just off the edge of the splines.

A sway bar can be tuned to allow good body roll control and still allow for articulation. it is a meet things in the middle type thing though.

We have three bars for the rear of the race car and two for the front. It just depends on what we want out the car.

Bars are cheap in reality once you have all of the other parts.
 
Wheres the pics of it attached to something??? :dunno:

I don't have any pics of it attached yet but here is a pic of what the end link looks like. Just imagine that mounted in the last hole in the arm and to a bracket on the axle. I get some real solid installed pics when I get back to it on Wednesday.

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Was there a reason for not runyning the sleeve all the way out to arms? I realize the box is in the way but would it have been possible to move the bar another half inch forward to make the room? Either way. If you decide your not happy with it and want to take it the rest of the way out it shouldn't be too tough to do.
 
Was there a reason for not runyning the sleeve all the way out to arms? I realize the box is in the way but would it have been possible to move the bar another half inch forward to make the room? Either way. If you decide your not happy with it and want to take it the rest of the way out it shouldn't be too tough to do.

Yea, I probably could have moved it another half in forward on the frame to clear the box but by the time I realized I didn't have it far enough forward, the hole was already cut so for anyone else who does this, learn from my mistake!

I ordered some shaft collars and those should easily get rid of the side to side movement so it should be fine. Luckily shaft collars are cheap.

Also, here are some pictures of the arms attached to the axles.

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Either way it looks good! Your one of the few folks out there with cross over steering AND a sway bar!
 

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