Custom Swaybar Maker?...

[Van]

Anyone know of someone who can take a gander at my car and tell me what/if anything can be fabbed up as far as front swaybars? The swaybar on the car now is tiny and has several bends. Just wondering what can be done.

Steering is pretty sloppy but I'm hoping to correct that with fresh bushings, shocks, and hopefully a custom swaybar.

Thanks,
Van

[aleliaert]

If you need to go custom, you could always experiment with a modified OE unit. Preferably not the only OE unit you have, in case something goes wrong.

One trick might be to shorten the "arm" at each end of the bar by locating the holes closer to the axis of the section(s) under torsion. Each side of the suspension then has less leverage to twist the bar. If the bar is tubular, pinch the flat section at the end more to get room for another hole. If solid, carefully grind more flat area.

Or one could add additional stiffness to the section(s) under torsion. Think steel rod/strip/channel welded alongside.

[LoCore]

Calling Mr. Barclay. Mr. Barclay, time to fire up the welder...

[eladams]

Adco claims they will make bars to order

[Built-By-Bones]

Theoretically speaking, welding to an OEM bar, or fabricating an aftermarket bar by welding bits together, is a big no-no. Welding puts a lot of heat into the steel and the area heated up is commonly referred to as the HAZ (heat affected zone). Gas and Mig welding tends to have larger a larger HAZ while Tig produces a smaller HAZ, but Tig concentrates the heat into a smaller area so the temp gradient is higher. Within the HAZ the crystalline stucture of the metal has changed, and unless the the part is post heat treated, the transition from HAZ to non-affected orgininal metal remains a weak point.

Ask Smark where his swaybar kept breaking last year, right next to the weld.

Stock cars can be a real pain to work with, because packaging not performance is the chief goal. So most OEM bars have multiple bends in them. This usually means that any aftermarket parts must be produced in a quantity sufficient to justify the capital investment. I doubt anyone has thought of producing something for the Mitsu, sorry Van.

So you are left with two options
- Modify an OEM bar, as suggested by Aaron, trying the shorter attachment points if possible. And if you do add material to the bar, be aware it may break at some point as I described above. I would try to find a junkyard example or two and work on those. This is also your cheapest solution.

- Go with an aftermarket bar, a generic racing bar. These are going to be straight pieces of tube (not solid bar, except in a few cases), splined at the ends, with various length arms often with multiple mounting holes, and these attach to the axle or hub with adjustable end linkages. This is the best type of swaybar, but is expensive and requires some fabrication to make it work on a stock type car. Most likely not going to be legal for a stock class, but in certain cases it could be. The advantages are that you can swap from one tube thickness to another easily and can change the position of the end links easily for quick tuning changes. For some of the offroad trucks we work on, we spend about $1000 for a setup like this, per axle.

The ulimate bars are the blade type bars which allow infinite adjustability over their range, but are expensive and packaging on a non-dedicated race car is a nightmare.

Redneck (or cheap) solutions I have seen include using the torsion bars from a Chevy S10 mounted across the chassis and attached with a link to the hubs, it worked surprisingly well.

[Van]

Hey thanks for the info, guys!

- Go with an aftermarket bar, a generic racing bar. These are going to be straight pieces of tube (not solid bar, except in a few cases), splined at the ends, with various length arms often with multiple mounting holes, and these attach to the axle or hub with adjustable end linkages. This is the best type of swaybar, but is expensive and requires some fabrication to make it work on a stock type car. Most likely not going to be legal for a stock class, but in certain cases it could be. The advantages are that you can swap from one tube thickness to another easily and can change the position of the end links easily for quick tuning changes. For some of the offroad trucks we work on, we spend about $1000 for a setup like this, per axle.

Grant, this is kinda the idea I was leaning towards when I made the post. Guess I'll pull out the rulebook and see what I'm allowed to do.

Thanks again, everyone.
Van

[ChrisBitner]

Grant, I've looked at Van's car and the stock bar is pencil thin (guessing 12-14mm?), routed behind the engine against the dash (not under the car), and is connected to the LCA with a drop link a long ways inboard of the strut/knuckle balljoint thus a very poor motion ratio. Basically it's almost worthless. Increasing the bar stiffness enough to do something (50-100%+) will put large bending loads on the center of the LCA, which is not designed for it, and extremely "wimpy" IMHO (I have the same fear of large bar loads on my Civic now that I'm going to stock class). I think the only safe way is to get a bar underneath the car (maybe at the LCA pickups?) and link into the strut, ala BMW/Mini/Mazda strut designs. But this solution might kill ground clearance, and it would be reeeeeeally challenging to get the arms and links into the right location without hitting the driveshaft, limiting steering angle, travel, etc. You know what the mini front bar looks like to make this happen, not a simple situation. But someone smarter than me needs to look at it...

BTW, the rules would permit this, but only if all mods were drill/bolt ie no welding permitted. One could machine a clamp-on tab to go around the strut under the spring bucket as the upper pickup point for example.

Cheers
Chris

[Built-By-Bones]

Van and Chris,

yup the wording of the swaybar allowance leads me to beleive you need to use the existing mounting points or have a bolt on mounting system that has no effect on anything else.

so it could be done for stock class, but it is not going to be easy - read cheap.

There are other alternatives, like cryogenically treating the bar to change it's elasticity, but starting with a small bar is not good. And you would have to get a ruling from Doug Gill as to the legality first.

I looked at all the options for the Mini, and ultimately the best value solution was to run higher rebound settings. Even though the Mini has different bars available, the hassle of changing them, and relaligning the car each time was not worth it. The packaging issues on a stock car are the biggest obstacle to a custom bar. And Chris makes a good point about running a very stiff bar into stock control arms or hubs, most are not designed for that.

[dav_it]

Jeff Winter at Rallye-sport. www.rallye-sport.com

Very quality work.

[Nick Leone]

Van check these guys they say " Custom sway bars built to your specifications or ours " they are saner performance fabrication if you have not made your choice they might be able to help if they are still around the web site is www.sanerperffab.com and the phone number is561-873-0238 found it in Grassroots. Hope it helps

[Van]

Thanks, Nick. I've heard of those guys. I emailed them awhile back but have never heard back. I've heard they do good work.......if you can get in touch with them!

Van