[DeTomaso] Sway Bar Mounts on A-arms

[wkooiman at earthlink.net]

Either way, I doubt that it's going to cause problems on the street.

Yes, I understand your friend knows suspensions.  My comments are based on the fact that I've been driving my car with a solidly mounted bar on the street for years w/out issues (not heim, but the sphere ball mounts are pretty rigid).

A bigger concern is getting enough clearance without causing rubbing with the exhaust or dragging on the street.  Heim joints add more parts in an already crowded area.

Wait a minute... Do the heim joints, but switch to 180-deg headers.  Best of both worlds.


-----Original Message-----
>From: boyd casey <boyd411 at gmail.com>
>Sent: May 12, 2010 11:44 AM
>To: MikeLDrew at aol.com
>Cc: JDeRyke at aol.com, detomaso at realbig.com
>Subject: Re: [DeTomaso] Sway Bar Mounts on A-arms
>
>You misunderstood. My friend advised me against going with Heim joints on
>the sway bar to a-arm connection. He never said it would damage the car.
>What he said was it it would have a detrimental effect on the handling if I
>were to hit a major pot hole or other defect in the road surface which are
>quite common here in New York. He said that the force of the impact would be
>transferred to the opposite wheel because the Heim joint didn't allow for
>much give. He said if I were building a car for track use it would be fine
>but for a car primarily driven on the street (especially imperfect road
>surfaces) I would be better off sticking with rubber bushings (like the ones
>I have) on my sway bars.
>Boyd
>
>On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 2:35 AM, <MikeLDrew at aol.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> In a message dated 5/9/10 15 23 28, JDeRyke at aol.com writes:
>>
>>
>> Boyd, he's probably not familiar with Panteras which are definitely not
>> race cars. He's right about the 1" sway bar causing problems, which if its
>> a
>> solid 1" bar, will overwhelm the rear of the frame rails and twist them
>> proportionally with the giant bar. This will eventually lead to cracking
>> somewhere.
>>
>>
>> >>>Has this ever happened in the history of Panteras?  I would suggest that
>> it has not.
>>
>> The vendors have sold hundreds and hundreds of 1-inch swaybars and a lot of
>> people here are using them.  Your description makes it sound like they would
>> tear the back of the car to pieces.  The worst-case scenario MIGHT be
>> breaking an A-arm mount, I think.  The only failure mode I personally know
>> of is hollow sway bars snapping under racetrack use.
>>
>> When Jack and I tested swaybars together with Larry Stock in the early
>> 1990s, we found that performance went down, not up, when we moved from the
>> Euro GTS 7/8 bar to the 1-inch bar.  However, that car didn't have the
>> benefit of a chassis stiffening kit.  It would be interesting to repeat that
>> experiment now--it wouldn't surprise me if the results were quite different
>> today, if the chassis was appropriately stiffened.
>>
>> In any case, I still maintain that dollar for dollar, the single best
>> improvement you can make to a Pantera is to ditch the stock 3/4 rear bar and
>> replace it with a 7/8 bar.  The front bar is already 7/8 and can be safely
>> left alone.  I don't think that the improvements associated with changing
>> both bars to 1-inch are worth the effort or cost.
>>
>> And Boyd, your mechanic is either clueless, or you're misunderstanding him
>> when you say that he told you that installing a sway bar that is 1/8 of an
>> inch larger than the factory option bar would be dangerous and make the car
>> leap off the road when it encountered a bump.  That's a laughable idea.
>>
>> Like Jack, I highly recommend the Spherebar mounts for the A-arms.  They
>> really do smooth out the swaybar action on the suspension.  It's perhaps not
>> as good as a true heim system, but it's probably 95% as good, without all
>> the maintenance, complexities, inconvenience and cost of a true heim system.
>>
>> Mike
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