Favorite Sway Bars? - Northern California Ford Owners

This is topic Favorite Sway Bars? in forum Road Racing, Auto X & Drifting at Northern California Ford Owners .

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Posted by White02GT (Member # 611) on :

What kind of sway bars would you guys reccomend? The car is basically just a street car, but I want much improved handling. Thanks

Posted by Black94 5.0 (Member # 655) on :

You should put money into stiffening the chassis, lower control arms, shocks/struts, and springs before you should touch the sway bars..Sway bars are better to fine tune after you have your whole suspension set-up.......
I would try putting in urethane bushings and end links up front...In the back I would try a sway bar that mounts to the axle and the chassis, its more affective than the stock set up..

Posted by White02GT (Member # 611) on :

So far I have bilstein shocks/struts w/ steeda sport springs and steeda CC plates. I plan on getting MM subframe's also.

Posted by 1sicgt (Member # 714) on :

I have the Steeda Tubular front sway bar, and I love it. Just be sure to go to shorter endlinks when you change bar, if the car is lowered you already aren't getting the full motion out of the sway bar anymore.

Posted by rr_mustang (Member # 888) on :

I would recommend keeping the stock swaybar in front but upgrading to urethane bushings on the end-links. Upgrade the rear s/b, although you might not need to depending on what you are planning on doing with the rear suspension.

Suspension Techniques makes some good ones, reasonably priced.

Posted by Bullitt208 (Member # 441) on :

Why would you want to put a stiffer sway-bar on the front of a car that already has massive understeer. Like someone said previously, sway-bars should be used to fine tune the suspension after you've got the rest pretty well settled. You'd benefit more by installing a panhard bar to address part of the Mustangs biggest weakness, the rear end. The cost isn't that much more than new sway-bars, and you'd end up with a better handling car.

Eric

Posted by White02GT (Member # 611) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Bullitt208:
Why would you want to put a stiffer sway-bar on the front of a car that already has massive understeer. Like someone said previously, sway-bars should be used to fine tune the suspension after you've got the rest pretty well settled. You'd benefit more by installing a panhard bar to address part of the Mustangs biggest weakness, the rear end. The cost isn't that much more than new sway-bars, and you'd end up with a better handling car.

Eric

Thanks. Should I pick up some LCA's also? I plan on getting the MM panhard bar.

Posted by Black94 5.0 (Member # 655) on :

Yes, get the MM LCA's....If you plan on going with Coil overs dont bother buying the Adjustable LCA's [Big Grin]

Posted by White02GT (Member # 611) on :

I would love to get an aggressive set up for my car, but I don't think I could handle all the bumps on daily driving, and I know my gf would never want to get in it. So I'm slowly moving along.

Posted by Bullitt208 (Member # 441) on :

quote:
Originally posted by White02GT:
Thanks. Should I pick up some LCA's also? I plan on getting the MM panhard bar.

The M/M lower control arms are a nice complement to their panhard bar. The PHB locates the axle laterally and lca's locate the axle fore/aft. The stock lca's have voided rubber bushings that allow a fair amount of fore/aft movement and axle wind-up. The M/M lca's have a metal spherical axle/poly frame bushing which locates the axle much better and reduces wind-up. You should know that NVH will increase to some degree, because you are removing some of the rubber isolation between the suspension and frame. If you can, take a ride in someone's car that has the M/M pieces, and see if it is to noisy or harsh for you.

Eric

[ January 14, 2003, 11:25 AM: Message edited by: Bullitt208 ]

Posted by rr_mustang (Member # 888) on :

quote:
Originally posted by White02GT:
Thanks. Should I pick up some LCA's also? I plan on getting the MM panhard bar.

There was a PHB on the Shelby Site for sale - $250 new

Posted by White02GT (Member # 611) on :

quote:
Originally posted by rr_mustang:

quote:
Originally posted by White02GT:
Thanks. Should I pick up some LCA's also? I plan on getting the MM panhard bar.
There was a PHB on the Shelby Site for sale - $250 new

Thanks for the tip, I checked it out, but it was meant for 87-93's.

Posted by Tri-Bar (Member # 2191) on :

I have a 1 3/8 on the front. MM 3/4 soild on the rear. Putting a larger sway bar on the front does not mean it will oversteer more. On the early as well as the late model Mustangs it will help. I ran my car with the stock bar, then after I installed the larger one with no other changes I pick up 2 sec and the push was gone. Same thing happened with my all my other early Mustangs I have had. It depends on the car, The strut set up like the bigger bar. It limits the bad neg camber change.

Posted by sicmaro (Member # 2323) on :

I like Hotchiks sway bars. [dance]

Posted by Bullitt208 (Member # 441) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Tri-Bar:
I have a 1 3/8 on the front. MM 3/4 soild on the rear. Putting a larger sway bar on the front does not mean it will oversteer more.

Your right the car won't oversteer more it will understeer more. Mustangs come from the factory with swaybars tuned for understeer. Why would you want to add a larger one to the front and increase it?

quote:
On the early as well as the late model Mustangs it will help. I ran my car with the stock bar, then after I installed the larger one with no other changes I pick up 2 sec and the push was gone.

How did you reduce understeer installing a larger front sway bar? Installing only a front sway bar essentially increases the front spring rate. This will cause weight that was once carried by the rear to be carried by the front increasing understeer. Maybe you picked up time because you felt more comfortable pushing the car to it's limits while it was understeering?

quote:
Same thing happened with my all my other early Mustangs I have had. It depends on the car, The strut set up like the bigger bar. It limits the bad neg camber change.

Larger swaybars will have the effect of reducing body roll which should reduce camber gain, but they are not the solution for a properly set-up suspension.

The items (lca's/PHB) recommended to White02GT will go a lot further in addressing the Mustangs suspension shortcomings than larger sway bars will. This is why the recommendation was to spend his money on these items instead of the swaybars.

Eric

Posted by White02GT (Member # 611) on :

I e-mailed Apex for different price quotes and Bill wrote me back with the suggestion that if I were going to get a panhard bar, that I needed to get the torque arm also. Is this accurate or more of a suggestion?

"Otherwise, the rotation of the Panhard bar will conflict with the movements of the upper control arms, thus causing more bind that is present without the Panhard bar. Low- to mid-speed handling will feel better than stock, but you'll experience nasty high-speed oversteer and unpredictable handling at the limit."

Does anybody have any other opinion on this?

Posted by Bullitt208 (Member # 441) on :

I guess the best answer I can give is to refer you to this thread, which covers the same topic. It also has links to another site where the tech is extremely good.

Eric

http://www.cafords.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=7;t=000047

Posted by White02GT (Member # 611) on :

Stoked, I'd love to get a look at your car sometime and your setup. I am down here in the south bay so los gatos isn't very far for me. Send me a pm if I could see your car sometime. Thanks

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