Homeade Rear Sway Bar?

[habitatguy187]

Been doing a little bit of welding and stuff lately and I started wondering if it was possible to make a rear sway bar. After looking at how they curve at the ends I decided that it's still a little beyond my skills, but that brought about a new idea.


One fwd 1Gs have a solid rear axle that the sway bar kinda bolts up to, check this thread for pics and reference. http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/art...pension-techniques-rear-sway-bar-install.html


It appears that the axle would bend and twist and I was wondering if it would be beneficial to weld a solid bar to the axle to help with the flex

Also I'm thinking about welding up a solid bar from one side of the car to the other where the ST sway bar actually bolts up to. I'm going to take some pics sometime within the next week and paintbrush my ideas on it , but what do you guys think so far?

 

[PieEyedPiper]

What makes you think the axle will bend or twist?

 

[Calan]

I've been thinking about fabbing my own RSB also. $175 seems a bit much for a bent piece of steel round bar.

 

[endeffect0]

hummm. well i think this may be more complicated than you are thinking. The sway-bars are built with certain spring rates of steel in mind. the whole design takes into account the natural properties of the spring steel they use, the wall thickness of the bar, the physical shape of the bar and the leverage given by the suspension points. and all this aimed at a target rate they determined by looking at the suspension design of the cars. seems like tricky stuff to do in your garage if you ask me.
a sway bar should be matched to the suspension. to completely gloss over the subject you need a stiffer sway-bar to compensate for softer springs, when you get to really stiff spring rates the discussion becomes softer than stock even. A harder rear bar in the back will lower rear grip, proportionally increasing the front grip and killing understeer... and so on.

to build a background of information on what you can do i would recommend checking out blade style adjustable sway bars. incredibly cool stuff that you might be able to adapt to our cars.

perhaps what might be most feasible of all would be to modify a set of aftermarket sway-bars to be adjustable, big gains in handling can be had though sway bar tuning.

as to bracing the axle... I think what you are getting at is a under-body brace between suspension points on the sub-frame. surely your not suggesting bracing the individual axles. *


*sold rear axles do find benefit from bracing along the length of the axle housing in jeeps and more serious drag cars as the deflection of the extiour tube does put additional stress on the axles and causes failure. this obviously has no relevance to our independent rear axle cars.

 

[habitatguy187]

What makes you think the axle will bend or twist?

Because it's not a solid square bar, but more like a U shape, with one side completely open. This alone would seem to encourage and give room for flex and twisting.

this obviously has no relevance to our independent rear axle cars.

1G fwd's don't have independent rear axles though. It's just a whole bunch of G@Y under there.

Anyhow, after looking at the ST bar I think I'm going to try and weld a solid bar where they bolted the sway bar. Have to be careful though cause the gas tank is really close to there. I'm thinking that worse case scenario it will be too stiff and the car will want to powerslide around corners, but that's fine I'll just get some stickier tires. If it's too horrible altogether I'll just cut the bar out. I'll also probably try to get one that has a little flex in it just in case. Thoughts?

 

[PieEyedPiper]

Because it's not a solid square bar, but more like a U shape, with one side completely open. This alone would seem to encourage and give room for flex and twisting.

That sounds perfectly reasonable. I didn't realize it was all open sided.

 

[endeffect0]

Because it's not a solid square bar, but more like a U shape, with one side completely open. This alone would seem to encourage and give room for flex and twisting.



1G fwd's don't have independent rear axles though. It's just a whole bunch of G@Y under there.

Anyhow, after looking at the ST bar I think I'm going to try and weld a solid bar where they bolted the sway bar. Have to be careful though cause the gas tank is really close to there. I'm thinking that worse case scenario it will be too stiff and the car will want to powerslide around corners, but that's fine I'll just get some stickier tires. If it's too horrible altogether I'll just cut the bar out. I'll also probably try to get one that has a little flex in it just in case. Thoughts?

Right the rear axle on a FWD.... brain fart. yea go ahead see what gains can be made.

as far as the sway bar... seriously... go look up blade style sway bars. you can fabricate one of those for our cars. if you decided to just purchase the flexible bit your could have a fully adjustable rear bar... from inside your car. DO IT.

IMOP the way to do this would be to buy a cheap but better than stock front bar. and make an adjustable rear bar. you could completely change the handling characteristics on the fly. want more rear grip in the rain, loosen the bar a notch, auto x slide fun time? a few notches in the other direction.

 

[eclipsh]

Wow, those blade style bars are bad-ass.

Anti-roll Bars

I only had one cup of coffee when I was looking at this so it took a second to see what I was looking at. The blade is the section coming out of the sway bar with the end link on it. It rotates inside the sway bar to change the stiffness of the lever arm. Less flex in the blade means the sway bar rod has to twist more to move. So friggin' cool.

Here's some more info:

Adjustable "Blade Type" Anti-Roll Bars Design Questions - 10-Tenths Motorsport Forum

 

[jacobevan611]

Been doing a little bit of welding and stuff lately and I started wondering if it was possible to make a rear sway bar. After looking at how they curve at the ends I decided that it's still a little beyond my skills, but that brought about a new idea.


One fwd 1Gs have a solid rear axle that the sway bar kinda bolts up to, check this thread for pics and reference. http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/art...pension-techniques-rear-sway-bar-install.html


It appears that the axle would bend and twist and I was wondering if it would be beneficial to weld a solid bar to the axle to help with the flex

Also I'm thinking about welding up a solid bar from one side of the car to the other where the ST sway bar actually bolts up to. I'm going to take some pics sometime within the next week and paintbrush my ideas on it , but what do you guys think so far?

1g's dont have independent rear suspension!?!?

 

[eclipsh]

Nope, not on the FWD cars. The AWD cars do.

 

[habitatguy187]

So blade style sway bars look a little beyond what I'm wanting to do with the car (aka, I'm too lazy and don't care enough to try it)

I was also too lazy to take pics of my own car but I paint-brushed a little yellow bar on the rear axle like I was talking about trying. I'm not sure if it would help at all though because as previously stated the axle is kinda like a U shape, with the bottom side completely open.

Do you guys think that this would help prevent it from flexing/twisting?

You must be logged in to view this image or video.

 

[greengoblin]

Why don't you just box it in . That would be better than adding a bar along the back IMO. Hell you could even put in so internal ribs in the channel/center.

Kevin

 

[habitatguy187]

^^^^ Don't know why I didn't think of that.... I'll try to get it done within the next month and post up photos/seat of the pants results.

 

[greengoblin]

While your welding I'd fab and weld on the mounts for the sway bar.

 

[habitatguy187]

While your welding I'd fab and weld on the mounts for the sway bar.

Are you talking about the mounts that will go here?

You must be logged in to view this image or video.

Basically thinking that squaring off the axle won't be enough? I'm worried that it will be too stiff and will just powerslide all over the place with my old super hard rear tires.

 

[greengoblin]

Not so much that as not using U clamps. At the very least I'd weld them in place if you do. I'm a bit picky thiugh. As for your tires you said old and hard. That is what you should really be looking to upgrade.

Kevin