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sway bars


Guest Anonymous

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I'd like to think that there isn't much difference in sway bars, but I'm sure they all amke them to different tensil strength and pliability. Morgan, what sizes did they have? I paid $170 for my front 1 1/8 unit with all poly mounts and endlinks from another source.

 

Mike

 

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http://hometown.aol.com/dat74z/myhomepage/auto.html

"I will not be a spectator in the sport of life!"

mjk

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Guest Anonymous

Has anyone ever "adjusted" a sway bar? I need to take the ends on my rear sway bar in by 20mm a side. . . .Ive been told that you can heat them red, bend them and then let them cool slowly. The person who told me this said that this is all that the spring people do?

Anyone know about this?

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I'm thinking about doing just that Simon. I have a set of sway bars off a 280zx turbo, which are considerably thicker than the 240z ones. The problem is, they are a slightly different shape.

 

I plan on either a) heating and bending, being very careful with my temperatures. Or B) Figuring out some way of sectioning the bar and reattaching it. B) makes me shiver a little, but I figure if you were to remove a couple inches out of the dead center, weld it together, then put a ~4-6" piece of pipe over that section it would not fail catastophically. smile.gif Of course I'd be pretty paranoid about it and check it often.

 

All things considered, I like a) better.

 

I guess another option would be to chop off the ends and use an adjustable clamp connection to the sway bar itself allowing me to effectively shorten it the small amount I need to.

 

 

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Drax240z

1972 240z - L28TURBO transplant on the way!

Drax's 72 240Z Turbo

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I think most "regular" anti-roll bars are made from the same kind of spring steel. The only real difference would be bar thickness and end link type (stamped or welded on). Again, this is only a guess on my part.

 

The real differences in anti-roll bars comes when you start comparing regular with tubular and blade. There you see huge differences in quality and tuneability (and price).

 

 

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John Coffey

johnc@betamotorsports.com

 

[This message has been edited by johnc (edited January 11, 2001).]

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  • 2 weeks later...

Be careful about what you consider "catastrophic failure" in a sway bar. Sure, it might not come apart and hit something like say a gas tank but think about when it might fail... Say how about in the middle of a nice offramp with the car pulling some hard Gs - I'd imagine the sudden loss of the sway bar might be enough to stick the car into the guardrail at the very least. frown.gif I think I'd stick to heating it up or buying one that's made to fit. Do be aware that the stock mounts up front can be a bit weak, my parts car had the mounts ripped out and repaired at least once. The sway bar I've got from that car is a MONSTER!

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Simon,

 

If you have a rear mount rear anti-roll bar you are better off putting spacer blocks on the mounts themselves instead of messing with the bar ends. Most rear mounted anti-roll bars on the Z have to be spaced back about 1" to keep the bar from binding under full rear bump.

 

 

 

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John Coffey

johnc@betamotorsports.com

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I've had a lot of experience in modifing sway bars. Currently I use an RX7 front bar on the rear of my Z and a Suburban front bar on the front of my Z. On all the bars I've modified (about 5), I only had to change the angle of the arms no more than about 15 degrees, and re-do the ends (shortend the arms). I did the bending with a good press and a custom set of arbors to hold the bar in position. The spring steel that the bars are made out of will bend, but only a small amount before the bar breaks (and I'm tell'in ya now, you don't want to be around when it does). Do not heat the bar to bend it because this will take the temper out of the bar, making it useless. If you do heat it, you will need to get it tempered again, which is as expensive as buying a new bar. In my case, no one made a bar like I needed. To re-do the ends, I lopped off the ends, and then ground the new ends flat. Then I drilled new holes in the flatten ends (it took several bits to accomplish this on this spring steel). On smaller bars a slight amount of material was added to the edges of the flats to make them wider. The heat did not travel up the arm (cooled with damp cloth and short welding times) thus keeping the arms tempered. I've had great success with this method of modifing existing bars, but extreme care MUST be taken in bending the bars. To build and temper one bar would have been over $300 to build, thus was my incentive to modify an existing bar.

 

Terry

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I just got MSA sways for my 240 for Christmas from my wife. (Finally!!) Kit is complete with fasteners, links, and spacers etc. Front installation took 10 minutes to R&R! Rears will take considerably longer if you have a 240 w/o stock rear sway. Still should be no big deal. Quality overall seems excellent made of automotive grade spring steel, forged ends, urethane, nice hardware. Just the front made a huge difference!

JS

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i got a 1 1/16 suspension techniques front bar laying around cause it was too stiff with front springs i am using .went to 7/8 bar and understeer problem at turn 6 at sears point went away.my point-if car feels like it is good on street you still dont know what will happen under track conditions.you know you are really into r&D when you have stuff you bought & ran one day at track and took it off.

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