just HOW important is my front sway bar? (airbag install ?)

Well, now.......that is a graphic illustration of thinking outside the box. I like it, even though it would be hard for me to get used to seeing. Thanks.

 

well dr j, i'm not sure of the exact diameter, but i know it's smaller than 1". was it an option on the elko because it was a smaller car? i'm guessing the size and weight of the car would make a difference??

guess i'll find out tomorrow when i try and finish this shit up.

thanks for the pics donnie and esnacky6!!

 

thats pretty much exactly what i was planning. cant tell for sure, but does it unbolt from the frame? i was planning to either have the bar going across unbolt, or the whole assembly unbolt from the frame. it seems like it might be hard to pull a motor with that there.

 

yea those bars are spinged steel. maybe they clamped something on it. it was a long time ago when i saw it. but yea welding on it would fuck it up preety bad and throw it all outa wack.

Bryan

 

erik,
i know you are kidding about not needing shocks .riiiight????????.....ever drivin a car with no or bad front shocks?..the shimmy and/or wheel hop is awful.....not so much fun......


and as far as not wanting to see it......i actually think it looks pretty cool.... especially when its chromed etc........besides its a custom the hood will only be up for checking the oil etc.......i know some will bitch that its not '' traditional...but then again either are bagged cars that lay on the ground....

just an idea for you......if you go another route i would be interested to see what you do.....i will tell you i love this set up....and after having mine this way. my buddy is redoing his rivi just like this...........

 

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thats pretty much exactly what i was planning. cant tell for sure, but does it unbolt from the frame? i was planning to either have the bar going across unbolt, or the whole assembly unbolt from the frame. it seems like it might be hard to pull a motor with that there.

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yeah dude the whole thiing unbolts as a unit......haha i said unit.........you will love it.......

 

im running no shocks in front right now, no shimmy or wheel hop. just feels really floaty, thats why i am putting shocks up there. that and it will slow the bags down a bit. half inch valves are toooo fast, dont use them unless you want to hop.

 

Spring steel anti-sway bars? I always thought so too. Then, I see a subframe narrowing feature in a big-name magazine some years back and it outlines narrowing the Camaro anti-sway bar to fit the narrowed sub,,,WTF? They cut, welded and sleeved the bar, right in the middle! I dunno, I always counted on my bar to be a big spring, keeping the lower control arms as parallel to each other as possible on a corner and then returning to it's original shape. If it's not spring steel, how can this happen?
Killer, expound on your claim of "No it's not"
Wassup?

 

hahaha....no doubt too fast.... no shimmy or hop huh....lucky.....but then again i did take it on the 5 here and that freeway sucks ass in any car.......i actually have 1/4 line and it works nice . not too fast and definatley not too slow....i saw your signature. i used to be in a car club called west coast scrap metal......kinda funny.......

 

yeah donnie, i'm just playing around. shocks are a must. i may however have to go for a bit without the fronts.

i've been without my car for 2 weeks, and it's my only transportation. i think i can complete the install tomorrow, minus the front shocks.

i'll just have to be extra carefull, and if it gives me hell, then i'll park it until i can figure out the mounts.

that said,i really like the set up you have. it is however, well beyond my fabrication skills at this point. i do have some buddies who do metal work, so maybe i can schedule some time with them to make a similar set up.

 

well, i'm running 1/2"line with 1/2 fill valves and 3/8" dumps. we'll see how it goes up and down. easy and cheap enought to remedy if i find it too fast either way.

 

cool man i want pics of that bad boy all aired out.........

 

as my mama used to say

"YOU'LL GET NOTHING AND YOU'LL LIKE IT!"

kidding man. i'll be taking plenty of pics tomorrow.

gonna be one LONG day

 

i have half inch ups and downs. dumps are reduced to 1/4" on the outlet. makes the speed perfect. if anyone wants to trade something smaller for my expensive half inchers, let me know.

 

That's a cool shock mount. I may need to think about something like that for the Cad. Mine barley fit between the tie rod and the control arms right now and it's at a wierd angel I think. As for the sway bar. You'll hate life with out it sometimes. Mines disconected right now. Needless to say it drags side mirors. I have a mixed feeling about what Dr.J posted. They make sway bars that are hollow. I had one on my last car that was made from 2" tube. Worked awsome too. Thinking of making one like that for this car. I see the theory behind it being made like a spring but I don't think it's a standard practice.

 

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Killer, expound on your claim of "No it's not"
Wassup?

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Aww geez, this is gonna gimme a headache….

I’m gonna start by saying I am in no way an expert (I only play one on TV), I can only go by what I know. I have made quite a few sway bars… for people who like to race the cones in parking lots, to off road junkies… I have never used the formula myself to figure out the optimum sway bar to use, I have only gone by what the people bring to me…

If I’m mistaken in anything here, please tell me! Knowledge is power with cars and I don’t ever want to stop learnin….

We need to know what a sway bar is cause the Doc used 2 different terminologies in his warning. A torsion bar is a totally different animal than a sway bar…

A torsion bar is a spring. In as much as it does hold the weight and height of the vehicle. Welding to a torsion bar is definitely a no no!

A sway bar is basically a “U” shaped piece of metal that attaches to both wheels at the ends and the chassis in the middle.

A sway bar controls body roll. For body roll to occur, the suspension on the outside of the car must compress while the suspension on the inside extends. Since the sway bar is there, that movement (or lack of) is determined by the bars “ torsional stiffness”.

2 factors determine a sway bars “torsional stiffness” (or resistance to twist):

1. the bars diameter
2. the length of the movement arm

You can use this equation to figure the “torsional stiffness” of a bar:

twist = (2 x torque x length)/(p x diam4 x material modulus)

The movement arm is basically the amount of leverage between the vehicle and the bar. On a normal “u” shaped sway bar, the ends of the bar are the movement arm (the piece that bends in) . The shorter this lever is the harder it is for any amount of energy to twist the bar.

In a nutshell, you can take any length of steel, attach movement arms to the ends and get it to twist and come back to "neutral" (which would make one assume it some sort of “spring steel”).

I did a lot of research when I was first asked to make a sway bar. To the best of my memory, not one company said they used “spring steel”. Most aftermarket companies, if using a hollow bar, used chromoly. I talked to 2 companies that made solid bars and the answer was “Come on J, it’s just steel!” (I know a couple people who work for sway bar manufacturers) .

I guess that’s it. If anyone knows any different, let me know!

Oh yeah, you can take the sway bar off a car with air bags as long as you have seperate valves for each bag. You'll experience a bit of body roll but it's not bad.

Oh yeah 2... Nice set up Donnie!

 

jason,
i was curious what your take on it would be.....i have a ton of respect for you and your work......glad you liked it.....i guess lookin at this stuff everyday at work you get to see some pretty SCARY work....i was hopin to get to meet you at the hambchop but i guess i will have to wait.....cool man...again thanks glad you like the set up.....

 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Killer, expound on your claim of "No it's not"
Wassup?

[/ QUOTE ]

Aww geez, this is gonna gimme a headache….

I’m gonna start by saying I am in no way an expert (I only play one on TV), I can only go by what I know. I have made quite a few sway bars… for people who like to race the cones in parking lots, to off road junkies… I have never used the formula myself to figure out the optimum sway bar to use, I have only gone by what the people bring to me…

If I’m mistaken in anything here, please tell me! Knowledge is power with cars and I don’t ever want to stop learnin….

We need to know what a sway bar is cause the Doc used 2 different terminologies in his warning. A torsion bar is a totally different animal than a sway bar…

A torsion bar is a spring. In as much as it does hold the weight and height of the vehicle. Welding to a torsion bar is definitely a no no!

A sway bar is basically a “U” shaped piece of metal that attaches to both wheels at the ends and the chassis in the middle.

A sway bar controls body roll. For body roll to occur, the suspension on the outside of the car must compress while the suspension on the inside extends. Since the sway bar is there, that movement (or lack of) is determined by the bars “ torsional stiffness”.

2 factors determine a sway bars “torsional stiffness” (or resistance to twist):

1. the bars diameter
2. the length of the movement arm

You can use this equation to figure the “torsional stiffness” of a bar:

twist = (2 x torque x length)/(p x diam4 x material modulus)

The movement arm is basically the amount of leverage between the vehicle and the bar. On a normal “u” shaped sway bar, the ends of the bar are the movement arm (the piece that bends in) . The shorter this lever is the harder it is for any amount of energy to twist the bar.

In a nutshell, you can take any length of steel, attach movement arms to the ends and get it to twist and come back to "neutral" (which would make one assume it some sort of “spring steel”).

I did a lot of research when I was first asked to make a sway bar. To the best of my memory, not one company said they used “spring steel”. Most aftermarket companies, if using a hollow bar, used chromoly. I talked to 2 companies that made solid bars and the answer was “Come on J, it’s just steel!” (I know a couple people who work for sway bar manufacturers) .

I guess that’s it. If anyone knows any different, let me know!

Oh yeah, you can take the sway bar off a car with air bags as long as you have seperate valves for each bag. You'll experience a bit of body roll but it's not bad.

Oh yeah 2... Nice set up Donnie!

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Think Killer prettymuch has it down...

Not that i know a damn thing about a damn thing...
But:
used to work at a company... among lotsa other stuff, we made and modified anti-roll bars for lots of custom applications, mostly race...
we used 4130 chrome-moly for bars up to 1 inch... 4340 for bars over 1 inch... after being formed to the right shape (torch), they were heat treated to a tensile strentgh of 170,000psi (give or take 10k). The heat treating was sent out to another shop.

We'd also heat and bend some factory bars, as well as modify them for adjustable mounts... many times NOT heat treating them again after... never once had a failure. Dont heat cherry red, just yellow, and on the inside of the bend... go slow. 'Course, nobody asked about this part...

Be careful when messing with removing, modifying, or changing anti-roll bars... understeer can be a bitch... oversteer even worse in many cases (unless you're a pimpy drift-king, then it's all kindsa fun).


side note: lownslow... the shock mounts are sweeet... really dig that! Ever look at a lot of pre-runners? many have the same setup... figure if it works well with THAT kinda abuse, it's gotta be great for the street...
also- saw your car on the road not too long ago- flake roof looks great, dude... dig that car

 

[ QUOTE ]

...used to work at a company... among lotsa other stuff, we made and modified anti-roll bars for lots of custom applications, mostly race...
we used 4130 chrome-moly for bars up to 1 inch... 4340 for bars over 1 inch... after being formed to the right shape (torch), they were heat treated to a tensile strentgh of 170,000psi (give or take 10k). The heat treating was sent out to another shop.



[/ QUOTE ]
Heat treating is how you make a spring out of a piece of carbon steel.
some properties of steal is it's elasticity and memory. If you twist or bend it within it's elastic limits it will return to it's previous shape because of it's memory. Heat treating and properly tempering (a controlled partial annealing) increases the above mentioned properties.
We have cussed and discussed I beam and tube axles and how they affect the longevity of hairpins. If you make a mild steel bar anti-rollbar of large enough material to not bend or twist past it's point of elasticity then it will return, in affect it probably won't twist at all. It will just lift the low wheel to the same point relative to the chassis as the high one. And yes that more than effectively makes it an anti roll device. but it's not in the least progressive, it sort of works like a hybrid DeDion axle, difference being on a DeDeon the camber doesn't change like a IFS does.

Here's a definition from a "higher power" than me.
RACING CAR DESIGN and Develoment by Len Terry and Alan Baker.
(Len Terry was designer on most of the Lotus race cars)
Chapter on Handling Characteristics, page 122;
"An anti-roll bar is a transverse steel torsion spring (of rod, tube or bar) with cranked ends; these are linked to the suspension, at or near the wheels, and the straight mid-portion is held ( but not clamped) to the chassis."
(It goes on to explain why you don't want too stiff a spring rate or anti-sway bar rate, etc.)

Lets look at this logically.
If you make a "U" shaped cranked bar out of welding rod size material and fastened it up to the suspension, the car would just bend it and it would stay bent until the car leaned the other way and bent it back until the car's motion work hardened the rod and it broke, right?
Ok, now increase the size of that rod until the can totally resist the weight of the car and the car's leaning can no longer bend it to the point where it stays bent.
That is what you have to have if you make it out of steel that isn't a "spring".
Problem is it isn't progressive, if you lift one side it lifts the opposite side the same amount at the same time.
It would be like having rail road car trucks under the chassis (which might work for "drifting" but it would be whether you want to or not.)

 

lownslo--here's a bag setup like your shock setup--pretty cool idea--

 

While pulling that pic from my files I found this. It's crudely done, but seems like a lot of lift is possible. Anyone seen a cantilever front setup like this?

 

unnecessarily rude and inflammatory remark deleted by author.

 

That "lever" set up is similar to what Extensive Metal works is using on their Hummer H2 and Escalade. Overkill if you ask me. So what is the consensus on welding to the sway bar. What if some sort of clamping device was made to clamp the shock mount to the sway bar. I currently dont have shocks on the front of my bagged daily driver and it is not to bad in town but freeway driving makes me sea sick. I have thought seriously about a prerunner style mount but in order for that to work on my application I would need to cut my innere fenders and relocate a bunch of crap that I am not willing to do on this thing.

 

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That "lever" set up is similar to what Extensive Metal works is using on their Hummer H2 and Escalade. Overkill if you ask me. So what is the consensus on welding to the sway bar. What if some sort of clamping device was made to clamp the shock mount to the sway bar. I currently dont have shocks on the front of my bagged daily driver and it is not to bad in town but freeway driving makes me sea sick. I have thought seriously about a prerunner style mount but in order for that to work on my application I would need to cut my innere fenders and relocate a bunch of crap that I am not willing to do on this thing.

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The lever end of the Anti-sway bar attaches,(with extensions) to a bracket on the lower control arm somewhere, usually, (generally speaking, your car may differ.) Expand the use of that bracket by welding or bolting a dual purpose bracket to it, or near it.

 

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unnecessarily rude and inflammatory remark deleted by author.



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But it was honest!

 

Is a sway bar a perpendicular acceleration choke?

 

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Heat treating is how you make a spring out of a piece of carbon steel.

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Huh?? I dunno bout that... I do know you can buy cold rolled oil hardened and tempered, spring steel???

Heat treating... steel heated to the point where it becomes non-magnetic. Then it's quenched in water, oil or air depending on the type of steel. It's now at it's maximum nardness but very brittle. To reduce the brittleness the metal is tempered by heating it to some where between 350°F and 1350°F. This reduces the hardness a little and the brittelness a lot. Heat treating is used to take the work hardening (from forming) out of the part and make it stronger...

Like I said before, I'm no expert, I can only go by what I know. Every sway bar I have ever made or seen has not been made of "spring steel". All tube, when levers are attached to the ends, will twist at one end while the other won't.

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if you lift one side it lifts the opposite side the same amount at the same time.

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No, it won't. Try it. Fix one end of the bar (with levers, they are an important part) to something and lift the other.