Hello everybody! Today we're gonna go over sway bars.
Specifically what they do for you and why you need them.
All right I'm Bill and I'm Charles and we're gonna go over sway bars today like exactly what do they
do why do you want them and how do they work. This is just an example of what we see on a lot of
muscle cars this is a front bar in particular but really common to not only muscle cars but they put
these in everything. Everything now has sway bars in it. Oh yeah I mean if you want a modern car to
handle you know when you're going down the road and you don't want it to be like some old pickup
or car from the 60s. Yeah. It's gonna have to have a sway bar in it. Yep. And the way these work is
really simple this is a torsion spring. From here to here this is your torsion spring length so
what that's doing is these arms are your lever arm as the suspension articulates and has
different angles to your control arms it is twisting this bar right. And in twisting that bar
you are adding spring rate to your outside corner so can you explain that a little bit? So when you
start let's say you're going to make a corner to the left and of course your vehicle is going to
naturally want to lean to the right and so that's going to compress the suspension on the right side
forcing this bar upwards. Well at the same time that's converting to rotation
through the sway bar and trying to do the same thing to the side it's trying to raise it.
But the car is dropping that side so if the car is leaning it's picking up this side and dropping
that side so you're getting this change in angle between your control arms. So this takes it tries
to take all of that out. It's trying to push the right side down and lift lift the left side up
at the same time therefore taking your vehicle and leveling it out. There are different most of these
that we make or everything that we make here is made to fit a factory application. It's gonna be
a bolt-on upgrade for whatever your your hot rod of choice is. And with that comes some of this
you know this shape and this geometry of the tube is largely packaging. It's like how does it
actually fit the chassis what does it have to go around what does it have to clear. But this length
right here from here to here that's your lever arm. Yes and so the longer it is the less force
it's going to put on your suspension the shorter it is the more force just like the diameter of
the bar the bigger the bar is the more torsional spring rate it's going to have. And there's even
some sway bars out there that have like multiple holes in them which basically changes the length
of your arm to make it more adjustable. So the bar itself maintains its spring rate essentially but
by having a longer or shorter lever arm you're changing how far that will twist when that load
transfers from side to side. Exactly. If you boil it all down what a sway bar is doing is it
is adding spring rate to your outside corner. Yep. Yep and it's it's trying to rewrite your vehicle
so it's leaning less and by leaning less you're going to maintain that your tire contact patch on
the road and you're not going to cause your tires to basically you know especially your outside tire
you're not going to make it lean outwards you're going to maintain that contact patch of the road.
So therefore you're going to maintain traction and be able to go through a corner you know faster and
you know with less sway. Yep and there there's a couple of different ways of doing sway bars
most of them especially in the front will mount to the chassis using two straps like this and then
they'll have an end link that runs from your sway bar down to your control arm. There are slightly
different styles of that especially when you get into the rear of cars particularly in solid axles
but it's all doing the same thing it's taking two suspension components that are articulating
opposite of each other and it's using that opposition to twist the bar. Yeah and and like you
were saying before like this connects to the lower control arm and on some strut cars it actually
connects directly to the strut itself. Handling situation we've talked a lot about but what about
a drag racing situation? What do you do for sway bars and drag racing? So in drag racing you don't
normally run a front sway bar because one you're not going to be making corners on us on a drag
strip well at least you hope you don't. Yeah. And because you you're you're getting extra resistance
to this and you you want that front suspension to move as easily as possible and you don't want that
extra weight from a sway bar in the front. But on the rear on the other hand you do want a sway bar
because that helps to prevent the car from twisting excessively under the torque of the motor
trying to turn you know lean the car and with a sway bar you're going to help keep that body level
and you're also going to help maintain even pressure on both of your rear tires for traction.
Yeah a drag car a hard launching drag car has a very strong ten...not even a tendency it it
is trying to rotate the axle about the pinion. Tt's trying to rotate it around the pinion. So
there again you're having like this difference in angle between the chassis
and the axle so a rear sway bar rear anti-roll bar they call them different things sometimes
in different disciplines but it's doing the same thing it's just trying to take what the car is
perceiving as some sort of a twist and is trying to untwist it. Long story short sway bars work
by giving you some spring rate when the suspension is articulating. They're very easy to install
and they also one thing we haven't touched on yet is a large sway bar can allow you to
run a different spring rate. Can you explain that a little bit? So a lot of times you run a
heavier spring rate to you know prevent the car from you know leaning over too far. But
with this with a larger sway bar you can you could basically take some of the spring rate out because
you've got that extra spring rate when you're going into corners where you really need it.
Where on that when you're on a straightaway and just hitting bumps you don't need all that excess
you know spring rate at your on the corners of the car. When both arms move up at the same time in
the same direction the bar does nothing. Because it's not transf...it's not twisting if it's not
twisting this bar it's not changing your spring rate whatsoever and small movements you know
one tire hits a bump compared to the other small little movements are not going to provide enough
twist through the bar to actually change your spring rate much at all. So in a streetcar
application in particular where you do where ride quality is of high importance you can run
a lower spring rate if you've got a stiffer sway bar. Yes. Yeah big bar soft spring is a common
common tuning strategy. So I hope this demystified some things about sway bars for you they're pretty
simple devices in all actuality. They're they're easy to install they bolt right on and they add
a lot to the way your car works. I would say it's one of the biggest things that can help
with handling of a car especially if you've got an older car from the 60s that doesn't even have
a sway bar on it. It'll make a huge difference in how that car handles. Check them out go to our
website get a hold of us on social media. We're here to answer your questions if you got them.