auxilary

the function of a sway bar is to force one end to behave like the other in a turn when force is applied and to provide stiffness throughout the chassis. The sway bar looks like a really stretched U (more like this |_________________| )

We'll use a front sway for example. Let's say you take a hard left, and your body weight pitches to the right. The front right wheel digs hard, and the control arm is pushed up, to which the sway bar is linked to. at the same time your body is also forced down towards the control arm. The ____| half of the sway bar is pushed, and the other side |____ will do the same thing and force the other side to behave like the part under pressure.

If you take off your rear sway bar, your rear end will be more wobbly and will twist, and you won't have the necessary rigidity to take a turn faster.

and yes, you won't slide as much. a thick rear sway on a Z would work well in conjunction with limited slip differential

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'73 240z
'99 neon R/T

Spudz

Aluxilary,
Nice description !! I would not remove you rear sway bar . Nissan
put it there for a reason, the car rolls alot in stock form. Before you do
anything figure out what your trying to do with the car. The work on
a sway bar, strut , and spring package. That way you get the best handling
and also don't waste a ton of money.

I have autocrossed a US based 260 and it has alot of body roll. It even had
the huge bumpers removed. The thing I hate is that if the suspension isn't
stiff enough when exiting a corner with an open differential the car gets
the unloaded tire spinning, and when it lands it bites and throws the car
off.

My car doesn't do that anymore with the stiffer rear , and front bars.

Mike

Spudz

Loki,
Actually you are correct about road racing guys running without
rear bars. They also have cages and strut tower braces and
high rate springs . They do know what they are doing .

auxilary

like I said, unless you have a limited slip, the rear sway isn't going to help you very much because your inside tire will get light, and try to step out/lift as you're exiting the turn at full throttle.

this is why the v8 guys don't run a rear swaybar in 300+hp v8 cars with loads of torque

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'73 240z
'99 neon R/T

Bleach

If you are not corning that hard, like in driving on the street, the rear sway bar will keep the car level causing the ride to be more comfortable... right?

Is that what they are intended for?

Spudz

What a 2+2 !!!!!!!!!! Your friends let you drive around in a 2 + 2 ??

I thought you had a real Z [img]/w3timages/icons/wink.gif[/img]

auxilary

technically, bigger sway bars on a daily driven car will still inflict a harsher ride. my daily beater is a neon r/t with 22mm sway bars front and rear (rear being adjustable, and stock sways being 22 front and 16 rear, basically 7/8" ffront, 5/8" rear). When one of the mounts in the rear snapped because it wasn't reinforced to handle the bigger stiffer sway bar, i had to take it off until i got a reinforced replacement. The daily driving was a little softer without rear sway bar, and cornering wasn't as good (but then again, it's a FWD car).

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'73 240z
'99 neon R/T

nissanthanh

I'm confused. I have a v8, clsd in a 75 280z which has a stock swaybar in the rear already. I have a stiff coilover set and soon a 6pt roll bar installed. Although I don't plan on changing the sway bars at the moment, am I to NOT run sway bars front and/or rear for better handling?

Joshua Paul

nah man. the sway bars are there for a reason. both have advantages, it just depends on what you're going for.

when the weight shifts to the outside during a corner, the sway bar causes the INSIDE tire to lift up as well, the reason this is good is because it allows the car to squat more uniformly and not pitch sideways as much. the FLATTER your car stays the better and more consistent your handling characteristics will be. The discrepancy comes from guys with huge ****ing V8s and open diffs telling people to take their sway bars off because "you'll go faster". this is true, but for the wrong reason. with an open diff, all of the power goes to the wheel with the LEAST amount of traction, so if you go into a corner and the inside wheel lifts off the ground and you hit the accelerator, all your sweet V8 power spins the inside wheel for a fat load of nothing until the car straightens and the wheel comes back down. BUT if you take the sway bar off, as the car pitches to the outside of the corner the inside wheel is free to extend on the suspension keeping the wheel in contact with the ground, so when you accelerate, the tire, even though the wheel still has less traction, it remains in contact with the ground, and you can accelerate. YES, this might lead to faster lap times, but don't confuse that with "better handling" the only reason that works is because it's allowing the car to utilize more of it's power, it DOES NOT mean your car handles properly, the flatter your car stays the better it will combat understeer and oversteer and lead to more consistent cornering characteristics, guys achieve this by using increasingly stiffer and stiffer springs, to keep the outside suspension from compressing. the reason car manufactures use a sway bar instead is because you can maintain a flatter profile while still utilizing a softer suspension setup for a less harsh ride quality for daily driving. so how do you use the power from your engine if the inside wheel keeps coming off the ground because of your sway bar?

enter the LSD. this allows your power to be transferred to the outside wheel in a corner, right? more specifically it causes the power to go to the wheel with MORE traction. so even if your inside tire is off the ground your drive train can still put power down in the corner. AND maintain a flatter profile because you're still using your sway bars so it doesn't change the geometry of your front suspension as much which means all your steering angles remain the same and the car HANDLES better.

don't let people give you information that "works" but for the wrong reason.

if your car has enough torque to loose traction in a corner even though you have a clsd, then sure you might take your sway bars off and you might be able to go a LITTLE bit faster, but it could ALSO completely mess your steering angles up because your ride is pitching to the outside all the time and you end up going slower because your car doesn't corner as well. that would depend on how stiff your springs are. 6 of one: half a dozen of the other.

hope that helps.

josh