Hey guys---Ryan's fears are definitely warranted---swaybars break (generally the endlink will fail first but...) all the time---sometimes they just run out of stress cycles but most often it's to much load the wrong way. About 15 years ago we were building control arms for Porsche 944's (I happen to be working on one today---exhaust stuff...) the evolution of what we did became a nice billet $2000 set of arms.
So in this pic below you can see the swaybar is literally bolted right to the arm---
While the length of the endlink is important (a longer endlink allows for more articulation/freedom of movement with less applied loads), the alignment of the endlink is the critical part. So---I'd say at ride height with the rodend portion of the endlink unbolted and the delrin or rubber bushings bolted tight to the swaybar---the hole in the tab needs to line up with the hole in the endlink and the you'll want to create spacers to bridge the gap. Now with that said, the amount of movement in the escorts under normal driving conditions is about 3 1/2" at the wheel and probably less on a lowered stiffly sprung car---at the track we see about 2-2.5" of movement---that movement ratio'd out at the swaybar is less---so we're not talking about a lot of movement/binding at the bar during normal driving conditions---this would allow some freedom to pickup the different holes on the tab to "tune" the bar or the roll couple to be more correct. As long as the endlinks are "relaxed" (as much as possbily---things can't be perfectly straight on a used car with a manufactured control arm...) as much as possibly at ride height, I'll bet the endlinks will fail years before the swaybar does.
I think my next BG project for the summer is going to be a through body front swaybar kit---I'll post up some pic's when appropriate---I think it's probably time for some more choices in front swaybars...
So in this pic below you can see the swaybar is literally bolted right to the arm---
While the length of the endlink is important (a longer endlink allows for more articulation/freedom of movement with less applied loads), the alignment of the endlink is the critical part. So---I'd say at ride height with the rodend portion of the endlink unbolted and the delrin or rubber bushings bolted tight to the swaybar---the hole in the tab needs to line up with the hole in the endlink and the you'll want to create spacers to bridge the gap. Now with that said, the amount of movement in the escorts under normal driving conditions is about 3 1/2" at the wheel and probably less on a lowered stiffly sprung car---at the track we see about 2-2.5" of movement---that movement ratio'd out at the swaybar is less---so we're not talking about a lot of movement/binding at the bar during normal driving conditions---this would allow some freedom to pickup the different holes on the tab to "tune" the bar or the roll couple to be more correct. As long as the endlinks are "relaxed" (as much as possbily---things can't be perfectly straight on a used car with a manufactured control arm...) as much as possibly at ride height, I'll bet the endlinks will fail years before the swaybar does.
I think my next BG project for the summer is going to be a through body front swaybar kit---I'll post up some pic's when appropriate---I think it's probably time for some more choices in front swaybars...
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