SC4DnP

Other than weight, is there any other advantage to hollow bars over solid.
In other words, are hollow bars worth the extra $200.00 for a mostly street driven and sometime DE car?

Also leaning towords the Elephant polybronze bushings but again, in the same application as above, is it really worth the extra money over polygraphite for a non race car?

I'll be using 21mm in front and 30mm in the rears so I know it's going to be a bit stiffer.

Just looking at the best way to spend my $$$$.

Thanks Again.

Loaded

thats really a great question. I am also going to be doing the suspension in the next two months

earlyapex

For mainly street driven car, solid torsion bars and poly graphite bushing are fine.

JackOlsen

I'd suggest the solid bars but the Elephant bushings.

Loaded

elephant bushings are different then stock replacements how?

SC4DnP

The Elephant bushings are a polybronze bushing that use a poly outer ring to "seal" against the sheet metal mounts in the body and conform to any iregularities while the inner bronze bushing stays concentric to help eliminate binding. It also is greaseable. It's "stiffer" and acts more like a roller bearing.

Graphite or rubber bushings are softer and prone to binding and squeeks but are considerably less money.

I'm gonna go with the Elephants and solid torsion bars.

Thanks guys.

Ed Hughes

Go with the Elephants, they offer the best of all worlds. The side benefit they offer is that they are EASY to install. No machining, fitting, etc. To this date, the single best improvement I've done, out of many to my car, are new Elephant polybronze bushings (and monoballs).

earlyapex

Good decision.

SeattlePorsche

Howdy Doug,

How are you sensei? I went the polybronze route. Like them alot! I don't know firsthand, but I read that the graphite ones might need to be machined a little to fit just right. The polybronze ones use various thickness of shims to get the fit tight, then loctited down. It was my first project on my red car (besides the removal of all the front end stuff) so I KNOW you can do it.

You end up using a blowtorch on the ends of the a-arms until the old rubber bushings catch on fire, then the mounts just glide right off. If you go PB also get Chuck Moreland's low friction mounts. I didn't, trying to save 2 hundred bucks, and the a-arms were moveable, but didn't just flop down like the video. So I always wonder if the ride would be different if I had gotten them.

2002M3Drew

For street and some DE, you may want to rethink the torsion bar sizes. 21 and 30 is pretty unusual, and throws the balance to oversteer in a big way. 22/28 is the common upgrade, maintains a good FD/R balance, and is very streetable. Most that run 30 rears seem to run 23 or 24 fronts, and they are going more for a race setup.

Shocks need to match the springs (t-bars).

Sways are vital as well. The stock ones are like spaghetti ( and not al dente). The Weltmeisters are cheap...about half the SRPs (though they are not nearly as nice). 930 Tie Rods are important, too, if you are still on originals.

SC4DnP

Hi James, Thanks for the vote of confidence. Things are going well, just trying to figure out the finale touches to the car before the season starts. I'd been figuring on the polybronze route but thought I'd throw it out here for fun and see what happened.
Looks like your project is coming along great. I'll be interested to hear it run!!
You've done a great job of documenting everything.

Drew, your right, 21mm and 30mm seems a bit off. I've been talking with one of the guru's here and he thinks that 22/30 with my Carrera sway bars, and Koni adjustable shocks should be OK. (A bit stiff true enough, but I can always drop back if it doesn't work out.)
Turbo Tie Rods are going on now aswell and then it gets lowered, corner ballanced and realigned.
Not fond of the oversteer idea tho. May have to reconsult said guru.

ebsalem

If you're going 21 / 30 with Koni's you might want to get the Koni's custom valved. Drew is correct that's quite a spread in spring rates. Were you doing the Aase thing and not run a rear sway bar?

Hollow T bars are ideal if the Rolex and Farrari didn't compensate for the small, uhhmm, package.

T bars aren't un-sprung weight, so that few pounds isn't a big gain. T bars don't rotate or reciprocate at high speed constantly so there's no gain there. (One side is never even moving) The energy required to rotate a mass is mostly a function of the mass at the outer diameter of the rotating object, so taking out the center of the rotating mass isn't much, then to make matters worse many hollow T-bars are a larger diameter to compensate for the lack of a center core so with hollow T bars your shocks may actual have to do MORE work.

Ed Hughes

Yep, you'll get to know a file pretty well. I think the hollow bars are about .5mm larger in diameter, which means you need to file splines to make them fit.

Steve Weiner-Rennsport Systems

Nossir, thats really not true,....

Properly made hollow & solid torsion bars use the exact same spline sizes and no hand work is needed. Cheap bars sometimes do not fit very well and can require hand work; good bars fit perfectly.

We use hollow bars, exclusively.

Loaded

How much lighter are they? For a street driven / maybe DE car is it worth it?