Carl Fausett

I doubt it. When you change the sway bar drop link to a Heim-joint style drop link, you loose about 3/8" of rubber cushion on each end of the drop link - meaning that your sway bar will begin to react faster than it did before because the OEM drop links had that rubber bushing that had to move first, before your sway bar could start to react. But is it a big change? Will you be able to feel it? Not likely, IMHO.

As for adjusting them + or - ... if you make them symmetrically longer or shorter (both sides the same) it has absolutely no difference on the sway bar or handling of the car. Moving the drop link mount in or out - THAT makes the lever-arm longer or shorter and effects the sway bar stiffness. Adjustable swaybars either have tubular shafts on the end (infinitely adjustable) or several holes on the end to accomplish this purpose.

The only time you would want to adjust a sway bar drop link differently on one side than the other is when you are trying to introduce a "stagger" into the car - like a preference to turn left, for example. Popular with circle-jerks (I started out as one) When road racing, we use the adjustable feature of the sway bar drop links to neutralize the bar - to remove any pre-load ion the bar at all.

Polyurethane sway bar bushings: yes, if your OEM sway bar bushings have gotten soft and pudgy (which will happen if oil from the motor has leaked on them) or so hard from ozone degradation (ozone destroys rubber, and the alternator produces ozone every time the brushes arc on the armature - thousands of times a minute) - either of these things will prevent your swaybar from acting correctly. The purpose of those sway bar bushings is to convert the up-and-down motion of the sway bar drop-links into rotational motion. If they are dry and without grease, if they are pudgy and soft - the sway bar is slow to respond the way we want it to.

Greaseable poly bushings hold the sway bar still, yet allow it to rotate freely. All good.

T_MaX

Watch that language I too come from a left turn back ground,

Stocker


IMCA modified


Late model


Photos by Performance Bodies

Carl Fausett

T-Max - that's some good stuff! Have you discovered after roundy-rounder suspension setups that included weight-jacking and stagger and differential-camber settings how easy it is to set up a road car to go straight? Its a walk in the park by comparison!

T_MaX

Learning how to set-up a car to do left turns in dirt and on blacktop was priceless.

I hand built my second car, home made weight jacks, steering, suspension components, wheels (I would buy the wheel outers and weld in the centers to what ever backspacing I wanted (the whole nine yards).

The others (IMCA and late models) I bought a chassis and than modified them to my way of thinking.

P.S. I still own the 81 Camaro that I hand built, I quit driving it several years ago, but it has never missed a race season yet and win every race we want it to. One track up around Victoria banned us from racing there because the locals complained about losing every time our cars showed up at the track. We would bring three cars to race in all three divisions (Stock, IMCA and Late Model). With two of the best drivers in the state of Texas behind the wheels, we would go home with all the money every time I think the last big race there, we took home over $2K, not much is you factor in the the cost of the three cars (20-35K, not including motors trucks and trailors), but it's not about the money really.

"It not how much HP/TQ you have! It's how much HP/TQ you can transfer to forward motion!"

Jim bailey - 928 International

Carl.." how easy it is to set up a road car to go straight?" I find that the challenge of road racing is more about turning left AND RIGHT, the straight parts are easy !

Carl Fausett

yes of course, you knew what I meant...

dr bob

The Eibach package seems like a good choice for those of us that do alot of driving between the quicker corners. Is it possible to get a set of Eibachs set up for the stock ride height, rather than the lowered setup that seems so common?

Shane

Yes it is possible, you have to ask for the taller adjusting collars. Of course this is something I found out after ordering up my bilstein/eibachs.