HR Rear sway bar

[Shimy87]

Anyone here have the HRpartsnstuff rear sway bar installed. If you can believe the info they have it improves the daily driving of our cars alot. I'm interested because on mine I have wider front and back tires and it "wonders" alot. Their site says it drastically improves that condition. Helps launch at track to they say, not that important to me as mine aint that fast
 
Any real world report would be greatly appreciated!!

[Steve Wood]

The Hellwig 55809 would appear to be a good substitute for the H&R at a far better price.

I doubt your sway bar is the problem with wondering or wandering.

Wide front tires always makes the problem greater.   Good ball joints, bushings, tie rods, and idler arm are necessary, followed by a good alignment with as much positive caster as the car will allow.  A little toe in keeps it wanting to go straight and 0 to minus one camber will help handling as well.  Bilstein shocks to top it off.

[Recap]

Spohn also makes one as well.  Again, a lot cheaper than the HR one.  Think they run aroung $400. 

[Shimy87]

Thanks for the info guy's, I found the Hellwig bar at Race-Mart for $190  . I'm also ordering a bushing replacement kit from Energy Suspension. While I'm at it I'll box the rear lower arms.
 
Thanks guys!!!

[daveismissing]

Any slop will be magnified by wide tires, hows your rag joint?
Don't forget Charlies great info:
http://www.ihadav8.com/forum/index.php?topic=3268.0

[motorhead]

Thanks for the info guy's, I found the Hellwig bar at Race-Mart for $190  . I'm also ordering a bushing replacement kit from Energy Suspension. While I'm at it I'll box the rear lower arms.

Whoa! Stop right there... if you are going to box the rear LCAs then don't run polyurethane bushings - use rubber, if you are going to run polyurethane bushings then don't box the arms. Do one or the other because you'll run into suspension bind, especially with the way the Hellwig bar is going to allow the differential to articulate - just like a 3rd or 4th Gen F-body.

Don't believe me? Take it from the F-Body Road Racing and Autocross Forums:

Lower Control Arms (Rear)
GM’s 1LE 4th gens came with special lower control arms. The main difference was the standard star shaped rubber bushings were replaced with solid ones for added stiffness. The actual 1LE bushing is rumored to be the same as the moog replacement. These are the same as 3rd gen rear LCA’s.

The other big choice is either an aluminum or steel lower control arm with ¾” rod ends. As with the panhard bar, good quality 3-piece QA1 or Aurora rod ends are a must to provide decent life and reasonable quietness. Unfortunately, unlike a rod-ended PHB, rod-ended LCA’s will hurt ride quality. Good rod ends will keep them quiet, but that doesn’t mean they won’t rattle everything else in one’s car. LG Motorsports makes nice aluminum or steel LCA’s in rod/rod, poly/rod, or with poly/poly configurations on each end. Unbalanced Engineering, Spohn, and UMI also make decent rear LCA’s. Like PHB’s, it’s quite easy to make your own rod ended LCA’s with stock car parts.

Avoid having poly bushings on both ends. Poly bushings will not allow the LCA to rotate during body roll and this will cause bind. The following LCA’s are acceptable for our uses: rod/rod aftermarket, rod/poly aftermarket, rod/rubber aftermarket, or rubber/rubber stock. Looking at the stock star bushings you can see how they were designed to be stiff in compression or tension, but soft in twist. If you cannot visualize why poly bushings are bad try the following exercise. Go look at the LCA mounting brackets front and rear, now imagine a poly/poly LCA in place and the rear axle glued to the road, now visualize the car in a right or left hand turn, the body rolls, the brackets will twist relative to each other.

Some will argue that poly/poly LCA’s act like a spring and you can tune around them by softening the rear suspension. However, it’s difficult to predict how much stiffness poly bushings add and how it changes during roll, therefore it makes much more sense to tune with springs, sway bars and shocks. Bind is never good.

http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/index.php?showtopic=5255

[Shimy87]

I see what your saying but if you look at aftermerket LCAs from Hotchkis or HR they are not going to "flex" either and they have poly in each end.
 
Dont know what to do now

[Steve Wood]

unlikely you have a problem with wandering from the rear end...I agree with Mike altho I think I have poly on both ends of the lowers on one of mine at the moment.  They will bind if stressed.

[Top Speed]

I always thought the binding was from using poly bushings in the upper control arms and the solution was to go with 1LE bushings in the uppers...

[Shimy87]

Mike obviously knows a bit about suspension if you watch his videos. For my car, I will never auto-cross it, I will take it to the strip though. The front end was completely gone through last year and then an alignment, so its probably as good as "stock" will be.
 
It makes a clunking noise from the rear when I make a harder right turn. I figured maybe a bad bushing cause I dont see any obvious problems under there. I thought the poly bushings with boxed LCA and Hellwig bar would be better for the dragstrip and still be good for regular street driving??

[Steve Wood]

it's okay for normal driving...I normally prefer rubber just because it does not transmit as much noise and may not feel quite as harsh...but with standard springs, that is not a problem

[motorhead]

it's okay for normal driving...I normally prefer rubber just because it does not transmit as much noise and may not feel quite as harsh...but with standard springs, that is not a problem

Are you saying the way I drive isn't normal?! 

[Steve Wood]

there is nothing normal about you, Mike! 

[ULYCYC]

You also have to keep in mind that road racing and drag racing are two different beast. Each suspension tweak may cancel out the other.  Yes there are some tweaks that crossover but build should be geared to what your car is used for and the best end result.

[Steve Wood]

and remember that if the car has the original bushings in the control arms, front and rear, they have been worn out for about 15 years...unless it is the front, upper, rear control arm bushing.  It has been worn out for about 23 years...

This one is a good one to check ever couple of years because the heat from the downpipe fries it periodically.  Car will definitely change direction every time you hit a ripple in the road if that is the case