Sway-A-Way Torsion Bars
Hello everyone,
@
74Dart318
I really would like to hear, how things got resolved here, as I am facing a similar situation with a set of sway away 1.03" TBs.
(Most recent try let me to a "Gasser-Style" Look even with fully backed of adjuster)
Greetings from Germany
J
What procedure did you use to install the torsion bars, and do you have factory lower control arms and K frame?
Aftermarket torsion bars with different hex offsets, especially when combined with tubular LCA’s or K members, can allow the LCA’s to be misclocked on the torsion bars. The FSM procedure of letting the control arm hang all the way down on install can cause this because of the differences in the aftermarket parts.
Here is what I can say from experience on an oval track. If the bars are too stiff it will make the car very tight entering a turn. The car needs to dip in the front on entry. On a left turn the car need to dip to the right front to transfer weight so it doesn't push. and vise versa. To weak of a bar will make the car loose. To stiff it will push.
The stabilizer bar will take the lean out of the car by pulling the opposite side of the car down with it. The front has a stabilizer bar is not a sway bar.
Sway bars are used on the rear of a coil spring car control arms to help stop the rear for moving side to side on the frame . A more aggressive bar to use for this is a track bar. again usually found with coil springs.
My Dodge ram on the front with coils has a stabilizer bar and a track bar. Bad track bar bushings and the truck sways all over the road. The stabilizer bar does not stop the sway. It only helps keep the car level. Just an FYI
None of the torsion bars in this thread are “too stiff”, even for casual street use. The changes in hex offsets can lead to installation errors, but the bars themselves are not the issue here.
I’ve been running 1.12” bars on the street for over a decade now, they work better than any of the factory bars do in that setting.
Edit: I now see that this is an older thread but I never saw an update as to how this ever resolved.
I believe what you need to do in order to install them in the correct position is this:
1. Back the adjuster bolt all the way out
2.remove your bump stop temporarily
3 raise the lower control arm all the way up as high as you can get it, or as high as it takes for the torsion bar to slide in
-now you can use the adjuster bolt to push the lower control back down to adjust your ride height up. I might be wrong?
Also, I believe each torsion bar has a front and rear which needs to be facing the right direction so the clocking is correct.
There is no front or rear to a torsion bar, only left and right. Which end is forward doesn’t change anything. Some aftermarket bars don’t even have a left and right, because they don’t have any hex offset.
With larger bars that have smaller hex offsets the angle of the lower control arm has to be closer to the angle at ride height than stock. So the advice in the FSM of letting the LCA hang down is incorrect. You don’t want the LCA to be as far down as possible as that could put it on the wrong hex flat. But by the same token you shouldn’t have to raise the LCA above where it’s parallel to the ground either, as there isn’t enough adjustment to pull that off either.
That said, it’s actually not that easy to misclock the LCA’s with factory LCA’s and a factory K member. . It’s much easier with tubular LCA’s because they will literally hang straight down if left to just hang, where the factory LCA’s will hit the K member before they go much past 45°. A tubular K member could also allow the LCA’s to hang down further than the factory parts would allow.
Bottom line is, with aftermarket, larger diameter torsion bars you want to install the LCA’s at a fairly shallow down angle from parallel to the ground. The larger the bar, the shallower that angle will be.