swaybar question with 11 3/4 brakes

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superdot09

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question is probably old to most, but new to me, i have a 69 dart with the 11 3/4 disc and large single piston caliper........and i want to add swaybars to my car, but ive seen it said that this swap interferes with the front bar, my car is a origional no bar car, does anyone have specific experience with this
any advice is greatly appreciated because nothings worse than getting all excited about a new part that dosent work.
 
superdot09 said:
question is probably old to most, but new to me, i have a 69 dart with the 11 3/4 disc and large single piston caliper........and i want to add swaybars to my car, but ive seen it said that this swap interferes with the front bar, my car is a origional no bar car, does anyone have specific experience with this
any advice is greatly appreciated because nothings worse than getting all excited about a new part that dosent work.
Click to expand...

use the hellwig or firm feel bar, it uses the shock bolt for the bracket that holds the endlink. you MAY have to swap spindles side to side to put the calipers at the back. they ARE symmetrical.
 
ok so I called addco :read2: to find out how theirs mounts........and its also using the shock bolt....and i supposidly may have to buzz the corner of the mounting tab ......... seems from pictures the firm feel setup looks the best, but just the front bar costs more than both a front and rear with shipping from addco.........has anyone used addco and not been satisfied, dont get me wrong, I like the firm feel setup, but I cant justify 3 times the price if another will get the job done
 
You could swap to a later model K-frame and lower control arms. The later model sway bar goes through the K-frame where as the earlier bars are mounted in front of the K-frame. I think that they changed in '70. I have aslo seen where the center of an early model K-frame was cut to allow clearence for the later model k-frame.
 
I installed the ADDCO front and rear swaybars from Just Suspension on mine. What a difference! I also have the '73 spindles conversion with the Unicast police/taxi rotors and a set of tubular upper control arms from Just Suspension. I would get the upper control arms from Firm Feel though, they come with the bushings and upper ball joint already installed. I used the small block front torsion bars and two right side SS springs in the rear with a 1" lowering block. Finished off the suspension with a set of Koni's, although the rear ones where a pain to install over the lower shock stud. I had to press out the stock steal sleeve to get them to fit.

The sway bar mount on the lower control arm attaches to the lower shock mount. It looks weaker than it actually is, and unless you have a dedicated track car, they are more than adequate for heavily spirited street and high speed mountain road carving.
 
The K-frame changed in 73. The sway bar on these does not interfere with the caliper. The newer bar requires the newer K-frame. Otherwise, swap 'em round like Redfastback says.
Do your lower control arms have sway bar tabs? If so, these suggestions work. If not, most companies offer a tab that bolts to the lower shock mount. The bars have to be longer to maintain correct geometry. I tried one once and took it off. The stock section width tires rubbed on it.
 
Soooo....if you got (say) TWO sets of LCAs that don't have tabs, you can gt a bar with brackets that use the lower shock mount bolt as a mounting point, but will rub on the tires? I'll be running scarebirds on the 9" spindles with a 15X6 wheel and (probably) a 215 tire
 
68 Sedan said:
Soooo....if you got (say) TWO sets of LCAs that don't have tabs, you can gt a bar with brackets that use the lower shock mount bolt as a mounting point, but will rub on the tires? I'll be running scarebirds on the 9" spindles with a 15X6 wheel and (probably) a 215 tire
Click to expand...

I don't know the size of the Scarebird calipers or rotors, but I just finished reengineering my very old Addco setup, and the clearances were very tight in several places. Description follows:

1967 Barracuda, factory K-H disk brakes, .890 t-bars, manual steering, slightly lowered ride height (1/2"?), 14 x 5.5 SBP rally wheels, 215/70-14 Firestone Firehawk Indy 500 tires. End link mounts to lower shock bolt.

Clearance from tire inner sidewall to sway bar at full lock: 5/16" per side (or less)

Clearance from inner rim to caliper, horizontal: about 3/16"

Clearance from control strut to end link, with standard Addco hardware: 1/8" or less, depending on ride height (I replaced the entire end link setup with my own system using 7/16" rod ends instead of bushings, and gained some clearance here).

My conclusion was that I could not mount any rim + tire combination that had more than the factory backspace (of these SBP rally wheels). A 15" rim would clear the caliper, but I'd still have the sway bar in the way. A 14x6" rim with factory offset would definitely not clear either the caliper or the sway bar.

And we know that the lower front corner of the wheel well is a limiting factor to the outside width of a front tire on the Barracuda (so you can't necessarily go to a wider rim with the exact same backspace). Other A-bodies may be different. Other sway bars are definitely different -- this is one place where it might pay to shop around.
 
I've run a bunch of wide front tire setups on my 68 Barracuda. And I have run the factory 68-72 sway bar K-member/LCA's AND the 73-76 spool mount Kmember/LCA's. For all combinations, I run the calipers in the back with the spindles swapped on my 11.75 disks.

Combos with ~50K+ miles with autox's and track time since 1993:

** 68-72 K-MEMEBER ERA **​
suswbrkt.JPG


weblffrtbrk2.jpg


rbraid.jpg


225/60/15 on 15x7 4.25 backspace cop rims
67-72 K-member with factory sway bar to factory LCA sway bar tabs
Calipers rear mounted
*no tire rubbing at full lock or noticed in daily driving

225/50/15 on 15x7 4.25 backspace cop rims
67-72 K-member with factory sway bar to factory LCA sway bar tabs
Calipers rear mounted
*no tire rubbing at full lock or noticed in daily driving

245/50/15 BFG R1 autocross tires (little wider than the street versions) on 15x7 4.25 backspace cop rims
67-72 K-member with factory sway bar to factory LCA sway bar tabs
Calipers rear mounted
*tires would rub sway bar a full lock. Would rub sway bar noticed rubbing on real tight autox courses.

** 73-76 K-MEMEBER ERA **​
I cracked my 68-72 K-member by moving across country and overloading my car

73-76 LCA w/sway bar on left, 66-72 LCA w/sway bar on right
LwrCntls.jpg


Reinforced late K-member
kmbrassy.jpg


245/50/15 on 15x8 4.5" backspace cop rims
73-76 K-member with factory sway bar to factory LCA sway bar tabs
Calipers rear mounted
*no rubbing with any 73-76 K-member setup.

245/50/15 on 15x8 4.5" backspace cop rims
73-76 K-member with 1 1/8" old style helwig/addco sway bar to factory LCA sway bar tabs
Calipers rear mounted

9_06FtSusp0001wwideswaybar.JPG


PICT2031small.JPG


BTW my 68 Dart has a 68-72 K-memeber with rear mounted calipers/swapped spindles and 11.75 disk. I've run 225/60/15 on 15x7 4.25 backspace cop rims on there. No rubbing the sway bar.

dartltsuspgen.jpg
 
If you move the calipers to the back you will almost always need a banjo ended brake hose. Here is a stock rubber hose.

RubberBanjoBrakeHose.JPG


More info and p/n for the rubber banjo ended hose here:

http://www.68cuda.com/disk.html
 
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