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Old February 13th 2013, 16:53
dd-ardvark dd-ardvark is offline
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DIY – Internal Rear Sway Bar for IRS or Swing Axle bagged or coil sprung cars.

In researching this concept on Porsche and VW, I found no information on this being banned as a race car rule benders trick, when switching to coil over shocks…, giving me the impression that no one knows of it or at least written about it.
- So for those familiar with Formula VEE racing and the way the ball joint and link pin front ends are set up on these cars, that the lower spring pack is replaced with a solid rod that connects the two front lower trailing arms together to act as a sway bar.
- Now envision the rear torsion housing of a beetle and a bar connecting one side to the other, hidden inside the housing to act as a sway bar. Again, this only works if you’re going to coil over shocks or air bagged suspension.

Assembly explanation:
- Put a Short Tube torsion plate, w/a 26-9/16” long torsion bar on one side of the car.
Push this bar through the existing torsion housings splined center section.
It will stick out a few inches offset of center into the other side of the housing.
Use a 21-3/4” long torsion bar and Long Tube torsion plate on the other side.
The connection of these two bars will be a “Sway-A-Way” #7010, 40 tooth Splined Center Section that’s NOT welded to the torsion housing.

Most people don’t need an explanation, but some do. So, a swing axle Ghia turns into a corner at speed. Instead of getting body roll and wheel tuck, it gets lower to the ground and stays flat. As the outside rear wheel is pushed up in to the fenderwell, the inside rear wheel is also picked up and this forces the front inside of the body with tire down.

In the racing world simplifying to attain the same end result and losing 4 to 5lbs. of inertia rebound weight of an external sway bar along with being able to switch bar dia. sizes and mix and match to suit your ride is king. This also makes your sway bars twist and trailing arms pivot point the same, alleviating additional suspension resistance.

To those who sell external sway bars in cute shapes and pretty colors attached to spring plates with adjustable heim ends that eliminate the torsion bars altogether. Don’t blame me for not buying your expensive products, the economy caused me to use my out of the box thinking instead of my wallet and come up with a better mouse trap and share it with the public. But don’t worry…, stupid people will still buy shinny complicated things with multiple parts, thinking they’ll go faster because it relates - cost to speed.

David / dd-ardvark

Last edited by dd-ardvark; February 13th 2013 at 17:32.
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Old February 14th 2013, 08:32
Birdman69 Birdman69 is offline
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Interesting' idea and i dont see why it wouldn't work.
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Old February 19th 2013, 13:33
spannermanager spannermanager is offline
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The above is a sound enough idea, but it will make for a very very stiff ARB and with a splined coupling off centre, the bar will be unbalanced side to side, it will feel different in left and right turns and may yaw on bumps etc, also the smallest t/B's being 22mm, but it may work well, you will have to be the first to report back on it all, i'm currently running a 20 mm tubular bar, but its in the 'Porsche position' and as such is far too low for a track car , its very vulnerable and i'm moving it to a position near where the stock equalizer bar mounts, but it will sit in a tube inside the car between the inner wheel arches, i recon my car could use a 22mm bar to good effect, judging from the feedback i get with the 20mm. good to see some innovation instead of the usual Porsche copy's.

Last edited by spannermanager; February 19th 2013 at 13:38.
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Old February 20th 2013, 14:07
dd-ardvark dd-ardvark is offline
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I see your point of concern. At first read of this concept, one would think that because you have two different lengths and diameters of bars that one side would flex more than the other.
Yes, is the answer to the smaller dia. bar flexing more, No is the answer to one side reacting differently than the other.
It may help to get the torsion bar idea out of your head…, envision just a bar of the same dia. passing from one side to the other and attaching to the torsion plates.

- Ask yourself this, what’s it pushing/reacting off of?

After you pondered this, look at the drawing…, and hopefully I’ve drawn this understandably enough that it conveys that the two bars are now mechanically one bar…, different sizes mind you, but again one bar.

With this said, hopefully you see that the answer to the pushing/reacting question above, is that your leverage point works off the other wheel, no matter if the bar was tapered from one side to the other.


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Old February 25th 2013, 16:41
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Chisel86 Chisel86 is offline
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But doesn't it require more force to twist a shorter bar of the same diameter? Even if they are connected, they would act similarly to a variable rate spring, except torsionally...

A bar half as long as the original would require 2x the twisting force to get the same deflection. I looked it up ;-)
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Old February 26th 2013, 13:05
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ricola ricola is offline
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I see how the concept will work, ignore the splined section as that just turns it into a long single torsion bar which gets twisted with differential wheel movement, it will have no bias to any side. I can't help thinking that it would be EXTREMELY stiff though!!
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