Rear sway bar spacers
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Joined: Oct 2009
Posts: 913
I disagree that using a sway bar w/ an un-boxed rear LCAs provide no benefit. As you correctly state, the sway bar acts as a torsional spring, which ties the up & down motion of the LCAs together by applying a force to the LCAs through the two bolts on each arm, which are positioned in a plane that is (roughly) normal to the axis of torsion of the sway bar. The LCAs can't help but want to act together (up & down) through the sway bar and reduce the amount of body roll in a corner. While the un-boxed LCAs will flex (out of plane) and twist more than boxed LCAs as a result of side-to-side forces during cornering reducing the effectiveness of the sway bar (and possibly result in life-reducing stress cracking), it does not reduce the sway bar's effectiveness to zero. I've been down this same road before, using spacers in my original un-boxed LCAs and then later upgrading the LCAs to SSM lift bars, and I definitely noticed less body roll w/ the rear sway / un-boxed LCAs than without the sway bar. I'd say that between a no sway bar w/ un-boxed LCAs and a sway bar w/ boxed SSM lift bars, the un-boxed LCA / sway bar combination resulted in ~80% of the effectiveness of a proper boxed LCA + sway bar combination. Definitely worth it IMO.
Old(s) Fart
Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 50,829
From: Northern VA
I disagree that using a sway bar w/ an un-boxed rear LCAs provide no benefit. As you correctly state, the sway bar acts as a torsional spring, which ties the up & down motion of the LCAs together by applying a force to the LCAs through the two bolts on each arm, which are positioned in a plane that is (roughly) normal to the axis of torsion of the sway bar. The LCAs can't help but want to act together (up & down) through the sway bar and reduce the amount of body roll in a corner. While the un-boxed LCAs will flex (out of plane) and twist more than boxed LCAs as a result of side-to-side forces during cornering reducing the effectiveness of the sway bar (and possibly result in life-reducing stress cracking), it does not reduce the sway bar's effectiveness to zero. I've been down this same road before, using spacers in my original un-boxed LCAs and then later upgrading the LCAs to SSM lift bars, and I definitely noticed less body roll w/ the rear sway / un-boxed LCAs than without the sway bar. I'd say that between a no sway bar w/ un-boxed LCAs and a sway bar w/ boxed SSM lift bars, the un-boxed LCA / sway bar combination resulted in ~80% of the effectiveness of a proper boxed LCA + sway bar combination. Definitely worth it IMO.
While adding a sway bar to open section LCAs isn't ideal, the net effect is still positive. The problem is that some of the torsional stiffness of the rear bar is wasted in twisting the LCAs, so it will act like a smaller rear bar, but it's still an improvement.
Old(s) Fart
Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 50,829
From: Northern VA
G-bodies did not come with boxed arms from the factory. They used the spacers you mentioned.
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