The sway bars on our wrx has so many bends and turns. No wonder the stock SB cant do much and the aftermarket ones offer a significant difference. I am not promising anything but if i get a chance to look under the car and simulate the sway bar on my stress analysis program i m quite sure i can mod a stock sway bar to perform better than an aftermarket one. And paint it pink to increase the value . Of course its not as pretty as a COBB, Whiteline, etc,.... Hollow fat tubes like my 2006 CANNONDALE team frame of course will be more efficient in stiffness to weight ratio and responce as well.
I dont know how much better you'd be able to make it. The bends are so that it will bend around engine and suspension components in the front and around the exhaust piping in the rear.
Did you see the big pink hollow tube that I put on Mere's car? http://mere.darg.net/sti-fsb 32mm hollow vs stock: Lighter and stiffer than the whiteline bars pink also adds even more to the stiffness and makes it JDM -- Brian
Its very easy if i know where the stress points are. And i can find that out from putting the bar onto my stress analysis program and constraint and simulate the loads. I can use one or more of the following pending on space 1. internal gusset plate 2. External L plate 3. above and/or below (follow bend) reinforcement What everyone buys is just oversize bars / tubes = stiffer for sure but not optimized because you dont need the strength as much in the straight section
The Perrin bar has very few bends compared to the Whiteline bar. I have some pretty good side by side pic’s if anyone wants to see. The endlinks are really cool.
It is my experience with sway bars on any car, that as the thickness (mm) increases, the amount of bends and such decrease (compare stock sti/wrx vs Brian/Mere's new 32mm). Benefits from aftermarket bars include adjustability, something which a factory bar is incappable of reproducing. Nevertheless, give it a shot man. I'm really curious to see what can come out of this. Until then, I'll stick with my 2-way adjustable front sway, and 3-way adjustable rear sway :bigthumb:
just to add a bit here... if you increase the efficiency of the stock bar, you will decrease the efficiency of the end links... the wrx links are pitiful looking, the sti's are not much better... if you look at the whiteline links and the stock links (i'll take pictures, i'm installing f & b very soon) you'll see what i mean. this of course matters more when you throw the car around... that energy has to go somewhere. i don't think most people have issues with the stocks though.
Agree . As far as end links are concerned i have no idea what it looks like so i cant comment but im sure if i were to fix some of the deficiencies of the stock sway bar the issue will move to the next weeker link. Its all about balance. So has anyone ever put their cars on a 4 point scale and see which corner of the car is the heaviest ? I wish our battery is on the psgr side and behind the frt wheel.
I'm sure Scott has put many on scales and could answer that. Here are after market endlinks. The stock ones on my wagon were like the gold ones except made of what seemed like a plastic composite with tiny bushings. Gold is Whiteline and the black is Perrin. Notable difference other than the size is that the Perrin has sort of a ball in a socket instead of a huge bushing.
I believe the Perrin links are Heim joints. If anyone knows of a local spot to pick them up, please let me know. I had Porter corner-balance my car after I installed my coil-overs (with me in the car, of course). Ended up with a near perfect balance side-to-side and front-to-back. :wiggle:
I doubt if anyone local would have them. I got them from Matt at Scoobytuner.com and I doubt even he had them in stock. Just phoned the order in. No one seems to keep things in stock. The local market is too small to keep things in it stock it seems.
I don't think this is hijacking, so.... Will any endlink fit with generally any swaybar/suspension combo? Thanks.