pascal

BS son!
You don't need to drive in a spirited way around corners to miss a front sway bar.
It's one of the most important front suspension component!!
Why do you think every car and truck sold on the market comes with those? Luxury?
No offense, but you have to be nuts to ditch it, especially if you're on stock shock and springs.

Diabolical!

Why are we yelling!
I don't miss mine!
Surprise! I'm on stock shocks and springs!

Seriously, I've never missed it. A straight line car is faster without it.

Diabolical!

OP, no offense to mustang forums, but there are better places to get tech advice. Yes, the front sway bar helps with cornering. No, you won't lose control and smash into a tree if you remove it. Here's some good info:

http://www.s197forum.com/forum/showt...hlight=swaybar

The general consensus is that you won't miss it. Check out post #79... and then check out who he's quoting. The swaybar delete WORKS, depending on your goals.

Norm Peterson

OK, you conned me into registering over there just so I could scan through a thread that's heavy on dragstrip thinking. Check that, it's dragstrip talk about the way "everybody does it".

Sorry, but the level of tech in that thread is UNDERwhelming. Apparently nobody in that discussion really knows how disconnecting or deleting the front sta-bar helps. Not even a hint.

The crazy thing here is that the corner-carver guys are more likely to understand what's really going on in this very particular dragstrip tuning trick (and another one that works in generally similar fashion). I've even posted about it here before.

I did see a couple of posts where people noted the 'downsides', but it still suggests that the membership is heavily skewed toward the dragstrip and not terribly interested in looking outside that box. And we get some comparative results - about a tenth of a second improvement in the short time, give or take a little for driver consistency level. There's only one kind of place where that matters, and in that venue just have at it (along with at least one other chassis mod that detracts from streetability).


Getting back to the OP, whose question certainly did not indicate lots of drag racing in the immediate future. Removing the bar or just removing one endlink for test purposes is one thing. If the noise goes away, just get better endlinks. Sam Strano is one vendor who carries a couple (disclosure: I've got his adjustable links, with his adjustable bars).


Norm

Diabolical!

Then my evil plan is complete and I've no further use for this thread.

08blackoutstang

thanks everyone, thanks for the tip norm i want to test it out and talk with sam

Norm Peterson

Well . . . you might want to know that many of the highly developed "Street Touring" category autocross cars also make poorish street drivers too, even though the category is supposedly intended for dual-purpose cars. IOW, comparable to "street/strip" where you've pushed further up the scale.

I'm absolutely positive that lots of folks wouldn't care to deal with my Mazda 626 on a daily basis, and it's not all that heavily modified (technically, it's not an ST car due to one fussy little ST rule about not modifying the big holes in the middle of the strut towers, but otherwise it's ST). At this point, I get to consider myself lucky - my wife actually likes to drive the little thing, stiff-legged and choppy that the ride quality now is.

Competition is all about getting as extreme in the direction of that competition as you can, or can afford to, within whatever rules apply. A daily driver needs to be more balanced in its capabilities. It's anywhere from difficult to flat-out impossible to satisfy both at the same instant. Leaving yourself with readily do-able/undo-able mods like swapping alignment specs, unbolting one endlink or swapping holes in the relo brackets are about as close as you can get.


08black - I hope it ends up being a simple test and fix. But if it ultimately turns out to be the strut mounts, get the Steeda HD mounts as they're more durable for lowered cars than the OE pieces - and you gain the ability to adjust camber with them. I have those, too, and everything has stayed quiet except for the big strut nuts which loosened up on me once for no apparent reason.


Norm

Simon1

Getting a beefier front ssway bar and possibly a different rear bar is on my to do list.

Since I added the iron block and all of the supercharger stuff, my front end has gained nearly 200 lbs. This, along with having very large, very sticky tires in the rear causes the car to puch under heavy cornering. The real solution would be to take all of th weight off of the car, but that's not practical. So a different sway bar in the front, end links? I know nothing about them. And and adjustable rear sway (which may help with my 60' anyways) seems to be something that could help my car handling.

I due unhooked the sway bar for track purposes. I actually remove the entire driver side link. It makes a big difference in front end travel.

jahudso2

The swaybar itself does not make the clunking noise - it's the end links. Ford redesigned the endlinks because their original design was stupid. Go to ford and get 2 new endlinks with four new nuts. No, you can't re-use the old nuts, because the new endlinks have a different thread pitch - don't ask me why. When you go to the stealership to buy them, make sure the new nuts thread on to the new endlinks. The stealership has a habit of mismatching them. If all of the nuts fit on the end links, then look at the new nuts. They should have red nylon on them. If the nuts do not have red nylon on them, then they are the old design, and won't make your issue any better. If you swap the correct redesigned endlinks/nuts on, you will not hear clunking anymore. I have had mine on for about a year now with no clunking. The stock endlinks/nuts would be quiet for about a month after torqueing/locktiting, and then they would be noisy as hell again. It cost around 70 bucks if I remember correctly for all 6 parts, which is less than half the price of the competition endlinks.