I have 620 springs, roller perches, UCA drop, and KYB GR@ shocks, and now new LCA's. I broke the bolts for the stock sway bar when i took it apart. So now am going to buy a new one. Should i buy the 7/8", 1" or the 1-1/8".

It is a street car that i drive a ton. I would like to track it some in the future but primarily its for the street.

 

I bought the 1-1/8" and it really stiffened up my front end. I have stock rate 1" drop coils, and that sway bar. The front barley moves in the corners now, which I really like.

 

I have the same setup pretty much, after talking to john at OTR I went with a 1" sway bar.

 

With the lighter '66 and your already stiff springs, I'd recommend a 1" at the most. I have a similar setup on my '67 with a 15/16" sway bar and it's perfect for street duty. Too thick and you'll sacrifice ride quality with negligible benefits on the street. You'll need the bigger bar for the track, but you can always run the smaller sway bar until the weekend you decide to go to the track, then swap the big one in.

 

Yeah, the 1" is a nice compromise between stiffness and control.

 

MAN, you guys must be driving some REALLY seriously understeering cars! Stiffening front springs and/or swaybars ADDS understeer while stiffening the same items in the rear REMOVES understeer. Since these cars understeer like crazy from the factory, as do almost all production cars, you are making it worse instead of better.

You might be taking out body roll, but that does NOT make the car necessarily go where you steer it. The He!! with body lean! Take out some of the understeer and you will find the car to be way more predictable and will be able to drive it faster through the corners. To do this, leave a stock front sway bar and add a rear sway bar.

Try it, you'll LIKE it!

 

Buy an adjustable front bar. That way you can tune the understeer out of it.

 

I have a 1" front bar with the 620 springs and don't necessarily think my car understeers more than a typical 60's car. However, now that I do know a little more about sway bars I probably would have ordered a 15/16" bar. Stiffening up the front is great and I really like that, but I don't like how much it limits the independence of the front suspension. There is a fine balance to find for your car where you get stiffness and independence, and I think for my car I probably would have liked the 15/16" more, but I'm still happy with the 1" bar. I'm just glad I didn't get the 1 1/8" bar, speed bumps, dips in corners, and rough roads in general would have been killer.

 

I'm going to replace my 1.125 bar at some point with an adjustable, just too much understeer with the current setup. And that's with 5 leaves and a 3/4 rear bar.

 

If you only work with the front bar, you will NOT be able to "tune the understeer out of it." It will require the addition of a rear sway bar and without serious chassis modification you will NEVER get the understeer totally removed. A rear sway bar will remove a noticable amount of understeer and drastically improve handling, but it will still have some understeer.

Detroit and most manufacturers in the world have absolutely no problem with selling cars that intentionally understeer. The reason is that the average driver will be warned by the understeer and back off before getting into trouble and out of control.

The best thing that you can do for almost ANY production car is to add or stiffen the rear sway bar. Corvettes of the last 25 years, Porsches and other serious sports cars have neutral to oversteering handling characteristics. Most anything else, including our beloved Mustangs, as it comes from the factory is an understeering monster.