hollow vs. solid sway bar
10-02-2009, 06:23 PM
#21
4th Gear Member
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: California
Posts: 1,471
Hi F1fan:
The Roush front bar is definitely solid. I confirmed this on the Roush webpage and the thing weights at least 2x as much as the stock one. I did put the Roush front back on and it did reduce the turn in understeer I was experiencing. Definitely had me scratching my head for a while, but the increased tire rollover makes sense.
Regarding the Steeda parts, I have been considering getting ball joints, but they have been pretty low on my to do list. If i remember correctly, they are used to restore the front control arms to parallel to the ground after lowering to coorect geometry and raise the front roll center if lowered too much. My car is only about 1.0" lower in front, it doesn't seem that this minimal lowering will lower the front roll center far enough to warrant adjustment. What do you think? Also, if I get the ball joints to restore the geometry of the front control arms. will this have any effect on reducing front end dive during braking?
Thanks
The Roush front bar is definitely solid. I confirmed this on the Roush webpage and the thing weights at least 2x as much as the stock one. I did put the Roush front back on and it did reduce the turn in understeer I was experiencing. Definitely had me scratching my head for a while, but the increased tire rollover makes sense.
Regarding the Steeda parts, I have been considering getting ball joints, but they have been pretty low on my to do list. If i remember correctly, they are used to restore the front control arms to parallel to the ground after lowering to coorect geometry and raise the front roll center if lowered too much. My car is only about 1.0" lower in front, it doesn't seem that this minimal lowering will lower the front roll center far enough to warrant adjustment. What do you think? Also, if I get the ball joints to restore the geometry of the front control arms. will this have any effect on reducing front end dive during braking?
Thanks
The Roush suspensions I've worked on were on Roush Stage 2 cars and painted blue as I recall. I think only the Roush Stage 3 bar is solid, is this what you mentioned you saw on the Roush website? I thought you had a Roush Stage 2 suspension on your car.
HTH!
10-02-2009, 06:32 PM
#22
4th Gear Member
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: California
Posts: 1,471
Um, all of the standard McPherson strut type suspensions for the S197 use springs to reduce ride height of the chassis. AFAIK there are no O.E. quality drop spindles available for the S197 chassis. I've seen some poorly fabricated attempts at S197 drop sprindles but they did not have much drop and they were fabricated very poorly. The problem is that there is not much room to drop the spindle on an S197 anyway not to mention the mess it would make of the suspension geometry and scrub radius of the front end.
Cheers/Chip
Last edited by F1Fan; 10-02-2009 at 06:33 PM. Reason: typos
10-02-2009, 10:23 PM
#24
2nd Gear Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Florida
Posts: 329
The red and blue bars look identical. Also, the ends of the sway bar don't look stamped flat like the stock sway bar, but almost look milled from solid tube stock to create flats to attach the end links. That plus the much heavier weight of the thing leads me to believe that it is solid. Guess the only way to know for certain is to cut the sucker in half!
10-03-2009, 09:52 AM
#25
6th Gear Member
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: state of confusion
Posts: 7,635
The red and blue bars look identical. Also, the ends of the sway bar don't look stamped flat like the stock sway bar, but almost look milled from solid tube stock to create flats to attach the end links. That plus the much heavier weight of the thing leads me to believe that it is solid. Guess the only way to know for certain is to cut the sucker in half!
Norm
Last edited by Norm Peterson; 10-03-2009 at 10:29 AM.
10-03-2009, 11:49 AM
#26
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location:
Posts: 10
Ask Roush if the Stage 2 Sway Bar is solid. They're pretty good about responding to questions about their parts.
http://www.roushperformance.com/contact.shtml
http://www.roushperformance.com/contact.shtml
10-05-2009, 11:43 AM
#27
Former Sponsor
Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 1,936
Norm is right... just weigh it the difference is huge, on the order of about 15 pounds (or even a bit more) between a solid and a hollow.
Of course you could just look at the end of the bar and see if you can see the seam where the tubing was flattened or not too....
Of course you could just look at the end of the bar and see if you can see the seam where the tubing was flattened or not too....
10-05-2009, 12:29 PM
#28
2nd Gear Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Florida
Posts: 329
I called Roush and was told by customer service that the Stage 2 front bar is 35 mm and is hollow. No more specifics than that. Has to be thicker tubing though as it weighs a lot more than stock.
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