Anti Roll (Sway) Bars

Hail fellow lunatics

Desperately close now to ordering a 40 kit, RCR still favourite (Fran has threatened that it had better stay that way or else it's the heavy mob:eek: )

:confused: There seems to be mixed views about the use of anti roll bars as part of the suspension set up for a GT40. I would (a) like to get some opinions on their use from some of you experienced guys and (b) from the RCR builders about whether (and how) they intend to fit them.

Great Forum much enjoyed and thanks in eager anticipation of some experienced opinions.

Regards - John
 

Ron Earp

Admin
Hey John,

Funny you should bring this up. I was conversing off line with someone about roll bars and also talking to a racing buddy in the pub about them.

In short, I prefer to do my track chassis tuning and setup without anti-roll bars. I think if you get your springs and shocks right then they will not be needed, at least for the majority of the setup. The roll bar is nothing more than a spring that adds it's rate in when stressed, i.e., under cornering. If your springs and shocks are dialed in already then there is a good chance they won't be necessary under most circumstances.

I feel that there is some misconception that if your car doesn't have an anti-roll bar then it won't handle well. There might be some truth to this for a street car. After all, if it is sprung so that it'll handle well then it might be sprung too harshly for street use for some tastes. The roll bar provides additional spring when needed, under cornering, but not while cruising. So, the car can be softer sprung for a better ride and still corner decently. On the other hand, if someone thinks that their 2000 lb heim-jointed-non-bushing-having-engine-1-foot-away-500hp car is going to "have a real smooth ride", well, not sure what to say there. I sort of doubt it will.

I do think anti roll bars are very useful for allowing tuning at a track - as long as you have an adjustable anti-roll bar. If you do not have an adjustable bar then all you can do to tune it is unhook one side of the bar and disconnect the spring entirely. Malcolm and I had great success with this at Donnington a couple years back in the rain and it really transformed the car allowing us to correct a gross understeer issue in the rain. We've also run our SCCA Miatas in the rain with the bar disconnected to help it get some bite that it would otherwise not have due to the size of the roll bar on the car, it was quite stiff.

I think your development should be spent on springs, height, tires, and shocks to get the handling where you want it. Then you can add a small bar if you want to get some adjustability from it an tune for different drivers/tracks. As far as adding it to the RCR chassis I don't see that it will be hard at all. Two roll bar mounts/bushings can be bolted low on the front bulkhead on the outside under the clip. The bar will mount there, and then come around to the lower arms. A standard roll bar mount kit from Pegasus can be used to attach the bar to the lower control arm wherever you'd like to drill the holes for the mount. But as far as a roll bar being 100% necessary for a sharp handling car I'd disagree.

The slick trick would be to use a cockpit adjustable bar, although that is really icing on the cake. Design of this isn't as hard as you might think and is outlined in Carroll Smith's Chassis Tuning book. One of the end links is designed to slide up and down the arm thereby changing the leverage on the bar. A steel push/pull cable can move the end link for you and these mechanisms are available at race outfitters.

Oh, and I might fit one for tunability, but not to make it work. It'll be after I get it close.

Ron
 

Randy V

Moderator-Admin
Staff member
Admin
Lifetime Supporter
My $.02 worth..

While I can not (yet) speak of fitting a sway-bar to an RCR - I can offer my vantage point from other high performance street and racecars.

Ron's message is a good one and hits spot-on the key points of this conversation.

Sway-bars will allow you to run a lesser agressive shock setting as well as a lower spring rate.

For racecars we used sway-bars strictly for fine-tuning the spring rates for a particular track. If your setup is done for a particular track by altering corner weights and spring rates, sway-bars would only offer the fine-tuning.

For Street cars I think that sway-bars are a very important feature (I plan on adding them to my RCR) in that I will want to run a lower rate spring and less agressive shock setting. This will not only aid in the comfort and ride department, but the handling (safety) department as well given the rough and in-consistent nature of public streets and highways.

Disconnecting sway-bars in the rain: Absolutely on a racecar.. This will encourage body roll and weight transfer by reducing the effective spring rate and shock damping rate on the outside corner / tire...
 
There are a few RCR cars currently set up with sway bars...

Ron McCall ran his at Pocono last weekend with bars....
Dean has bars for his and Sandy also has bars on his car.
We are doing a cockpit adjustable setup on an RCR70 coupe for another forum member too.....so its not a big ordeal.
 

Ron McCall

Supporter
I added ,RCR supplied ,sway bars to my car.The rear bar is 7/8" and is connected to the top of the upright and attached to the chassis using very simple brackets that I made. The front bar is 1" and is attached to the chassis on the front just above the "tunnel" where the cooling pipes pass through.It attaches to the lower control arms just in front of the shocks.I drove my car with and without the sway bars on the street and I can definately say that they made a BIG difference.The reason may be the realtively light (400#) spring rate or the non aggresive shock package.
On the race track,the car is VERY stable in the turns as well as the straight away.Like most owner/builders I plan to use my car for heave track use and street driving but not for wheel to wheel competition.For what I need,I am VERY happy with the performance !
 
Informative as ever. Ron (McCall) your set up sounds like the kind of balance I would be looking for with same type usage. Could you post some pics of your installation. Many thanks for the time you guys have taken to provide well thought through answers.

Fran,I did some detailed research with various engineering bodies on the use of aluminium in a chassis (as a reaction to the FUDmongeres out there just to make sure my $$ were safe.....). Conclusion, you can keep the heavies on your side of the pond, it will be an RCR for me.

Best - John
 

Randy Folsom

Supporter
My $.02 worth..

While I can not (yet) speak of fitting a sway-bar to an RCR - I can offer my vantage point from other high performance street and racecars.

Ron's message is a good one and hits spot-on the key points of this conversation.

Sway-bars will allow you to run a lesser agressive shock setting as well as a lower spring rate.

For racecars we used sway-bars strictly for fine-tuning the spring rates for a particular track. If your setup is done for a particular track by altering corner weights and spring rates, sway-bars would only offer the fine-tuning.

For Street cars I think that sway-bars are a very important feature (I plan on adding them to my RCR) in that I will want to run a lower rate spring and less agressive shock setting. This will not only aid in the comfort and ride department, but the handling (safety) department as well given the rough and in-consistent nature of public streets and highways.

Disconnecting sway-bars in the rain: Absolutely on a racecar.. This will encourage body roll and weight transfer by reducing the effective spring rate and shock damping rate on the outside corner / tire...
Randy, Hoping you remember this old thread. I am wondering if I should install sway bars on my RCR40 which will be primarily street with occasional track days. I plan to at the very least mock up sway bars so that I don’t create a situation where I make it difficult to do in the future. If I do, are the ones from RCR a good option? Cheers, Randy
 

Randy V

Moderator-Admin
Staff member
Admin
Lifetime Supporter
Hi Randy…. I do recall that thread. I sold the car prior to final assembly so I did not add the sway bars and not certain if Mitch did after he bought it. I would definitely look into the RCR bars as Fran would have good insight as to what spring rates should be run with his bars. The rear bar will need to either be mounted below the suspension/transaxle or just below the exhaust system (which is where I was going to mount it). The front bar is going to be your biggest challenge so as to not drop below your current low points on the car, thereby becoming a drag hazard..
 

Randy Folsom

Supporter
Randy, Fran told I did not need sway bars since the car will mostly be driven on the street. I think I will mock them up with wooden broom sticks and go ahead and build out the mounts just to be sure I don’t interfere with a future upgrade. I think Chuck added them as an upgrade and had to reroute the A/C lines. Cheers, Randy
 

Randy Folsom

Supporter
I added ,RCR supplied ,sway bars to my car.The rear bar is 7/8" and is connected to the top of the upright and attached to the chassis using very simple brackets that I made. The front bar is 1" and is attached to the chassis on the front just above the "tunnel" where the cooling pipes pass through.It attaches to the lower control arms just in front of the shocks.I drove my car with and without the sway bars on the street and I can definately say that they made a BIG difference.The reason may be the realtively light (400#) spring rate or the non aggresive shock package.
On the race track,the car is VERY stable in the turns as well as the straight away.Like most owner/builders I plan to use my car for heave track use and street driving but not for wheel to wheel competition.For what I need,I am VERY happy with the performance !
Hi, it might be too long ago, but saw that you are still active on this site, so hoping for some guidance regarding sway bars. I am supposed to be receiving my RCR40 in the next couple of weeks (fingers crossed). Do you still think that the sway bars provided by RCR are a good upgrade? Fran told me I do not need them. My car will only see occasional track days. Mostly, I will be driving in local club events to get some BBQ and pie .
 
See what I have on the front, (the rust is no more present ! :) ). The bar is going though the front of the central cell just behind the pedalbox and is attached on the aluminum wall.
On the back, the bar is not installed.
Anyway, I do not fully agree with Ron. The advantage of a sway bar compare to the rest of the components of the suspension, is that it creat a link between suspension left and right. Any other component is acting separately on left or right side. My experience on race track with other car than GT40 is that the front sway bar is very important because it is active when you enter in the curve and the transfer of mass on the front is at the finish stage. The back is less important. And it is true what ever frame you have, very rigid or not.
 

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Hi, it might be too long ago, but saw that you are still active on this site, so hoping for some guidance regarding sway bars. I am supposed to be receiving my RCR40 in the next couple of weeks (fingers crossed). Do you still think that the sway bars provided by RCR are a good upgrade? Fran told me I do not need them. My car will only see occasional track days. Mostly, I will be driving in local club events to get some BBQ and pie .
Hi: I don't think you need the sway bars for the street. In particular, the car tends to under-steer anyway and when the tail comes - it comes ;-). However, if you like to see John's installation at the rear, take a look at the photo in my build log. The RCR front setup is as shown in the 2 photos by Jean-Marc.
 

Randy Folsom

Supporter
Walter,

Thx much for the guidance. Fran’s said the same thing about street use. However, I’m thinking to install the sway bar such that it doesn’t do anything by default, but for the track (rare occasions), I could enable it. This could be done by simply removing / installing the links to the control arms.
 
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