Anti-sway, roll bar manufacturers?

[Ron Earp]

I'm considering some roll bars for two car projects that I have in house. One of the projects will be extremely weight sensitive and I'm interested to know if any of you have experience and/or sources with hollow roll bars?

All the bars I've used in the past have been solid and with examples of large bars like the one on my Z are damn heavy.

 

[Wally]

Re: Roll bar manufacturers?

HI Ron Are you talking Anti Sway Bars ??? If so check these Tubular and Solid Sway Bars We use these on the Super Late Model for Chassis tuning. Any of the supplers of Stock car susspention parts should be able to help get you close to what you need.

 

[Julian]

Re: Roll bar manufacturers?

My only experience of hollow sway bars is on a Pantera and there are numerous accounts of them failing. Now whether that is the particular brand and steel type, wall thickness etc. that supplier is using is another question..... I suspect it is.

 

[flatchat(Chris)]

Got mine from here, Ron :- Welcome to K-MAC, Camber Kits, Caster Kits, Springs, Swaybars. something simple to start with --to see what happens ?

 

[Troy]

Hi Ron. These guys have all the bits to make your own adjustable arrangement, if that's the way you want to go...

Race Car Cockpit Adjustable Swaybars and Components

 

[Howard Jones]

Ron, the rear bar on my GTD is 5/8 od .120 wall thickness 4130. If you think you need more bar then go with 3/4 od. It's about 3 bucks a foot so you ought to be able to make one for $25-30. Mine is simple, straight in the middle with each end bent at 90 degrees. About 3 foot center section and about a foot long for each torsion arm. Weld on a piece of 1/8 X 1 flat stock on each torsion arms with about 8 holes in it a inch apart and you have a simple adjustable bar. Use off the shelf roll bar bushes and clamps. Make up some links with some cheap 3/8 rh lh rod ends and you're good to go.

Mine has been on the car for years without any sign of taking a set, cracking, or anything else. The guy who bent your roll cage should be able to bend it for you. Piece of cake

 

[Ron Earp]

Thanks for the links fellows. Good picture there Howard, that is exactly the sort of thing I'm looking for. Hotchkis also had a nice site explaining hollow roll bars and the weight savings with them etc. It looks to be a fairly easy thing to fab up as needed.

 

[Mick Ridley]

hi Ron,

Im building a GT40 from scratch. Im useing a similar set_up to Howard, but im useing 1" x 16 swg( 1.6mm) 4130 tubing, which I imagine would have a similar strength, to Howards sway bar, but be lighter....Im still building my car, so as yet it is untried

To make it adjustable, I have used a sliding clamp arrangement, which would be quite a bit lighter than useing a plate with holes.....I dont know how to post pics on here, so if you send me an email [email protected] I will you send you some pics showing the clamp system

mick

 

[GTPVette]

Ron,,
I'm in the process of installing one on my GTM right now. Went with the smallest hollow 1" tube to start with,,, but choose the steel arms which was a mistake. The bar itself is quite lite,,, the arms are terribly heavy but I'll be shortening them some.

Speedway Engineering's Standard Sway Bars

Good luck...

 

[Terry Oxandale]

There was no mention on this string of heat treating any of these bars after they were bent. Am I to understand you're using DOM or mild steel tube with no treating process?

Thanks,

Terry

 

[Mick Ridley]

Hi Terry
I used chrome molly 4130 tubing for my sway bar

CM comes in 4 grades As Drawn...Annealed....Normalizid....and Quenched, and Tempered

I bent my sway bar from Normalised. It would only be nessecarry to heat treat it, If i required it to be stiffer

 

[Terry Oxandale]

Thanks Mick

 

[Tom]

Heat treat only affects strength of the steel, not the stiffness of the bar. You need to heat treat if the bar yields in use. If it doesn't yield, heat treat won't make a difference to roll resistance.

 

[Terry Oxandale]

Makes perfect sense. It sounds from the experience put out so far that the normal suspension roll does not reach yield strength for the bars in this string. To me this also supports a stiffer spring rate in order to prevent this. But until I have hard numbers, I've no idea what the yield strength of these bars would be (un-treated)

 

[Malcolm]

I am makng some ARBs soon for my current project and plan to use hollow tubes like you Ron. Somewhere on this computer is a simple program to calculate the "stiffness" of a bar so you can work out what you have been using and what you need to replace it with to get the same or stiffer bar. I will post it when I find it!

 

[Kevin Box]

Howard

I like the simpicity of your rear bar
What did you do for fronts ????
Can you post a pic

Thanks

KevinB

 

[Mick Ridley]

Hi Tom.

Thanks for the info. I had read Fred Puhns book, but I had never fully understood what he meant, but now thanks to you I do...
Tom, could you please explain to me in simple terms, what the Yield, and Tensile strenght means

Terry,
I have some info, on tensile strength and yeilds of ERW, DOM ,CFS3, and Chrome Molly, Im having trouble uploading the info on ERW, on here, if you email me, ill send you the info, my email addy is [email protected]

Here are a few sites with info about chrome molly

Performance Metals Australia- Product Information - 4130 Round Tube

http://www.suppliersonline.com/propertypages/4130.asp

And the info on DOM, and CFS3

View attachment 47804

View attachment 47805

I hope this is what you are looking for

Kevin here is a pic of a simple sliding clamp I used on my front and rear anti roll bars



mick

 

[Mick Ridley]

Kevin,

if you scroll down to the bottom of this page, there are 5 threads on anti roll bars, if you look at Malcoms thread you will see a pic of Howards front anti roll bar

mick

 

[Mick Ridley]

trying to download again

View attachment Scan_Doc0007.pdf

 

[Mick Ridley]

hi terry i still cant gat the ERW to download...

this is the CFS3

View attachment Scan_Doc0006.pdf