Sway bar Tips
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  1. Consider what each suspension componet is designed for and don't ask it to do more than it can do.
  2. The easiest part to install is the sway bar frame and endlinks bushing sets. These will decrease camber change and increase the effectiveness of your current sway bar(about 20 - 30 %, depending the thickness of the original rubber bushings).
  3. Most cars are designed by the factory to understeer.  This is considered safer, because most of their customers do not know how to drive a well handling high performance car(do you?).
  4. Advertisements & magazine articles usually encourge us to first install better shocks and then next increase the spring rates(wrong).
  5. Increasing the spring rate will affect the abilty of the tires to grip the road.  Two related terms you would hear in the paddock area of your local race track, "overbarring the car" and "to much spring", mean the tires will not grip the track surface.  You can increase the front end spring rate to much and have understeer.  Increasing the rear end spring rate to much and you have oversteer.  And believe it or not, you can increase spring/sway bar rates on both ends to much, and loose tire adhesion on all four corners.
  6. Increasing the front spring rate and/or front sway bar diameter will increase understeer.  Isn't this the problem that the factory designed into your car originally.  If you want the car to handle better, your goal is to decrease the understeer to obtain a neutral handling car(maybe a little oversteer for you autocrossers).  So why does everyone want to increase the front spring rate and the front sway bar diameter?  Yeah, its easier, but they are stupid.

  7. When you drive the car, seat-of-the-pants engineering will tell you the car corners better because it is stiffer and just seems better. But an astute outside observer will tell you that the front end is still sliding towards the outside of the turn. Allowing a better handling car to drive under your car(taking the inside of the corner).  In other words 'your car does not turn in tight on the corners', it is still understeering!!!
  8. Increasing the rear springs or adding a rear sway bar(or increasing the diameter), will increase oversteer, improving your turn in.
  9. Think about what the springs are supposed to do on your car.  They support the weight of the body.  Springs are always trying to push 'up', what ever is on top of them.

  10. So when your car is in a corner the springs on the outside of the car/corner are trying to push the body back to a level position.  But, what are the inside springs doing?  They are trying to push the body out to the outside of the turn.  We don't want this.
  11. Consider front and REAR sway bars when you want the car to have neutral handling.
  12. Properly made sway bars are made of spring steel, so they are a type of spring steel. Sway bars will add spring rate to the outside spring when the body starts to lean and pull the body down on the inside.   They control body lean during cornering and transfer the weight on the outside tires to the inside tires, thus increasing the traction of the inside tires.
  13. Of course there are different designs of sway bars, and it is not always easy to install a sway bar.  The sway bars from Stam-bar Stabiliziers, will bolt-on to the suspension, without any welding.  They are designed to 'float' with the suspension, when the car is driven in a straight line and the sway bar is not needed.  This 'floating action' is accomplished with end links that pivot, to allow the sway bar to move up and down with the suspension.  But as soon as the car starts to lean the endlinks transfer this energy into the sway bar so that the sway bar can do it's intended job of keeping the car level.
  14. To order or for more information, please call:
    1(888)SWAYBAR
    www.swaybar.com

    We manufacture spring steel adjustable front and rear sway bars.
    Currently available are:
    65 - 70 Mustang, Falcon, Cougar, Comet and Fairlane front sway bars $229.00
    65 - 73 Mustang, Falcon, Cougar, Comet and Fairlane rear sway bars $189.00