Suspension Brakes Most liked posts in thread: Sway Bar End Links

There just aren't a lot of failures out there....

yeah it looks spindly, but that also means it's light, and it's unsprung weight. With a good design, there should be little or no bending torque on the device. It's awful hard to compress the shaft of metal....

Matt

 

Doubt that they broke from one strong bind but from repetitive stress over time.....

 

It's a question of shear stress vs axial stress. The swaybar is subject to a twisting motion (torsion), which creates shear stress within the steel. The endlink has bushings on either end that isolate it from the bending moment, so it's only in tension or compression. A thin steel rod handles tension and compression better than torsion, as long as the forces don't reach the yield strength. And yes Mark, failure was probably due to metal fatigue.

Makes me want to call up my parents and tell them that my college degree was actually useful. =)

 

So is it safe to say, if you go larger than stock on the sway bar, go to heavier duty end links? Or does the stock end links have a large margin of safety built in?

 

Drop links do take a certain amount of non-linier (don't think that's the term I am looking for) forces. All has to do with the angle of the sway bar ends and why one needs to think about how many degrees out of perpendicular to the drop links they are running. Once the angle is out of 90* to the drop links, side forces start being applied. This actually causes a "progressive" rate in the sway bar.
Anyway, the fronts are always undergoing non-linier forces and it's why they break

 

Don't forget, the most important thing concering sway bar links is the heim joints. Those fail more often (and wear out more often) that the actual link, itself.

On our Legends cars we'd replace heims at the start of each season and still would end up with 3 or 4 new heims by the end of the season.

 

Really...? What's up with that do you think? What do those things weigh, 1200 lbs? I know you guys race those things like every weekend so maybe it's just that.

 

Anybody know what the lengths of a slightly dropped suspension's end link should be?

I'm installing the Powergrid ones, but I have misplaced my OEM ones. Car has been on jacks for half a year.

 

I'ma eatin a donut I missed out on yesterday with my MOM peeps......

 

drinking coffee, measuring endlinks, wishing I had a donut.

 

^^^ There is this Canadian dude by the name of Tim something or other... Norton maybe.... Tim Norton's..... No that's not it, but I'm close.... Anyway he's been known to sell a few..... If you can't find him locally, stop by my place, I still have a few un-touched....
On the 9.25", I'm guessing that's the rear end link length, the fronts are different....

 

Thank you so much! I forgot to mention, my car is a R53 and I didn't notice this was in a 2nd gen forum I wouldn't think there would be too big difference between the two seeing that some suspension parts are inter-changeable.

Good point! grodenglaive, can you confirm if this is for the front or rear?

 

oh yeah, that's for the rear, I just assumed you were doing the rear sway bar. The fronts are 11 and 3/4 btw.
never did get that donut - if only there was a Jim Norton's nearby:ihih:

 

Thank you so much! If I'm ever stateside, I'll send one your way :donut1:

 

Lengthen the front drop link, shorten the rear. Start with 305mm center-to-center in the front for .5 - 1 inch lower. Shortening the front link will run the risk of contact with the driveshaft under full compression.

 

Thank you Keith!