496 polara
Member
Who is left making front sway bars for our cars? Would like a front sway bar for my 72 Newport so it is a little less boaty.
72 Newport/front sway bar
- Thread starter 496 polara
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Firm Feel Inc. Steering and Suspension for Chrysler Plymouth & Dodge
Firm Feel rebuild mopar chrysler plymouth and dodge stock steering gear boxes with fast ratio and reinforces k frames as well as lower control arms and sell parts for suspension custom torsion bars and front rear anti sway bars
firmfeel.com
496 polara
Member
I knew of them just not wanting to spend $500 for bar and brackets but these are the times we live in.
3C's & a D?
Senior Member
If you search this forum there have been many creative solutions over the years. One of the most interesting I can recall was a member who used ball joint links from an off road company I believe, with the stock bar.
Your '72 Newport would have had one from the factory, is it missing?
Your '72 Newport would have had one from the factory, is it missing?
496 polara
Member
It does.Just trying to decide between a larger bar or bigger torsion bars. That may be the best answer.
3C's & a D?
Senior Member
Well, if that's the case you're going to have to cough up some decent dough one way or the other. You mentioned not liking the boaty feeling, perhaps a set of performance shocks may do the trick?
If you install a larger front bar, or larger front torsion bars, you will increase the amount of understeer when you push the car.
In other words, instead of the car swerving around an object, you will drive into it. Our cars are designed to have some understeer but you really don't want to increase it.
To lose the "boat" feeling, you'd probably be better off going to a better shock absorber and I'll bet the lower control arm bushings are shot.
If you do go to a larger front sway bar, consider putting a rear sway bar in too. That will help with understeer. Just the rear sway bar will give you oversteer, meaning whatever you will hit the wall with the rear of the car.
496 polara
Member
I am going to put new shocks on the front before I make any other changes. Bushings are good. Have Bilstein shocks for the front. Needs a Pittman arm and then I will check the alignment.
On my old Polara police torsion bars made a world of difference.
On my old Polara police torsion bars made a world of difference.
With the rear bar, it will increase oversteer tendencies, but enough to counter the existing understeer, so the result is a more-neutral handing vehicle, but still with a bias toward understeer. Understeer due to the heaviest part of the car being on the front, so tire slip angles from loading will always be greater . . . UNLESS front tire pressures are increased to compensate for that, compared to the rear.
Seems like the '72 or so C-body wagons had a larger sway bar on them, OEM?
Enjoy!
CBODY67
Seems like the '72 or so C-body wagons had a larger sway bar on them, OEM?
Enjoy!
CBODY67
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If you want an American made PITMAN ARM, P.M. me , as per forum rules, if interested.....Craig.....
From much earlier times, it has been more desirable for the front end of the vehicle to slide first in a fast cornering maneuver. That gets the driver's attention as they can see and hear it coming from tire sounds of slippage, so they reflexively slow down to stop/decrease the tire sounds. Independent of the handling characteristics of the respective tire itself.
In the tire tests that CAR AND DRIVER did in the 1970s, the "grip curves" of tires that looked to be "the same" were NOT the same, on the track. Some tires were gradual until their adhesion limits were reached as others were more sudden, by comparison. Others were sticky right up to their limits, then they weren't. Many of these differences were due to rubber compounding, back then as now.
In all cases, though, the more relative load the tires on the front "see" relative to their inflation pressure (ability to carry weight) has a big affect on both ultimate steering response and cornering capabilities. Keeping the tread FLAT on the road is important, which is why radials (and the bias-belted tires in the USA market that came before them) are better than normal bias-ply tires. If the front end geometry has the outer wheel going into negative camber, so that as the chassis leans in the turn, the outer tire remains more perpendicular to the road surface . . . as Chrysler products are designed to do . . . the outer tire is better "braced" to handle cornering forces as the tire tread stays more perpendicular to the road surface. GM and the earlier Ford cars, the outer wheel leaned with the chassis, which put the major cornering forces on the outside tread ribs (and a bit of the sidewall itself in some cases) as the inside of the tread does little if anything at all.
Keeping the car "flat" in the turns is important. Moving some of the resistance to maintain flatness rearward lets the rear wheels contribute more, too. Which generally makes for a more-neutral feel and result, but still with the orientation toward understeer, just less of it. Which is why rear bars are not as large as the front bars are. A part of most "radial-tuned OEM suspensions" was the addition of a rear sway bar and firmer rear suspension pivot bushings, generally.
Standard rear sway bars have been the victim of "de-contenting" of vehicles should sales prices get to be more competitive (as to costs and such). In the later 1970s, the rear sway bars on Cordobas were a victim of this, as the previously-standard bars became optional, which caught some dealers off-guard, so they had to start ordering them as an option. In the LH car era, Daimler de-contented the cars by deletion of some "hidden standard equipment" many didn't care about, which included the rear sway bar on Chrysler Concordes. I rented a lot of those cars back then. In normal driving, the loss was not noticed, but in more "sporting" driving, nearer the edge of tire traction in corners, they would be noticed.
Chrysler engineers were more reluctant to offer rear sway bars as standard equipment, but were somewhat forced to with the advent of the famous and popular Chevy F41 rear sway bar suspension on Impalas and Caprices, plus Pontiac's quick adoption of such on their cars. YET, in the back of the 1970 (IIRC) Chrysler parts book, in the "Police and Taxi" section in the back, hidden in the part numbers was a B- and C-body "rear sway bar" for "LAPD" vehicles. Possibly to decrease understeer on some of the curvy roads in "the hills" around Los Angeles? When I discovered that, in about 1975, I was surprised.
Enjoy!
CBODY67
In the tire tests that CAR AND DRIVER did in the 1970s, the "grip curves" of tires that looked to be "the same" were NOT the same, on the track. Some tires were gradual until their adhesion limits were reached as others were more sudden, by comparison. Others were sticky right up to their limits, then they weren't. Many of these differences were due to rubber compounding, back then as now.
In all cases, though, the more relative load the tires on the front "see" relative to their inflation pressure (ability to carry weight) has a big affect on both ultimate steering response and cornering capabilities. Keeping the tread FLAT on the road is important, which is why radials (and the bias-belted tires in the USA market that came before them) are better than normal bias-ply tires. If the front end geometry has the outer wheel going into negative camber, so that as the chassis leans in the turn, the outer tire remains more perpendicular to the road surface . . . as Chrysler products are designed to do . . . the outer tire is better "braced" to handle cornering forces as the tire tread stays more perpendicular to the road surface. GM and the earlier Ford cars, the outer wheel leaned with the chassis, which put the major cornering forces on the outside tread ribs (and a bit of the sidewall itself in some cases) as the inside of the tread does little if anything at all.
Keeping the car "flat" in the turns is important. Moving some of the resistance to maintain flatness rearward lets the rear wheels contribute more, too. Which generally makes for a more-neutral feel and result, but still with the orientation toward understeer, just less of it. Which is why rear bars are not as large as the front bars are. A part of most "radial-tuned OEM suspensions" was the addition of a rear sway bar and firmer rear suspension pivot bushings, generally.
Standard rear sway bars have been the victim of "de-contenting" of vehicles should sales prices get to be more competitive (as to costs and such). In the later 1970s, the rear sway bars on Cordobas were a victim of this, as the previously-standard bars became optional, which caught some dealers off-guard, so they had to start ordering them as an option. In the LH car era, Daimler de-contented the cars by deletion of some "hidden standard equipment" many didn't care about, which included the rear sway bar on Chrysler Concordes. I rented a lot of those cars back then. In normal driving, the loss was not noticed, but in more "sporting" driving, nearer the edge of tire traction in corners, they would be noticed.
Chrysler engineers were more reluctant to offer rear sway bars as standard equipment, but were somewhat forced to with the advent of the famous and popular Chevy F41 rear sway bar suspension on Impalas and Caprices, plus Pontiac's quick adoption of such on their cars. YET, in the back of the 1970 (IIRC) Chrysler parts book, in the "Police and Taxi" section in the back, hidden in the part numbers was a B- and C-body "rear sway bar" for "LAPD" vehicles. Possibly to decrease understeer on some of the curvy roads in "the hills" around Los Angeles? When I discovered that, in about 1975, I was surprised.
Enjoy!
CBODY67
3C's & a D?
Senior Member
Daimler did the same with the LX's. Early Hemi cars got a rear sway, V6's did not. The mounts are there though, so I bought one from a junkyard Hemi and installed it with new links. Night and day difference!
If you think about that, the hemi is probably heavier than the V6 and therefore, more nose heavy... So more understeer. Put a rear sway bar on and that reduces understeer.
3C's & a D?
Senior Member
The iron block Hemi V8 is considerably heavier than the all aluminum V6, so yes. However later V6's got the rear sway bar. I figured I try it and I like it. It fishtails so evenly now it's unbelievable. On snow of course, it is a 4000 pound car with a V6. 51/49 f/r weight distribution doesn't hurt.
496 polara
Member
Awesome service from Craig and much appreciated.
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