Quote:
Originally Posted by froggy47
I looked at the bar picture on Pfadt site & I'd like a bit more explanation on how the adjustment works.
My (limited) experience with sway bars is that that you vary the stiffness of the bar with the size & material that the bar is made of.
Then you use the adj. end links (after setting ride height & corner weight) to make sure there is no pre load on the bar.
It appears that your adjustment is to preload/unload the bar.
This would change your corner weights & (possibly) ride height.
Is that correct or have I got it all wrong?
Thanks.
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I was going to enter an explanation of the effects of a lever arm, but the sway bar entry from wikipedia does a pretty good job. Excerpted:
A sway bar is usually a torsional spring that resists body roll motions. It is usually constructed out of a U-shaped piece of steel that connects to the body at two points, and at the left and right sides of the suspension. If the left and right wheels move together, the bar just rotates about its mounting points and does not bend. If the wheels move relative to each other, the bar is forced to twist.
The bar resists the bending through its stiffness. The stiffness of an anti-roll bar is based on the fourth power of its diameter, the stiffness of the material, the inverse of the length of the lever arms (i.e., the shorter the lever arm, the stiffer the bar), the geometry of the mounting points, and the rigidity of the bar's mounting points. Some anti-roll bars, particularly those intended for use in auto racing, are adjustable, allowing their stiffness to be altered by increasing or reducing the length of the lever arms. This permits the roll stiffness to be tuned for different situations without replacing the entire bar. The stiffer the bar, the more force required to move the left and right wheels relative to each other. This increases the amount of force required to make the body roll.
