Hi All, I've been reading old Fchat threads on the Saner 25mm front / 22mm rear swaybars that used to be produced. I understand the company is now defunct; I was wondering if anybody knew of a way to obtain one of these old sets? (possibly somebody has a set leftover that has never been installed?) If not, I was wondering if anybody had recommendations for a swaybar fabrication shop whereby I could work with them to fabricate original 25mm front and 22mm rear swaybars for my 85 308? Thanks in advance! Matt
I would contact the big US anit sway bar companies-Addco, hellwig, Quickor Engineering etc. I know I saw info that one of them would custom make bars.
Thanks Sunracer. I'll give it a shot. There were also a couple of Fchatters who had taken the initiative to connect with engineering firms and spec out a production run. However, I'm not sure the status of those efforts.
Pm Rock here. He just made me custom sway bars for my GT4. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Sean, (luckydynes) has been thinkingabout doing some bars, since he got hosed on a purchase. If you are going to have them made, have the bars made a bit wider, or you are going to have some near binding issues. The saner bars try to overcome this misalignment with skinney spacers that allow misalignment, BUT, they are too thin and cannot be torqued properly, so, i lost a nut and washer one track day. You can fix this by using safety washers, longer bolts and a nut for a spacer, but it would just be easier and cleaner to have them done right the first time. For what it is worth, make the female heim joint the one on top, (come on guys keep it clean). If the female is on the bottom, water can get in, corroding the joint. (isn't that the way it always goes OOps, it looks like someone snuck a picture in there of an old bar manufacturer. shiney side up, chris Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I can't imagine an 18mm bar making any sort of handling difference in our cars. Especially without a new front bar to complement it. Besides, somebody in another thread previously wrote that the stock QV rear sway bar is 19mm. If that's true, that means that Superformance's is actually 1mm smaller!
I don't know how accurate my measurement is but, here's what I measure off of my stock 84 QV rear sway bar. Do I have the Superformance sway bar or is this stock? Either way I definitely need a larger one. Image Unavailable, Please Login
I've reached out to Rocks Auto to see what they can do and what kind of discount we can get if we bring a pool of buyers together. I'll reach out to the others suggested above as well.
I'm interested in a F/R set if you get a group buy together. Just let me know. It's getting to be "suspension time".....
Ok, now I remember, thanks Robert for reminding me. The 18mm rear sway bar on the GTS is indeed stock. Being a GTS they did installed a larger bar than the GTBs from the factory for more rigidity.
I made several calls to Swaybar fabricators. Rock's Auto (http://www.rocksauto.ca/), recommended by Fave, seems superb. I have no doubt that the bar that Rocco at Rock's Auto would produce a stellar swaybar that is an ideal fit for our cars. However, I don't know many details of his bar. For instance, he wasn't able to provide for me the diameters of the bars as he would make them (not to say that we couldn't simply tell him what diameter we wish to have). Also, his bars are pricey: $1,600 for the front and rear. No group discounts are offered. Hellwig can custom make bars for us out of 4130 heat treated steel. They need photos of the bar to firm up pricing, but initially quoted about $450 for the base model bar, but stated that the 4130 would be about double the price. This doesn't make sense, for that would mean that the full set would be $1,800, which seems way too high for Hellwig. He's open to group discounts if we can organize >10 people. I had a good long talk with the swaybar engineer at Addco. He made a big case for not going with materials commonly used for high performance swaybar production (i.e. 4130, 5160, and 9263 steel). My relaying of his points wouldn't do them justice. However, see the attachment for his explanation why his 1045 bar milled to his specs is best. His regular price is $700 for the front and rear, and is definitely able to give group buy discounts, even for smaller groups. So, to summarize, Rock's and Addco seem to be the most promising, with huge price differences between the two. I'm interested in people's thoughts, especially those people who expressed interest in a swaybar group buy. Matt Image Unavailable, Please Login
Addco have a good reputation from what I have heard and have been making sway bars for a long time. I had some in my Z28 and they transformed the car from understeer to much more neutral handling. 60,000 miles with no problem when I sold the car. They should know what works best. I would go with them.
Does anyone have the specs for the ABS 328's anti sway bars? Rhett? I know that they are different because the part number is different and I seem to recall that someone tried fitting bigger Saner bars on one and they did not fit? If anyone can find the specs I would be interested in having some made.
Chatters, Having custom sway bars made is/was NOT hard. In the past I had several different sizes made for different formula race cars by local folks that make rebar fabrications for cement reinforcements. I needed to furnish the steel and they did the rest. I need to service my 1982 308 over the weekend and I will have a look at the angles and see how difficult it seems. Safe driving.
