Sway bars, how to set them up?

[Charlescrown]

Good calc but I think the shear modulus might be hard to determine without manufacturers data.

[vlad01]

I kept it as a constant arbitrary value as I was only concerned about diameter changes so I could figure out relative changes compared to the existing bar.

Another thing I found unrelated to the diameter, is that VR have a more spread out bar ends, so the eyelet location is some 40mm further out towards the wheels. So, the bars need to be kept to their respected model ranges when swapping sizes.

[Charlescrown]

Seems lke they actually did some R&D on these cars. 40mm would make it a tad softer like a longer spring does.

[immortality]

They did a lot of testing too at the old proving grounds.

[vlad01]

I'll elaborate on the VR bar, the ends are more doglegged, so the are wider at the eyelets to reach the wider track on VR, but the bar arms closest to the K frame and torsion length are all the same as VN-VP, so the rating would not differ any significant amount if at all.

So what I meant about swapping from models is that they physically might not fit, in the case of VR to VN-VP, it won't fit as it would be pretty much inside the strut.

[immortality]

Yes they would need to do that, but, Any change in length of the bar arm also changes the effective rate of the bar.

Also, any angle between the 2 mounting locations (bar arm - strut or LCA) can reduce the effectiveness of the bar, length of the link arm can also change the effectiveness of the bar. The problem with the strut mounted link arms is that under high steering angles there is a fair amount of angularity introduced into the link arms, I believe this is part of the reason the bushes tend to blow out a lot.

[vlad01]

It can but it also depends, overall length of the arms will add some slight give but the effective level length depends on the geometry, and since the fulcrum point is the same, the torsion length the same and the effort point of the level in the same effective place, it should be the same within margin of error, only a fraction more give should come from doglegging around to the strut location.

It's like the same fallacy of the rear axle "J" bars, the marketing is that it eliminates jacking due to the path the panhard bar doglegs, but levers and links don't care if the bar does a trip around the planet and back (assume hypothetically perfectly rigid), it only "sees" pivot point A and B.

But as with the J bars, the extra dogleg will add some flex just because something in real life isn't perfectly rigid. What the original intent of those J bars was to give extra exhaust clearance, but someone good with marketing and poor with engineering ran with it.

[Wade]

https://youtu.be/HnwSoDBEdB8?si=5DqniIhwBXvWAAMH