mx5cartalk.com

Here's a little quandary I've been mulling over for the last few days.

Scooter and the Clubbie both have after market sway bars. Now when I sit there and look at the sway bar links I find that if I want to move the links to different holes the links are then working against the std suspension mounting points in the lower arms. My question is : If I move the sway bar mounting points eg at the chassis either forward or backwards so that the link pins are in a straight up and down position as they are from the factory, will this change the characteristics of the bars? or because the mounting points are fixed as are the link pin points it shouldn't make any difference? My way of thinking, is that if the link pins are under load in a stationary position then when they are under load, eg pushing through a corner, then the suspension and the sway bars can't work the way they were designed to. I rang both manufactures today and neither would offer any advise either way as to what would happen if I moved the mount points.
So by moving the mount points and getting the link pins vertical I believe that the bars and suspension would work the way they should.

Now over to the experts for your comments in English please!!!

Terry

If the link pins are non vertical to the sway bars then you will have effectively softened the bar.
By how much depends on the angle..(approx 1.1% softer for every degree of angle)

Relocating the pins to vertical will stiffen the bar back to its intended level.

But on the flipside any difference away from perpendicular between the links and the sway bar angle will increase the effective stiffness of the sway bar... whether this angle is greater than or less than 90° will also affect whether the sway bar is progressive or digressive, but of course that is also affected by the non-linearity caused by the arc the bar ends move through.

Short answer:
Stop thinking about it so much.

My thoughts exactly Matty !