Complete removal of the rear anti-roll bar??

[92rrrandall]

This may sound a little crazy...but I would consider complete removal to the rear anti-roll bar. Has anybody done this?? Any comments welcome.

Normally I consider the anti-roll bar to be a better way of improving cornering ability than lowering and increasing spring stiffness. But I am always trying to reduce weight and simplify too.

My car weighs less than original, the height is lower, the springs are stiffer, the tires wider, the front roll-bar stiffer...maybe I do not even need the rear roll bar at all.

If anyone has tried this or knows for sure not to do it please comment.

Randall

[grndsm]

Randall

I haven't done it on a TR7, but I have done it on other cars. This depends on what kind of handling characteristics you are looking to gain. Removing the rear sway bar will make your car understeer more (aka "plowing").

But that will only be evident under extreme driving conditions. In other words, if you are just casually driving around, you would not notice the absence of the sway bar. But someone who is looking for weight loss, is probably looking to do some spirited driving [;)]

All this leads me to some questions:

What kind of driving are you looking to do with the car?
How do you find your current handling balance? Does it tend to oversteer or understeer?


Leon
'94 Eagle Talon AWD Turbo 613whp <powered by Mitsu 4G63T
'80 TR7 Spyder GS-T <undergoing Mitsu 4G63T transplant
http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2472999

[tr8coupe]

[:D]seen only one tr7 v8 with no anti roll bars

BMW Z1 ( sold)
Westfield sport carbon (sold)
Eurosport x1/9 turbo (sold)
tr8 coupe
tr7 v8 monster on 245 tyres all round

[bmcecosse]

Costs nothing to try it - but the weight saving is decidedly marginal, so I would only do it if it somehow improves the handling or the grip!

[Hasbeen]

Randall, the idia of an anti-roll bar is to transfer weight while
cornering, not just to prevent roll, which it does as a side effect.
It transfer this weight from the outside wheel, on its end, to the
inside wheel, at the other end of the car.

Increasing the weight on a wheel increases the cornering power it
can generate, so as Leon says, no rear roll bar will give more
understeer, or in extreme cases complete breakaway. I have seen a
number of open wheelers retire from races when the rear roll bar
links broke. [Are you surprised it was always a Lotus].

I once converted an F2 Brabham from a bit of a pig understeerer to a
nicely balanced car, by increasing the rear roll bar thickness by
just 1/16".

Most of the improvement in the handling of our 8 has been from
thicker [stiffer] roll bars, rather than stiffer springs, & shocks,
although these did help, as well.

Hasbeen

[Odd]

I'm all behind Hasbeen on this:
Increasing the thickness of the anti-roll bars is much better for handling than overly stiff and shortened springs.
I'm using the thicker bars of Ted Schumacher, front and rear...

[grndsm]

Well, there is also a school of thought out there that sway bars are just band-aids and that a properly tuned suspension does not need them! So you can always take suspension elitist attitude that you are merely trying to derive a perfectly balanced, swaybarless suspension! [:D]

Of course, on TR7, you will never be able to ditch the front sway bar [;)]

Leon
'94 Eagle Talon AWD Turbo 613whp <powered by Mitsu 4G63T
'80 TR7 Spyder GS-T <undergoing Mitsu 4G63T transplant
http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2472999

[tr8coupe]

[:D]1991/92 cox buckles tr7 v8 of Mick Richards had no anti roll bars and if i remember there was an article of one of the mags at the time so must work and i just remember one of my cars has no anti roll bar front or rear lol[:D]

BMW Z1 ( sold)
Westfield sport carbon (sold)
Eurosport x1/9 turbo (sold)
tr8 coupe
tr7 v8 monster on 245 tyres all round

[nadg63]

I went the opposite way on my Astra Mk4 Turbo, it was produced without a rear sway-bar but I added a Whiteline after market bar to it and was the best thing I have done to it - makes it much sharper in the handling stakes.

On my other car, a Subaru WRX, I also changed the front and rear sway-bars to thicker Whiteline items, (along with some other suspension bits), and again this worked wonders for the handling.

[Beans]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Century Gothic, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by grndsm</i>

...Of course, on TR7, you will never be able to ditch the front sway bar <hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
Don't agree on that one, have a look at the front set up on some rallying Escorts [:p]


<center>
<font color="blue"><i>1981 TR7 FHC Sprint (better known as 't Kreng)
1981 TR7 DHC (not very well known yet, but back on the road)
Also a 1980 TR7 DHC, 1980 TR7 DHC FI, 1981 TR7 FHC
http://tr7beans.blogspot.com/</i></font id="blue"></center>

[Hasbeen]

I raced a Morgan +4 in the early 60s. As it was rather complex
fitting rollbars on a Morgans unique suspension, we went the other
way. By the time it was competitive with the top production sports
cars, we used to reckon it had a rigid suspension, & a flexible
chassis.

By then it had developed the same cornering habit as a Lotus Elite.
It, & the Elite, went round corners with the inside front wheel
about six inches in the air, waving to the crowd. The motoring
writers, of the time were suggesting this was the epitome of good
handling. Do they ever get anything right? A Hilman Imp had the same
habit.

It was so hard that we knew, every tine we raced it at Bathurst, we
would come home with cracked front fender supports, & probably
fenders, from the pounding it got down conrod straight.

It may be less pure, but, as it was good enough for Collin Chapman,
I'll take the roll bars, every time, particularly on a road car.

Hasbeen

PS. That Morgan left me with a resistance to Triumphs for quite a
few years. Its TR3A/Ferguson tractor engine was a bl@@dy awful thing
to develop & maintain.

H.

[grndsm]

Well, I didn’t say that agreed with the "no sway bars" school of thought, I just pointed out its existence [;)]

Leon
'94 Eagle Talon AWD Turbo 613whp <powered by Mitsu 4G63T
'80 TR7 Spyder GS-T <undergoing Mitsu 4G63T transplant
http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2472999

[Underdog]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Century Gothic, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by grndsm</i>

Well, I didn’t say that agreed with the "no sway bars" school of thought, I just pointed out its existence [;)]

Leon
'94 Eagle Talon AWD Turbo 613whp <powered by Mitsu 4G63T
'80 TR7 Spyder GS-T <undergoing Mitsu 4G63T transplant
http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2472999
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

It would require a bit of engineering to remove the front as it also locates the lower control arms??

72 MGB BRG
80 TR8 Persian Aqua
If women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy.