My car is at 4-1/5 inches in the front now, and the Weltmeister sway bar arms are not parallel with the ground, because I can’t make the adjusters shorted. They are at 45 plus degrees.

Do I just cut the turn buckle shorted or do they sell shorter sets?

Not to be too technical...but aren't you referring to a Weltmeister sway bar?

This is a very confusing post.

Why do you care if your swaybar arms are at 45 degrees instead of parallel to the ground? What are you trying to accomplish?

lever arm changes with angle.........

arms parallel to the ground gives you the most mechanical advantage on the sway bar....

Think about it. If the sway bar arms start at 45 and the car rolls any amount the control arm raises causing the sway bar arm to point up even more. If it is straight up, say 0 degrees, then there is no more spring in the suspension, and the sway bar mount in the body is taking all the load of the car at that wheel.

Yes lol, my speel checher changed it for me.

Click to view attachment

I was wondering what your bar looked like as it is installed.

If someone does not pipe in for you, I will be taking apart quite a bit of the front end this weekend and I can take a picture of it installed.

Rich

45 deg up?
Mine are up a little bit, like 10-15 deg, and my front end is pretty darn low. I think the turnbuckles are all turned out....I was thinking about this same mod/cutting. If it was 45 deg I would! BUT something might not be right for them to be THAT angled. I have pics at home I can post tonight.

I think mine are preloaded a bit, so I have stiffer front spring rates!
If anybody has a good link to pros/cons explanation of sway bar loading vs no load I'd be very interested in the explanations.

Chris, what you talking about? The sway bar is used to reduce body roll in the corners. Preloading a sway bar will only screw up your corner wts and make it handle different in LH or Rh corners. Standard procedure is to disconnect the sway bar and adjust ride ht and corner wts on a level surface. When all is set, then you re-connect the sway bar (s) while the car is still sitting on the level surface making sure the links attach without preloading the bar. I guess the nascar guys might preload their bars when doing only lh turnss.

I set them when the front was raised when it sounds like the car should have been level....when I put it down I noticed it wasn't perfect. BUT it handles great both ways so my newbie adjustments didn't seem to mess up anything noticeable. For some reason I thought I had equal preload on both sides and it made it stiffer.

I totally understand the role of the AR bar, but the "loading" aspect is still a little confusing. All you geniuses out there, don't hold back with the explanations

I don't know what more you want to know. Sway bars are not generally "loaded" until you enter a corner or one wheel hits a bump or hole that the other doesn't hit. In a turn the body roll tries to twist the sway bar. A larger sway bar limits the body roll more than a smaller one. Vehicle analysis when cornering gets a little complicated. Weight is transferred to the outer wheels and is controlled by a combination of spring rates and sway bars and the balance front to rear. Adding spring stiffness and a larger sway bar to the front in will in general cause a car to understeer. Adding spring stiffness and larger sway bars to the rear will cause a car to oversteer. Most people set up the car with adjustable sway bars (the length of the arm can be adjusted) and use this to get the handling balance they desire. Moving the link on the sway bar arm closer to the bar itself makes it stiffer, moving the link farther from the sway bar makes it softer.

The fun is getting the spring/torsion bar rates and the sway bar rates all set to where you get the balance and feel of the car to where you want it.

I never said I wanted to preload my sway, lol. I want to set the arms Parallel to the ground. I was wondering if you can do it without buying the fully adustable linkage. Here is a picture:

Click to view attachment

Again: WHY??

What do you feel that will accomplish?

Sets the geometry up correctly. The way the engineers designed it to work.

again... LEVER ARM. when the bars are parrallel to the axis of the a arm pivots... it gives you the MOST mechanical advantage on the swaybar.....

Chris. Show us the bottom of the link too.

If all else fails, call Ira Ramin at Tarett and see if he has a spare set of front droplinks he'd sell you. We could work out the necessary spacers, bolts. They'll be too long also, but I need to adjust the mine. If I'm doing one set, I might as well do two.

Rotational Moment-

M= fd f=force d=perpendicular distance.

M1=f d1 > M2=f d2

the d becomes larger when the arms are parralel to the axis of the a arm pivots..... scalar value is larger when a larger d is used....

I know that. But the bar is adjusted to the dead middle setting. If he wants to make it softer or firmer, why not just adjust it using the sliders?

I keep asking what he is trying to accomplish - i.e., is he trying to make the bar softer or stiffer, i.e., is there a specific handling issue he is trying to address?

thats what he is trying to do.
his drop links as shor as they go... aent short enough. so by sliding the arms toward the bar, it angles the arms upward.

solution - get shoorter arms, or raise car up

Still doesn't answer my question. Let him answer, cox!

To the original poster:

Are you trying to make the bar stiffer or softer?

And what handling changes are you going for?

I believe Chris is NOT trying to accomplish ANY handling adjustments at the moment. He is only trying to get the swaybar arms in the optimal position -- which means getting the chords of the swaybar arm arc and control arm arc parallel to each other (when viewed from the side).

Last time.
IT MAKE NO EFFING DIFFERENCE IN HANDLING.

I bought my 70 car with a 22mm weltmiester bar. 28,000 miles ago
to includes 450+ autocross runs on Race tires. and 2 track days on race tires of course. No ripping of anything.

I am not trying to make sway bar perform stiffer or softer. I want to get the arms parallel to the ground. “If the sway bar arms start at 45 and the car rolls any amount the control arm raises causing the sway bar arm to point up even more. If it is straight up, say 0 degrees, then there is no more spring in the suspension, and the sway bar mount in the body is taking all the load of the car at that wheel.” “Sets the geometry up correctly. The way the engineers designed it to work.” Thanks for all the input on this.

I’m also cheap. I was trying to get out of paying the $129.00 +tax +shipping for the fully adjustable Weltmeister drop linkage.

Then cut the theaded end off to the length you want a re thread it. I think they are both right hand thread.
Hack saw and die. 20 bucks. Or take them to a machine shop they can do it for a fee.

Has anyone out there done that? Thanks for the input.

I haven't cut them yet, but don't see ANY issues doing this.

Try measuing the exact length you need then look at the rear linkage length. I got new rear "lolipops" from Performance for like $7 each because the old ones were bent so bad the new bushings wouldn't fit. My thought is the rear short one might work in front...but it is probably too short. Good luck

Nah.
The Welt bar comes with adjustable rod ends. one end is solid welded to an eye.
the other is threaded to a spherical bearing rod end. Pretty simple operation if you want to fuss with it. Only thing that can happen is you screw up a perfectly good reach rod

Chris

Another consideration in shortening the drop link - they have pretty limited motion where they attach to the u-tab on the A-arm. Shortening the drop link may increase the amount of motion required at the bottom end of the drop link and cause them to bind. So before you cut them down, check how much motion you they are capable of, and you should be able to determine if a shortened version will bind.

Demick