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Thread: Rear sway options

  1. #1
    turbo addict
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    Rear sway options

    I want to upgrade the sways on my NY. I have a 1 1/8" and a 1 1/4" front bar so thats covered. For the rear I have a 87 shelby z axle. But ive also read about clamping a piece of 2" flat stock to the rear axle to stiffen it up. Whats the prefered option? Im a fabricator so using the flat stock would be easier for me. Id also have to swap my drums to the shelby axle to keep my e brake.

  2. #2
    turbo addict
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    Re: Rear sway options


  3. #3

    Re: Rear sway options

    You can weld a piece of flat stock on there, but must be careful of warping. My SL has a piece of flat stock welded to rear axle.

  4. #4
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    Re: Rear sway options

    put the 87 ShelbyZ axle back there. Had that setup on my NY and loved it. Car cornered flat.

  5. #5
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    Re: Rear sway options

    What did you do for springs? I really want to stiffen the car up. I went from driving a neon sport coupe to the NY and the susp is horrible lol.

  6. #6
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    Re: Rear sway options

    Im also thinking of running the smaller 1 1/8" bar in the front. With the larger rear bar that should make it have more oversteer. Most neon guys run the small front bar with a stock rear.

  7. #7
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    Re: Rear sway options

    Well they're are a number of ways to get the rear to rotate. I like to add more negative camber to the front than the rear. This also helps straight line traction too.

    I ran the 87 ShelbyZ rear axle (DO NOT REPLACE THE AXLE BUSHINGS!!!) and the 87 shelbyZ front sway bar and just set up my camber and toe to get the car to rotate. I used the stock springs and the factory load leveling rear shocks setup which was great. Smooth ride but nice flat cornering even with 200lbs of tools in the trunk and a full tank of gas. When I needed new front struts I swapped in all 4 ShelbyZ springs. Was ok, only drove it that way for a couple months before the snow plow guy took out the headlights this winter. I'd probably go back to the stock springs if it where still in action just because of it being a daily driver it was more comfortable on the slightly softer springs and the big sways kept it flat and the camber made it corner like no tomorrow. Having the load leveling setup working was a big help too.

  8. #8
    Moderator Turbo Mopar Staff Vigo's Avatar
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    Re: Rear sway options

    I've run 3 welded axles and 2 external swaybars. Next step for me is to put an external swaybar on one of the cars with the welded axles. My Aries has a welded axle AND an external swaybar, on eibachs, and was not too tail happy. My Dynasty has a welded axle, chopped caprice springs and konis and still needs more. My Lancer Shelby has chopped Cherokee lift coils and an external swaybar and still needs more.

    My opinion is that if you REALLY want the car to rotate you need something like a welded axle AND an external swaybar AND stiff springs. I autocrossed my old Dynasty with a welded swaybar and maxed out front neg camber and while it was way better than you would expect, by autocrossing terms it was still majorly biased to understeer. Right now even with stiffer springs, shocks, etc when i take it through a cloverleaf it still lmit-understeers in steady state cornering.


    When i FIRST welded up a rear axle i thought it might be too much. Since then i've decided it's not enough! But i feel it is very similar to a more expensive swaybar in function, and on the plus side, it doesn't lower your ground clearance.

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  9. #9
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    Re: Rear sway options

    Something isn't right if you have to add that much metal to the back end IMO.

  10. #10
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    Re: Rear sway options

    I welded the flat steel to my Omni's axle. The axle now have cracks in multiple places.

  11. #11
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    Re: Rear sway options

    Caprice and chero springs? What years? How do they compare to say shelby daytona springs? How much modding to make them work?

  12. #12
    Moderator Turbo Mopar Staff Vigo's Avatar
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    Re: Rear sway options

    Something isn't right if you have to add that much metal to the back end IMO.
    Eh, lots of things seem good on the street and then seem crappy on the track. It takes a lot to get a front heavy fwd to rotate without relying on trail braking, flicking, etc. My Dynasty will slide the back end all over the place if you are giving sudden inputs, but if you take a long enough, steady state corner and just speed up or turn in until it starts to slide, it still understeers first. I guess it is the difference between being able to slide 'for fun' and actually increasing cornering speeds before understeer sets in without 'provoking' oversteer.


    Caprice and chero springs? What years? How do they compare to say shelby daytona springs? How much modding to make them work?
    My caprice rear springs were from a 67 coupe though i think b-body rear springs used the same design for like, decades. Cherokee front springs also stayed the same design from 84-01ish and i think many Grand Cherokees and TJ Wranglers used basically the same spring design. It's all about having close enough coil diameters on the main part and the 'pig tail' part.

    As for mods, i just cut them to length. Either style comes about twice as long as you actually need it, and even if you could fit them in with all that length they wouldnt have enough spring rate. Cutting them in half bumps the spring rate up to something much stiffer than stock.


    Left: Caprice
    Middle: Stock
    Right: Cut and spacered moog cargo coils for a k-car. I dont like these springs and was just trying to make the best of a bad situation with cutting AND isolating coils. Still not great.



    Unknown brand ~3" lift front Cherokee springs with a stocker in the middle.

    End to end showing larger wire diameter.

    I dont consider either one of those 'adapted' springs to be 'very stiff'. The Lancer with the chopped cherokee coils and the external swaybar still needs more rear stiffness to even get where the dynasty is.

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  13. #13
    Supporting Member Turbo Mopar Contributor zin's Avatar
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    Re: Rear sway options

    I've been wondering if one could modify the rear "axle" to accept the torsion bars from say a B body? The idea being that since they were all pretty much the same design, but varied in stiffness, they could be "slid in and out" to allow changing the rear's "stiffness"... thoughts?

    Mike
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  14. #14
    Moderator Turbo Mopar Staff Vigo's Avatar
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    Re: Rear sway options

    Pat built a rear setup with interchangeable torsion bars for his GRM Challenge cars, but they bolted below the stock beam instead of inside it, iirc.

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    Re: Rear sway options

    Hey vigo, I have some 2014 ram 1500 rear springs you could try. I've used them in jeeps to lift them and they are pretty stiff. Same coil diameter.
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  16. #16
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    Re: Rear sway options

    Hmmm.... do you think stock chero springs would work okay? Im not trying to build a autox car. Just make it better then it is now. The stock NY air leveling springs are probably the softest stock K based spring.

  17. #17
    Garrett booster
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    Re: Rear sway options

    For my New Yorker, I purchased a set of eibachs from FWD Performance. I don't have them installed yet though. They will be getting installed in the spring.

  18. #18
    Moderator Turbo Mopar Staff Vigo's Avatar
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    Re: Rear sway options

    Stock cherokee springs seem to have very similar wire diameter and coil pitch to stock springs, so i believe even if you cut them to the proper length you'd end up with something not much different from stock.

    I have some Eibachs and like them just fine but springs in the junkyard are usually ~$10/ea and i enjoy inventing solutions rather than buying a one-size-fits-all solution. I really enjoy the kind of hot rodding that happened in the 30s-50s before there really was an aftermarket and everything was just clever people making stuff work. I'm starting to display some 'bought not built' tendencies in my 'old age' but i'll always be a jury-rigger at heart!

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  19. #19
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    Re: Rear sway options

    I ran a rear axle with a welded bar on the bottom in my '90 Daytona. It made the car twitchy as all hell! It was great for tight auto-x, but downright SCARY in the rain on the road! Lift-throttle oversteer was HUGE! NEVER again! That set-up was Eibach's (2804's NOT cut), Koni's, 1.25" front bar, welded steel plate on the bottom of the rear axle, alignment (camber, total toe): F= -1*, +.125"; R= -.5*, 0. EVERYTHING under the car suspension and brake-wise was new at that point. This was back around 2001.

    My '88 Shelby Z is very similar, but no welded rear axle and I ended up not running the front sway bar at all the last year or so it was running and the Eibach's got trimmed. Now, I never timed it around a track or anything, but it was SUPER predictable (almost neutral), had TONS of grip, transitioned nicely. It was set-up for road course duty and did very well for what it was. Auto-x could have used more rotation at times, but I think if I'd have had some of the driving skills I learned later it would have been fine.

    My point, super stiff does not always mean super handling!

  20. #20
    Moderator Turbo Mopar Staff Vigo's Avatar
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    Re: Rear sway options

    It all depends on what you want to do with it. It doesnt take a lot of mods to make a k-car oversteer 'just for fun' by provoking it. It DOES take a lot of added stiffness to make one truly neutral in steady-state cornering, but that comes with a lot of negative side effects for the street.

    All of the fastest FWD cars in the AutoX realm are PITA/unsafe-for-street. I've raced an XP-class turbo CRX that was ludicrous-fast in that realm, in a completely different ballpark then, for example, a daytona on eibachs with no front sway, but it was a ----- to drive and required you to do things you would never do on the street to keep it under control, and i wouldnt drive it on a road course if you paid me!

    Where you want to land on that spectrum dictates how much stiffness you need in the rear. Most people's opinions will be based purely on street driving on street tires, and what feels 'good enough' on the street on street tires (which is important to a lot of people) is usually a hot mess under actual track conditions (which are only relevant to a tiny fraction of people).

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