DUAL SWAYBARS (**everything you need to know**)

[The Aspirator]

So here it goes, I warn you this will be very long with 15 full size pictures. I've been putting this writeup off for a while because I know it'll be a big task, but I feel I must share my creations with everyone.

My 1985 244 DL started out with 19mm swaybars front and rear. Yeah, it was very "normal", meant for old people that take sharp turns at 3.4mph. I didn't have a lot of money to spend on the perfect suspension either, perfect meaning the $1000 "kit" including IPD bars, bilstiens, poly bushings and IPD lowering springs. But what I did have was lots of time for research and construction. So I went to work, read up on everything I could find about dual swaybars. I found some decent pictures of the rear setup, which is quite simple in itself.... but practically nothing on the front setup. SteveC had the best pictures I could find (one of my links will point to his pics). Others were very bad quality and poor angles, I couldn't get a feel for what I should do, so I stalled and stalled this project for a while.

Many months ago I picked up a junkyard 23mm front swaybar for about $35. I never put it on cause I was stupid and didn't pick up the rubber bushings for it while I was there, so I waited until I could get some IPD poly ones... which never happened. Now that I figured it out my stock bushings worked just fine! (well, not the best, but they worked). So I put on that 23mm front and kept my 19 rear. I noticed a small difference, mainly on tight fast corners and fast long sweeping ones, the car tracked pretty good. So I was happy for a little while....

Now luckily I picked up a parts car for a very good price that came with 23mm front and 21mm rear bars. I consider these bars "free" because I got my value outta the car from the wheels/tranny/turbo. And I had a spare set of endlinks to screw around with, which made me more willing to get this party started.
____________________

I will first tease you with the results of my project:

I now have a front swaybar diameter of 27.352mm (23+23)
I now have a rear swaybar diameter of 23.873mm (19+21)

My front sway is bigger than everyone elses on the entire board except for the very few individuals who have the ultra rare 28mm IPD bar!! I do plan on upgrading one of my rear bars, maybe the 19 to a 23. I can definatly feel the imbalance front to rear. Try to even it out when you make yours.

Some may ask if there is a noticable difference. And to this I say
Noticable diff? ARE YOU KIDDING?? Hell yeah! On the big long sweeping cloverleaf onramps to the freeway I can go sooooo much faster and the tires won't even start chirping. I keep trying to get cars to keep up with me through those on/off ramps but no-one ever does. I finally looked at my speedo and found I was going 60 all the way through the cloverleaf off-ramp until the very end where it gets sharper and I slowed down to 50. I don't brake anymore, using the engine to slow me down a bit.... but mainly so I'm in the perfect gear to power through the corner. It's incredible! This is all with original DL shocks/struts, springs, and suspension bushings.

The absolute coolest thing about them is that the turning actually FEELS different. Like in a normal car, when you turn hard your upper body rolls to one side, as does the upper part of the car. But with these sways taking a long hard fast sweeping turn, my ass moves straight sideways. My shoulders don't move at all, my hips do! It's a crazy feeling, even my girlfriend thinks that it's soo cool. Damn I love it.

My first drive in the rain kinda scared me though. Through a regular neighborhood 90* turn I (as usual) tried to do a nice little controlled slide. 1/2 a second and 270* later I realized that the rain traction isn't quite what it used to be. Although since then I've had only one close call. Just be careful in the rain unless you've got good tires (gosh I need those)
____________________

Let's start off with the rear cause it's quite easy, save for a few tricks:

**When you rob the junkyard, make sure to grab all the bolts, endlinks, bushings, and whatever just in case. It'll save you a headache later on.

First off you can use your extra swaybar to make the template for your adapter plate. It's roughly 10"x3" but don't quote me, use your bar and a marker to figure it out. You'll want to offset the holes a little bit up-and-down, and front-to-back, to give the sways a little room to breathe. I would suggest a little bit more room vertically between the two bars than in my second pic, although this worked for me. In #2 pic, on the right, the plate should be about 1-1.5" shorter. You'll notice later that I had to bend it to clear, you can just make your plans accordingly and you'll be fine.

If you notice in my first pic, there are two bolts with flat round tops... your sway is bolted on with one of each in the rear hole, you'll want the other ones from the second bar too. Eventually, they will go as they do in pic #5.... top rear and bottom front.

Now, to work on swaybars, there has to be weight on the suspension. So either drive it on ramps, or jack it up like I did (worked great!). Get the old bar off, might want a can of PB blaster handy, should be easy with weight on the springs. I tried it un-weighted and I couldn't get the bolt out of the shock, just wouldn't line up.

Really the only trick here is to put it all in. You'll need 2 extra bolts and 2 nuts aside from what you should have. The long bolt for the shock should still be long enough with the plate there. Remember that the two flathead bolts hook around those latch things on top/rear.... this took me forever to figure out, I thought they went all the way through the trailing arm :-P .

And well, that's basically it for the construction of the rear bars. I haven't yet checked for rust, but I'm sure it's there. Paint them while they're out.
http://www.j2mediagroup.com/john/sways-rear01.jpg
http://www.j2mediagroup.com/john/sways-rear02.jpg
http://www.j2mediagroup.com/john/sways-rear03.jpg
http://www.j2mediagroup.com/john/sways-rear04.jpg
http://www.j2mediagroup.com/john/sways-rear05.jpg
http://www.j2mediagroup.com/john/sways-rear06.jpg
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And now for the front ones:

They're easy in theory, but the more you think about them, the trickier they get. I'm just gonna come right out and say it. The common misconception is that you need to lengthen the endlink. NOT TRUE!!!! I mean think about it for a second, what you're really doing is adding another swaybar to the one that's alreay on your car. And although it might make sense to add the new one on top at the endlink, you can't at the frame mounts! What you're actually doing here is adding another bar UNDER the original one, because if you mount the original one at the subframe, the new one goes under that. SOOOOOOO the new bar goes under the old one at the endlink too!!!

Now that I've either got your attention, or just got ya scratchin yer noggin, let's get busy. Now how do you put a bar under the original at the endlink? There's that collar type thing that holds the bushing plates up. I machined mine down to nothing, as in pic #4. You'll need this because that is basically right where the new bar will rest. Now poses the problem of what the bushing plate will rest on. At first I put it together and figured that it would need X ammount of spacers down there. So I made up that first one out of a peice of metal rod, then drilled an appropriate hole in it. What I didn't realize was just how much the bushings compress. I ran out of threads on top of the endlink! So I bought that nut which worked perfectly and gave me the height I desired.... but I still ran out of threads. So four spacers on top did the trick.

My endlinks go like this: Spacer, spacer, plate, bushings, bar01, bushing, bushing, bar02, bushing, plate, 4 washers, nut. You need the two bushings in the middle to space appart the bars a bit. I have no idea how this would work with poly bushings. Probably be kinda weird because they don't squish that much. Maybe poly on top and bottom, but rubber in the middle??

The *only* sucky thing about this endlink setup is that it was a mega pain in the ass to line up. Pic#3 shows one crazy angle, and pic#2 kinda shows another. It does work, but I'm sure it puts some unusual strain on the endlink bushing. The cure for this would be to do what Steve C did, put a bend in his endlink. I have no idea where or how much would be ideal, you'll have to figure that out on your own. He set up his endlinks a lot differently than mine though, so that's why I opted out of that bend. Here is his write-up, kinda depressing how it ended though:
http://forums.turbobricks.com/viewtopic.php?t=10180
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Now for the chassis mounts:

This part is fairly easy. I would suggest having everything mounted very loosely before tightening anything down. So, pic#8 is a great example here. For each side you'll need that top mound, one bushing, U clamp, another bushing, another U clamp, two 10x70mm 1.5pitch bolts, a washer for each bolt, and a nut for each that just barely slips over the threads. A full threaded bolt would be the nicest, cause I ran out of threads here too, hence the need for that gold nut as an extra spacer. I used the regular 23mm bushing for the top bar, and my old 19mm bushings for the bottom bar. This isn't the *best* idea, but it works fine. That bottom one gets so squished up that who cares. It's really tough to decide exactly how tight to make these, so I guessed. I figured they have to be really snug, cause all the swaybar does is pivot in there, and not much really. So I made them tight, I coulda forced them tighter, I think they're perfect. Now while tightening these, make sure to snug them down evenly. Mine started to go off track as you can kinda see in pic#8. I think I had the endlink tight before this, didn't work so well. Tighten them front to back and left to right in order, trying to get it all even and lined up kinda straight. This might also help the endlinks straighten out a bit.

Then after the chassis braces are tight, go to work on the endlinks. The bottom endlink bolt can probably wait until last. Take the top one slowly cause there's a lot to compress with that much rubber in there. Make sure the bushings are seating properly in the bars and the plates, and use locktite on the threads. I kept alternating between wheels on the ground and wheels off the ground to find which worked better. I can't remember which, but one way worked alot better than the other. I think that also helped seat the bushings and everything, after that go around and re-tighten all the bolts.

http://www.j2mediagroup.com/john/sways-front01.jpg
http://www.j2mediagroup.com/john/sways-front02.jpg
http://www.j2mediagroup.com/john/sways-front03.jpg
http://www.j2mediagroup.com/john/sways-front04.jpg
http://www.j2mediagroup.com/john/sways-front05.jpg
http://www.j2mediagroup.com/john/sways-front06.jpg
http://www.j2mediagroup.com/john/sways-front07.jpg
http://www.j2mediagroup.com/john/sways-front08.jpg
http://www.j2mediagroup.com/john/sways-front09.jpg

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Now for some theory discussion:

Supposedly the ideal way to align your sways is so that the arm at the endlink is parallel to the ground when the car is on the ground. You can adjust this by placing your spacers either on top or on bottom, however you see fit. Trial and error is key here. I think the result will effectivly change your roll center, which could be good or bad. I don't really know what I'm talking about, so read this thread if you're still interested:
http://forums.turbobricks.com/viewtopic.php?t=1337

I've been going over this dual swaybar stuff with Noah244ti because he really wanted to do it to his car. Unfortunaly he informed me that because of the way his car is set up he can't run dual front OR rear bars. No dual fronts because his car is soo low that the single swaybar is alreay very close to hitting the tie-rod from the steering rack (see pic#6) and that with a dual setup, the tie-rod is bound to hit the bottom bar over a big bump. My car is not lowered, and that pic is probably with the car in the air, pic#9 is definatly on the ground. He can't do the dual rear bars because of the way that his 3" exhaust is setup. He had the shop snug the system up nice and tight against the body, already being close to the rear bar. Adding another rear bar a few inches lower would bang right into it. I'm sure all this would be cured with an over-axle design exhaust. Eh, sucks to be him. :wink:

In order to understand what exactly a swaybar does, you HAVE to read this webpage:
http://www.houseofthud.com/cartech/swaybars.htm
It clarifies everything very nicely doesn't it? I have yet to check if I lift a tire under hard cornering!!! Damn, I really want to see that.

I might as well add this too, it covers some interesting ideas that some of you might find useful:
http://forums.turbobricks.com/viewtopic.php?t=10085

Don't get me wrong here, I claim to be no expert on suspension stuff! I just know that this works like a charm It's up to you to understand what oversteer and understeer are, and how you like your car to handle. I believe that this is a VERY customizable setup, and I hope you guys have lots of fun trying different combinations out. Also keep in mind that in a racecar application, stiffer springs are supposed to be way better than big huge swaybars. I mean look at the Group A swaybar (click for pic) (http://www.pbase.com/image/9401636) it's tiny! That setup is the "preffered way", especieally on a lowered car with tons of other tricked out suspension goodies.
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Cold hard numbers baby:

Here you go, I slaved for four hours thinking up and writing this post. Look I even calculated every possible combination of sways for you!!!!! You're welcome 8-)

16+16 = 19.027 __ 19+19 = 22.595 __ 21+21 = 24.973 __ 23+23 = 27.352 __ 25+25 = 29.730
16+19 = 21.037 __ 19+21 = 23.873 __ 21+23 = 26.243 __ 23+25 = 28.615
16+21 = 22.581 __ 19+23 = 25.307 __ 21+25 = 27.657
16+23 = 24.242 __ 19+25 = 26.866
16+25 = 25.988
____________________

In conclusion:

I have put over 2,000 miles on my car since I did this mod a month ago. I haven't had a single problem yet! Pic#9 was taken on 10/17/03, and you can see the rust start building up. I cleaned these parts well with a wire wheel, but decided not to paint them for reasons I'm still not sure of. I mean hell I painted everything else!!! Looks good though doesn't it :badboy: .

All those miles were on all kinds of different roads, with all kinds of different driving styles (meaning they're NOT all highway). I drive them hard, and they're still very tight and very straight. Visually, the endlink is still straight, and everything is still functioning properly. I couldn't be happier!! The rear does need an upgrade though, and those tires need to go!

It's the best suspension mod you can do for VERY VERY VERY little money!!!!!!!In My Honest Oppinion

Hope you didn't get too bored.... Thanks for reading!

John

[The Aspirator]

I forgot to mention the icing on the cake.....

People driving behind me can see two big red swaybars hanging down. It looks really cool!

John

[MikeHardy]

I forgot to mention the icing on the cake.....

People driving behind me can see two big red swaybars hanging down. It looks really cool!

John

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: sweet

[z537z]

Outstanding post my friend.

_z

[hayzcustoms]

that is by far the besy write up i have read here. the picture compliment the writing well and this needs a future home on the modifications page.
thanks for taking the time to enlighten all of us.

nick

[hayzcustoms]

also i dont see why rusting under your car should be a problem...it seems to be well lubricated :-D

[bitjockey]

Stickied cause its a wonderful post.

[towerymt]

If you get tired of the understeer, here's a little write up I did about my rear spring install. :wink:

/spring_rate_chart-p.html (http://www.student.nvcc.vccs.edu/home/mtowery/volvo/spring_rate_chart-p.html)

You could increase the rear spring rate to add roll resistance without going to larger rear bars.
As you may have realized, more rear bar means less suspension independence, which is not
good for traction at the rear with an open differential.

[volvorsport]

altering the angle of the bar wont reduce roll centre height , lowering the car will , anti roll bars are set parallel so there is less chance of them introducing geomtery change due to their own interaction with each other ie the bars dont move in the same direction to the wishbone , and in some cases can cause locking of the suspension itself .

ive done the same myself but utilised the space above the anti roll bar so the car doesnt get any lower and the mountingd dont need mods BUT im sure my engine was in a different positon since the two may come into contact .

And of course to be really clever you could drill alternate holes on the rear bar mounting plate and vary the position of the second bar to alter the spring rate . Also in fact you could do the same at the front with a clamp instead of bolting the bar to the endlink and vary that position to give some adjustabilty aswell .

NICE work !

[mikep]

Great write up.

And of course to be really clever you could drill alternate holes on the rear bar mounting plate and vary the position of the second bar to alter the spring rate .

Also in fact you could do the same at the front with a clamp instead of bolting the bar to the endlink and vary that position to give some adjustabilty aswell .


The front bar idea is a good one, but the rear idea will not work. The length of the trailing arm from bushing to bushing is the effective arm length of the rear sway bar, and it does not matter if it is at the front, middle, or rear of the arms it attaches to. It has the same effective stiffnes no matter how you mount it.

[Mach375]

:urgod: Damn. Fantastic write-up. I don't think you left any room for anyone to have any good questions. Damn. :urgod:

This needs to be posted on the mods section. Such a good write-up with such good, step-by-step info and terrific pictures should just go straight to the mods (IMHO).

One question, though (and this is not a good one, or relavent to the 200s, so I wouldn't consider it to fall under my "no questions" opinion): What diameter bars are the 700s (or 900s) offerred with? It sure seems to me the 200s are given a better choice (read: thicker bars) than the 700/900s?

[volvorsport]

agreed mike , but the second bar is mounted to a mounting plate and if you move it backwards the lever arm is lengthened (relative to the first) .

anyway you couldnt get it further back before it starts to hit things , so prolly not the greatest idea , but if you clamped it like the front , maybe .

[The Aspirator]

Thanks for all the great responses so far! It was such a fun mod and it's paid off a bazillion times over.

Towery has a great point there, keep that in mind when you attempt this. With such large bars you'll most definatly want a smaller one in the back, and preffereably with stiffer springs and a not so huge sway(s), as he mentioned.

Thanks for the sticky!! I'm honored :kiss:
anyway you couldnt get it further back before it starts to hit things , so prolly not the greatest idea , but if you clamped it like the front , maybe .
Ohh, now I understand what you mean. In a crazy way it kinda makes sense! If you had the mounting bolts for the lower rear bar..... say 6" behind the upper bar....... then it would give things a completely different leverage right? Because the suspension pivots, and the farther back that rear clamp force comes from, the more different it would feel. Try to make any sense out of that :-P! Maybe it makes a difference which bar you mount in the forward position and which you mount in the rear? Dave Barton (http://www.linkline.com/personal/dbarton/SpecSheet.html) has also done this to the rear, and his bars were placed opposite to mine, meaning the lower bar holes were drilled in the "rear" position.

[The Aspirator]

For refference, here are the only other pictures that I could find before I did my swap. The first three came with NO explination, 4-5 are SteveC, 6-7 are Dave Barton's (dbarton). Enjoy!

John
http://www.j2mediagroup.com/john/dualswaysfront01.jpg
http://www.j2mediagroup.com/john/dualswaysfront02.jpg
http://www.j2mediagroup.com/john/dualswaysfront03.jpg
http://www.j2mediagroup.com/john/dualswaysfront04.jpg
http://www.j2mediagroup.com/john/dualswaysfront05.jpg
http://www.j2mediagroup.com/john/dualswaysrear01.jpg
http://www.j2mediagroup.com/john/dualswaysrear02.jpg

[towerymt]

That first shot with the red hue is a picture I took of Doug Margush's '83 244 (local autocrosser). My scanner is a little...broken? Scans everything red, don't know why. Anyhow, those are stock sized bars with what looks to the the original bracket using two bushings. I think that's the original endlink, but I don't remember. He was using 700lb front springs, so the sway bar wasn't too important.

[84superturbo]

well i was talking to john a little prior to his posting this and got to see them......and holy mother, i had to do it, no matter what, i had to do it.

so, right now i have a very GHETTO hookup in front and the only reason it is that way is i was kinda pushed for time when i was attempting it.... so this weekend i am going to really put some brains into it and get it set up beautifully.....as for the rear sway bar set up....well that's gonna take some time and i know that i will eventually get it set up but for now i am kinda just with out the needed parts.
as for my bar sizes: front - 1-23mm 1-21mm (extra 21mm if someone wants it) rear - 1-23mm 1-19mm ( :rant: )

my only question is about the piece of metal that the rears hook up to, what is the thickness of it and how did you accquire it, bought/found?? and did you end up buying a new LONGER bolt for the shock or will that depend on the thickness of the metal plate?? anf finally for the set ups both front and rear should the thicker of the 2 sways be on top or bottom?? but other than those questions i am all set. on a funny note, i am doing several suspension mods to my wagon right now (ex: homemade lower chasis braces :badboy: ), will have these dual sways, and i have the GT upper braces.....i will never know what the car handled/felt like with out all of this. OH WELL! :-D

matt.

by the way, i have pics on my site of my fronts, but they kinda suck, will be getting many better pics this weekend of them, and my flathood being painted flat black. :twisted: :freak:

[towerymt]

my only question is about the piece of metal that the rears hook up to, what is the thickness of it and how did you accquire it, bought/found??

A long time ago I asked Dave Barton about the plate he used. Going from memory, it was about 1/4" thick, and about 3"x8" in size.

Try a welder or metal fabricator to see if they have any scraps that would work.

[The Aspirator]

Ok, Dave said he used 8gauge mild steel, and 10"x3".

I also used about 10"x3", worked well except I had to do some trimming as mentioned in my first post, I just drilled the holes in the wrong place at first. Mine was roughly 1/4" thick steel, I doubt it really matters so long as it's stiff. I was at my buddies shop/house to fabricate all this (and a short throw shifter too 8-) ) and he had this metal just lying around. Just start asking around different metal/welding shops, they'll hook you up.

That original long bolt that the shock goes through was long enough so I kept it. I did have to buy a few other bolts too, but I mentioned that above. I had dual 23's up front, but judging by my pictures of the rear, I had the 19 on top and the 21 on the bottom. Don't worry about it. Maybe someone with some real brains has something knowledgable to say about this though, but I say it doesn't matter. DBSvolvos was onto something though.....

84SuperTurbo..... go for a drive!!! Tell us how it works after you get all you suspension stuff dialed in. DRIVE IT HARD! It likes it now :-D

John

[Anonymous]

How heavy are the sways? Tubes, or pure steel? What about welding them together?

Is that practical for either a single sway setup. Bracing it or adding steel to make it stronger. Or with a 2 bar setup like you did here, how about merging the 2 bars! Maybe only in a few places... Opinions?

[towerymt]

How heavy are the sways? Tubes, or pure steel? What about welding them together?

Is that practical for either a single sway setup. Bracing it or adding steel to make it stronger. Or with a 2 bar setup like you did here, how about merging the 2 bars! Maybe only in a few places... Opinions?

I don't know what one sway bar weighs. Maybe 8lbs?

I don't think there's any reason to weld two bars together, and I'm not sure that you could really brace a sway bar to make it stiffer. It's designed to twist, so you may take the twisting out of it, or the braces could be too weak. I'm not sure, but it doesn't sound like a viable option to me.

[The Aspirator]

Noah244ti says that cause his car is so low (maybe 2-3" drop in the front) that his tie rod from the steering rack would is already close to his swaybar. So in the last picture in my original post, it shows roughly 3" of room there. BUT will lowering the car make that any closer? I don't get it. Being lowered, the swaybars would move up too right?

I'm asking this because I really want to lower my car. Not slam it, but at least get rid of that ugly wheel well over the front wheels. I don't want to cut two coils off and realize that my sways won't work now.

So could all you guys with lowered 240's chime in here? How close is your tierod to your swabar and how low is your front end?

Thanks!

John

[towerymt]

Noah244ti says that cause his car is so low (maybe 2-3" drop in the front) that his tie rod from the steering rack would is already close to his swaybar. So in the last picture in my original post, it shows roughly 3" of room there. BUT will lowering the car make that any closer? I don't get it. Being lowered, the swaybars would move up too right?

The arm of the sway bar will pivot upwards, going further from being parrallel to the road when lowered. The tie rod will also point up higher, so it should come closer to the sway bar where the bar is bolted to the car with the two brackets.

I see a couple options. Put the second sway bar on top of the first instead of underneath, like the closeup picture showing two bars within one bracket. Or use a heim joint in place of the tie rod end and use a bolt through a spacer to attach it to the strut tube. This shouldn't be done unless you also correct the angle of the control arm too.

http://www.student.nvcc.vccs.edu/home/mtowery/volvo/240/suspension/bertone_susp-spacers.jpg

[noah244ti]

Thanks for the awesome write up :wink:
"Noah244ti says that cause his car is so low (maybe 2-3" drop in the front) that his tie rod from the steering rack would is already close to his swaybar. So in the last picture in my original post, it shows roughly 3" of room there"
I was buggin John about this for a week or so, trying to get all the info on it (thanks!). I had an extra set of sways and was all set on this project, untill...
I had my car up, just to see how everything would work out and noticed that my tie rods were really close to my single front sway. Adding another one would cause the the tie rod to come into contact with the second bottom syaybar :-( My car is really low though... I have one coil cut from ipd springs and super soft kyb shocks, so it rides really low. Judging by how much clearance I had, you should be fine with springs as long as their not cut :-P

[84superturbo]

heck man, i wish i could just throw it all on my car and drive away and see how it feels.....but my car is kinda, how should i say, 'sick' right now. i think i may need a new turbo, and a few other things, but i am not 100% sure what the heck is wrong in there.

i got a few steps closer this weekend to getting everything setup, i pulled my rear bar off, but i am wanting to trash it and go look for another 21 or 23 mm, good luck to me! but i got some flat headed bolts off of an old bumper, so all i'll have to do is drill the holes in the metal plate, and hammer the bolts in, and they shouldn't budge. i also constructed 2 more front end-links, w/ the lump ground off. i need to go to the hardware store and get some better spacers cause i don't feel alot like using nuts, may use smaller pieces of thick pipe, so i can just cut it to my desired length. i will be calling a welding shop or 2 this week also to see about scraps. and last night, i got a most helpful accessory for my car, a 254 piece craftsman tool set. mmmmm.

i also updated my site with my new ultra-flat black flathood, pics of my 23mm sways painted primer grey, and a GT wheel in flat black, too.

matt.

[Steve C]

Very thorough article, nice work.

I'd like to point out a detail on the chassis mount I came up with. I think it will hold the top bar more securely and put less crushing pressure on the bottom bushing. I used 70mm long bolts from Home Depot (10mm x 1.25 take your old bolts to the store) and ran a nut to the bottom of the threads to hold the top bracket tight against the frame.


http://mediaservice.photoisland.com/auction/Nov/200311291505530328751019.jpg

[Magnum TE]

I very much enjoyed the article, but i have a suggestion that would make it easier to folow.

Could you lable the illistrations with their image number. For me it would be eaiser to go between your naration and the pictures i could see which pic was pic 4, or which was pic 7 without counting their order, or looking at their file name. I know you would have to edit them and then re-upload them but i think it would be a great improvement.

I hope it dosent come off like im critisizing (its 3:20AM and I can hardly see my keyboard or moniter...eyes keep closing) because i'm not. Your article must have been a great investment of time and engery -not even counting the actual tasks it describes- I just felt that this was the proper place to make a construtive suggestion.

ahh yea im going to bed while i still can walk that far. I'll come back sometime and speell check this thing... later when i ahve more sleep

[The Aspirator]

I'd like to point out a detail on the chassis mount I came up with. I think it will hold the top bar more securely and put less crushing pressure on the bottom bushing. I used 70mm long bolts from Home Depot (10mm x 1.25 take your old bolts to the store) and ran a nut to the bottom of the threads to hold the top bracket tight against the frame.
http://mediaservice.photoisland.com/auction/Nov/200311291505530328751019.jpg
Very good idea! Yeah, the thing that's holding my top clamp up is the lower swaybar, kinda crushing it upwards. Your method should work out very well. My upper bushing, the part between the two bars, is getting really squished, but ohh well. The only suggestion I could maybe make to your idea is to possibly use a fully threaded bolt with a nut on it, then tighten the bolt from the bottom all the way in, and tighten the nut down so that it holds the top clamp. That make any sense? I got the exact bolts you did, but ended up screwing them all the way down and into the frame. Basically it's so tight that I ran out of threads. Now I didn't torque it down or anything, it just kept going. Then I was just about to say "that'll be tight enough" when it bottomed out! Ohh well.

It's been what, 2 and a half months now that I've been running these things? Still work just as well as the day I installed them. No bending of any of the parts. Other than some surface rust it all looks great too.

And Infector, I really appreciate your critisism. I wondered if it would be tough for readers to reffer to the pics as they were reading, but didn't think much of it. Hope this is what you had in mind.... Should really make the reading easier.

John

[spongemonster]

I'm curious about trying this setup on my 740 16 valve as I need the handling to go with my new found power. One thing I've gotta agree with is the previous post about stop blocks so the bottom sway bar's bushing isn't crushed. The sways are meant to rotate in those rubber bushings and if they can't yes they'll feel nice and stiff but they will screw with your suspension working properly.
James (awesome idea)

[Tilstar]

Inspirational stuff John!! I'm sold. Thanks. :rofl:

[The Aspirator]

Inspirational stuff John!! I'm sold. Thanks. :rofl:No problem! I've been diving them for over an entire year now with NO problems. The endlinks haven't broken or anything, I haven't even removed them yet!

But I've gotta say, in the rain and especially the snow, these dual swaybars are very sketchy to drive. The car just likes to slide, tough to control. I'll admit that I'm no mastar drifter and have very little snow driving experience, but it's tough to learn on a car with stiff swaybars and otherwise worn out suspension :) . We'll see what this winter brings, I might revert back to single bars if the weather gets nasty enough.

John

[barefoot]

I was going to do a full article on my dual front bar installation, but my camera ate the photos :-( :oops:

Anyway...my big innovation over The Aspirator's method is the use of a length of 1/2" water pipe for spacers, and using ghetto home-made studs for the chassis mounts.

I ground the collar off my end links, and loaded the link up with:
~20mm section of pipe; washer; bush; lower bar; bush; washer; bush; upper bar; bush; washer; nut.
The length of the pipe spacer was quite arbitrary, but everything fit.

For the chassis mounts, rather than buying long M10 bolts, I bought a length of M10 threaded rod, and cut four 80mm studs off it. I then cut four 40mm sections of the 1/2" water pipe for spacers between the saddle clamps.

So, my chassis mounts go:
chassis rail; upper seat; upper saddle; 40mm pipe section; lower saddle; washer; nut.

This means the upper chassis mounts are clamped between the pipe spacer and the chassis rail, just like if they were clamped between the bolt head and the chassis rail on a factory single-bar installation.

As others have mentioned, getting the end links all assembled and bolted up is a sh!t of a job. Think about it: out of the factory, the end-links angle inward slightly at the top. The end holes of the swaybar are closer together than the end link mounting holes in the lower control arm.

Now, with two sway bars, with identical end hole spacing...the only way an end link can go through both of them is for the end links to be parallel. If they're parallel through the swaybars, they'll miss the LCA mounting holes.

To do the installation properly, you either need to run modified end links (as some have done), or bend the lower swaybar so as to spread the end holes, to suit the natural angle of the end links.

To do the installation ghetto-liciously, you can just bolt it all together and let the compliance of the bushings take up the misalignment. That was my approach.

I did most of the install with the car on ramps. I tried to leave everything slack so I could get loose nuts on both end links, then clamp everything together by tightening it all up. I couldn't do it. Partly because I used new polyeurethane end link bushes, which don't have much give in them at all.

By jacking the car up and supporting the chassis on stands, the control arms drop and swing in slightly, making the endlink mounting holes slightly closer together - that is, making the end links closer to parallel. That was enough to get the end link stack assembled and nutted, so I could clamp it all together. The bushes are all a bit deformed, but I'm sure they'll seat themselves properly with a bit of use. I'll re-tighten the endlink nuts after a few weeks use when everything has settled.

The handling improvement is spectacular. I'm very happy with it.

In all, though, I spent most of a weekend under the car ghetto-fabbing some dodgy mounts. In retrospect, given that time is money, I should have just spent the cash and got a proper thick swaybar.

Nearest-buck project budget:
19mm swaybar and bracketry: A$30
1m x M10 rod: A$4
8 x washers: A$2
200mm x 1/2" gal waterpipe: A$4
8 x M10 nuts: A$3 [1]
8 x poly bushes: A$25
Consumables (grinding wheels etc.): A$2

10 hours of my time at A$30/hour: A$300.

TOTAL: A$370

tim

[1] thrown away, because the threads stripped on several when I tried to tighten them. Cheap crappy McHardware-store nuts. Used random leftover Volvo nuts instead.

[The Aspirator]

Hey good job! Way to see somebody else doing this too. It's been almost two years on mine, never had a single problem and I actually haven't had the need to remove them at all yet. Car still drives great. I think my next step will be to install Koni yellows, coilovers, and probably a single 23 or 25mm front bar. I read MikeP say that stiffer springs and smaller bar are the key to good suspension, though I'll research this more when it comes time.

John

[DaButcher]

Hey good job! Way to see somebody else doing this too. It's been almost two years on mine, never had a single problem and I actually haven't had the need to remove them at all yet. Car still drives great. I think my next step will be to install Koni yellows, coilovers, and probably a single 23 or 25mm front bar. I read MikeP say that stiffer springs and smaller bar are the key to good suspension, though I'll research this more when it comes time.

John
I have the 24mm swaybar, for volvo 260 (due to the fact that the oilpan of the b6304 will not fit against the 240 swaybar).

I also have yellow koni sport, lesjöfors 45mm loweringsprings, some superflex bushings, etc.
My car also has the truetrac LSD.

How large rear swaybar should I have?
My tires are 225/45-ZR17.

Some people say that I should run as stiff as possible, while others say the opposite: no extra stiff swaybar in the rear.

[Wagner]

I have the 24mm swaybar, for volvo 260 (due to the fact that the oilpan of the b6304 will not fit against the 240 swaybar).

I also have yellow koni sport, lesjöfors 45mm loweringsprings, some superflex bushings, etc.
My car also has the truetrac LSD.

How large rear swaybar should I have?
My tires are 225/45-ZR17.

Some people say that I should run as stiff as possible, while others say the opposite: no extra stiff swaybar in the rear.

That is something you should try out. It depends on what kind of a car you like: the more stiffer you make the rear sway bar the more oversteery the car will be. But a thick sway bar on the rear will also reduce staight line friction. If you want good friction to launch from a standstill you shouldn't have a sway bar on the rear at all. (well, only the really enthusiastic 1/4-mile racers drop the rear bar off completely).

I personaly have liked a 23 front/25 rear setting, makes the car a bit over steery, but not too bad.

And you should also remember that the spring rate of a swaybar increases to the fourth power in relation to the thickness of the bar, so an increase of just 1mm makes a big difference.

[77240dl]

absolutly amazing post...

[casioqv]

Has anyone tried dual sway bars on a 700/900 series? Are there any specific issues, or is it the same as a 200 series?

[945ti]

Has anyone tried dual sway bars on a 700/900 series? Are there any specific issues, or is it the same as a 200 series?

They work the same way. The front end link binds up worse. The car won't handle that much better, but whatever. Lowering springs+dual sways=teh suck handling. Most notably, the rear traction on corner exit is hilarious.
John has come to his good senses and stiffened up the springs some and run more logical sway combos for the tires/sways his car has.

[Janspeed]

dual-sways on 900: done it.
I installed a IPD 25mm together with a stock 21mm.
The effect was great but the brackets got bent due to the different shapes of both bars.
The holes do not lign up nicely.
And the only way i could get them mounted at all was with the stock up high and the IPD underneath. The other way around ment that both bars actually touched on the side-sections, not a good thing.

Since i don't have 2 IPD's and i only have 2 OEM 21mm i dropped the idea, 2x 21mm will not give me an improvement over 1x 25mm.

my 2ct: only mount a twin-s/bar setup if both bars have the exact same shape.

[barefoot]

My comments above were about a dual front bar setup on my 700.

Not sure what 945ti is on about - dual front bar REDUCES the tendency to lift the inner rear wheel on corners, and it makes a huge difference to handling.

As suggested at the end of my post above, there were a few issues with the dual bar that would have been avoided by using a single big bar. I eventually did just that - dropped the (surprisingly few) $$$ on a single 24mm front swaybar to replace my 19+21mm ghetto-rig. It's perfect.

tim

[barefoot]

Double posting FTL

[Unregistard]

My comments above were about a dual front bar setup on my 700.

Not sure what 945ti is on about - dual front bar REDUCES the tendency to lift the inner rear wheel on corners, and it makes a huge difference to handling.

I think he's talking about dual rears.

[casioqv]

My 760 with stock swaybars, very chopped diesel springs (2.5 coils I think?), and KYB gas-a-justs from the junkyard has much less body roll, and feels much more stable than 700s I've driven with iPd bars, stock springs,bilsteins, and chassis braces. It's so stiff the car feels like it's on the bump stops if you try to jump on the bumper, just the tires absorb movement. It really does still have a suspension, as it still absorbs bumps when driving (I have driven cars on the bump stops, and they felt unstable). It also seems to have a lot more traction (perhaps it has the rare factory LSD? I dunno). I will concur that stiff springs are better than sway bars if you don't mind a harsh ride.

[GoanSlow]

Hey, sounds like a great idea! I have the spare parts..
Something do do this week!

[Jordan]

You made that look easy! Would there be any advantage to doing dual stock turbo sways?

[The Aspirator]

Stock turbo sways are exactly what I used in the original post. Last year I upgraded to cut diesel springs and Koni reds in the front with IPD lowering coils and Bilstein HD's in the rear, so that with the dual bars all around caused the car to REALLY understeer at the autocross courses (ohh, welded diff too, that didn't help things). So I went back to a single front 23mm bar and I LOVED the way it handled.

Play around with your setups boys, find out what works best for you. The point of this thread is to show that you can drastically change your swaybar rates and try out different setups for very little money.

John

[GrandmaSideways]

John this article gavce me a lot of pause for though on different testing of the waters. I have some 28mm front IPD's I scored and I'll try those first, but I really appreciated having the article because it got me thinking outside the box and got me thinking about trying other things on my car. I have a set of GT swyas and my big huge IPD's, so between them I can try a few different combinations

[Jordan]

I can't tell if these bars are being added "ontop" or "below" the original bars. i know that the fronts are below, but does this hurt ground clearance at all? I am wondering because the car i'd be doing this on is lowered very much so.

[The Aspirator]

The front and rear bars are both mounted "below" the stock ones, but ground clearance shouldn't be an issue since they're still like 1-2" above the engine cross member.

[GoanSlow]

I installed the front with a Diesel Wagon sway and the stock 244 sway. the car still rolls big time with long sweeping corners but feels stiff around sharp 90 degree city street turns going 60km/h etc.

its hard to tell if It works, because it feels the same.

But the rear I cant seem to fit because the exaust is already resting on the single swaybar. So I may have to make some brackets to make it hang lower? Or have the extra sway mounted above instead of below...

[AHox244+T]

Same idea just a tiny bit different , didnt have to fab anything just grind a tiny bit of sheet metal(or use a hammer).
http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s255/44hawkes/DSCN0843.jpg
http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s255/44hawkes/DSCN0842.jpg

The second sway fits real nice into the little square hole they leave on the stock sway mount and even a bigger pluss is the rubber bushing fits in there as well.Think the mod took all of 40 minutes to take the sway off the other car and then figure out how the hell I was going to do the job with a dremel and a socket wrench :P (and put it onto my car).Thank you Aspirator for the great thred that made me want to try this .

[BenW]

Just out of curiosity, it appears that the length of the bars, at least on the front, is such that one could try clamping them up and welding along the length. Would this even be feasible? Would the bar effectively be oval"esque"? And, most importantly, would it be advantageous?

[The Aspirator]

I think that would make it too stiff, so that the bars won't be free to rotate individually and the welds would surely crack. But I am just guessing here. Remember that the bars don't just bend during use, they twist. probably along their whole length.

[VOLVOBRADY]

I'll be pulling a second set of sways to play with real soon. that is a great article and idea, I've been thinking about it, it makes sense. I'm running short on end links ( I keep breaking them), some of the pics had custom end links and some of them had what looked like stock (w/ the nub ground off). Any sugestions, opinions on end links?

[VOLVOBRADY]

I'll be pulling a second set of sways to play with real soon. that is a great article and idea, I've been thinking about it, it makes sense. I'm running short on end links ( I keep breaking them), some of the pics had custom end links and some of them had what looked like stock (w/ the nub ground off). Any sugestions, opinions on end links?

[Redwood Chair]

Just out of curiosity, it appears that the length of the bars, at least on the front, is such that one could try clamping them up and welding along the length. Would this even be feasible? Would the bar effectively be oval"esque"? And, most importantly, would it be advantageous?

Welding tempered steel is probably not a good idea.

[The Aspirator]

I used stock endlinks with the nubs ground off and never broke any.

[lysteriah]

You reused your bushings.... AHHHH!!!!!!!! :wtf:

Beautiful, absolutely beautiful project.

[ian_lau]

i tried using this double anti roll bar method...

the car feels awesome at the corner...

i'm driving a 1984 240 B230A from malaysia...

with the double anti roll bar,new shocks....

i can take a corner 30kmh faster compare to my previous limit...

by the way, i'm using 2 19mm anti roll bar plus 2 8"x3"x5mm thick stainless steel plate...

grade 316...

will it hold in the long run???

will the plates bend after a period of time???

[jungledorifuto]

has anybody considered welding the rear sway bars together at their end plates leaving only the top one bolted to the car

[Obeharskad122s]

has anybody considered welding the rear sway bars together at their end plates leaving only the top one bolted to the car

Did it a year and a half ago. No problems.

[jungledorifuto]

check.

another question, any companys make a reinforced front endlink pair? poly or pillow bushing options?

[The Aspirator]

Yup, get 'em from Kaplhenke, although they're dumb and haven't posted any pictures :-P :
http://www.trianglesunlimited.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=35&Itemid=32

Other people have been making them over the years as well. They're pretty easy to make, just gotta use quality components which get expensive. There have been threads on that in the past, do a quickie search and you should find some good pictures.

[Crazychopstick]

How did you come up with the swaybar calculations? Just wondering. It's amazing.

[The Aspirator]

Towery posted the numbers 4 years ago, no idea where he got them from.

[Volvo244GLE]

http://www.teamscr.com/sway.htm

Scroll down to: "Factors that Determine Sway Bar Stiffness"

and you will find the equation below with an explanation.
twist = (2 x torque x length)/(p x diam^4 x material modulus)

eg:
19mm bar plus a 21mm bar:
19^4 + 21^4 = 324 802

(324 802)^1/4 = 23.873 ie it has the same stiffness as a 23.8mm bar.

[jungledorifuto]

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b87/s134/volvo/PICT0033.jpg

[Crazychopstick]

For the double front sways, what are the endlink spacers made of?

Particularly that fat round one at the base of the endlink.

[RobSmith]

Just a few thoughts on 'sway bars'

Imagining a car with several 'Sway bar options'
Case 1 ....A realy thin bar
The stress in the bar is highest at the surface of the round bar. With a small diameter bar the surface is not far from the centre so the stresses are low with normal suspension travel.
To get to a point where the material is highly stressed then it would require a large suspension movement. This movement may be larger than is possible with the standard suspension so the sway bar will not break.
The resistance to twisting is also low so there will be not much roll resistance (or sway resistance)

Case 2....A standard bar
The stress is higher at the surface of the bar as it is the surface is further from the centre of the bar. If you have one wheel fully bumped and one fully drooped then the bar will be in its most stressed position. The standard bar will have been designed so the stresses are at a level that the bar will not yeild and take a permanent set. That is also why they are made from materials that will take a lot of stress without yielding.
The roll (or sway) resistance is obviously higher than a realy thin bar.

Case 3..... an enormous bar.
The loads that the car can generate on the bar are not sufficient to produce enough stress in the bar to get it anywhere near a yield point. If you were to jack the car up under one wheel it would just lift the other side up too with little stress in the bar.

Case 4 ... a slightly larger than standard bar.
The bar might not be stiff enough to lift the opposite wheel like the enormous bar. Therefore it might see the full suspension travel that the standard bar sees. If this is the case then the stresses will be higher than in the standard bar and may be sufficiently high enough to make the bar yeild (take a permanent twist) or snap.
There are ways around this though:
Limiting the suspension movement. Which uprated stiffer springs would help to do.
The material the sway bar is made from could be a material that can take higher stresses.

Case 5... A dual standard bar setup.
Never tried it but you would get more roll resistance.
As each individual bar is a small diameter the stresses in each bar will be the same as standard (with the same amount of roll applied)
They would need to be pivoting in there own separate bearings so you have two shafts twitsting and not one. Welding the two into one would make it stiffer bar but will cause a stress raiser in the nice material volvo used and....er just no.
Having two bars would be a cheap solution to double your bar rate without having a bar that will be any more stressed. It doubles the weight also.

Case 6.... an aftermarket anti roll bar.
Will probably be a bigger diameter bar made from a better material. Or they have done some calculations and found that the standard Volvo bar has a large safety factor and they have used less of a safety factor and allowed a more stressed item. It will have a nice thick layer of paint or similar so that corrosion cannot get to the highly stressed surface and cause a small stress raiser.


We come across this problem at work where you want a fairly stiff bar on the race car but it can only withstand so much roll before it yields. The car might be lovely and happy cornering and then the driver will launch the car over the kerbs and take the bar beyond its yeild point. Then will be on the radio saying something feels funny with the car. Much of this problem is removed by the use of canister links with springs inside instead of an anti roll bar of the twisting bar type.

Rob

[The Aspirator]

Those are some interesting thoughts Rob, never really considered it like that.

For the double front sways, what are the endlink spacers made of?

Particularly that fat round one at the base of the endlink.
The spacer you speak of is just a round 3/4" or 1" solid bar that I drilled a hole through. The spacer above that is just a huge nut. You could use two huge nuts instead. Remember that doing dual sways is a hack, a basically free mod that makes the car feel alot different, so it gets done for little or no money ;-).

[Obeharskad122s]

My secret has always been to use the rear shock spacer from a 240. :shrugg:

[Crazychopstick]

The spacer you speak of is just a round 3/4" or 1" solid bar that I drilled a hole through. The spacer above that is just a huge nut. You could use two huge nuts instead. Remember that doing dual sways is a hack, a basically free mod that makes the car feel alot different, so it gets done for little or no money ;-).

So after all this time, are you still impressed?

[The Aspirator]

I took 'em off a year or two ago, right now I'm just running stock 23mm front and rear, but my car is in winter mode with squishy tires, so definitely not meant for handling. The dual bars sure did make a HUGE difference over the 19mm ones that I had before, made the car way more fun to drive.

[Crazychopstick]

I took 'em off a year or two ago, right now I'm just running stock 23mm front and rear, but my car is in winter mode with squishy tires, so definitely not meant for handling. The dual bars sure did make a HUGE difference over the 19mm ones that I had before, made the car way more fun to drive.

Why did you take them off?

[The Aspirator]

I think it was about a year ago when my brother smashed up my 244, after that I stole his 242 and put all of my goodies onto it, the sways just never made it over. Now that I think about it I do remember noticing that the 242 wasn't quite as responsive in the turns and it felt a little looser, but there were a LOT of different things between the two cars, so it was hard to make an accurate comparison.

If you're not gonna buck up for IPD bars or get into fancy spring rates, then just stop thinking about it and give dual sways a try. It's fun, you will notice a huge difference.

[Crazychopstick]

I think it was about a year ago when my brother smashed up my 244, after that I stole his 242 and put all of my goodies onto it, the sways just never made it over. Now that I think about it I do remember noticing that the 242 wasn't quite as responsive in the turns and it felt a little looser, but there were a LOT of different things between the two cars, so it was hard to make an accurate comparison.

If you're not gonna buck up for IPD bars or get into fancy spring rates, then just stop thinking about it and give dual sways a try. It's fun, you will notice a huge difference.

Personally, I've already got iPD 25/22w/doubled rear bar.

But my brother has got this '88 244 sitting around that I was going to double up the fronts with. I was just curious what the spacer was made out of.

[rogerthechorister]

I'd be very wary of welding tempered steel. Temper will be lost.

Back in the dawn of time we used to put twin antiroll bars from the Riley 1.5s onto Morris Minors. Imagine a big hard alloy oblong. Drill two holes through the thinnest direction so you can imagine the antiroll bars going through them. Now cut in half so you can fit round teh antiroll bars. Now drill three smaller holes through, fit bolts through them to hold the halves together.

Cut ends off "helper" bar as close to the end as you can. Fit first bar to chassis as normal and to suitable bit of suspension (on Morris Minors, track control arm was ideal) . Apply 4 such blocks, one at each end, and one near each chassis member. Clamp helper bar to first bar using blocks. The odd rubber bush helps but you surely get the idea.

[tryingbe]

Car corners much flatter now. :)

http://www.thelostartof.net/tryingbe/volvo/dualsway1.jpg
http://www.thelostartof.net/tryingbe/volvo/dualsway2.jpg

[nitroboie]

I finally got around to doing this. The hardware cost me more than the bar...
Stock endlink from bottom up: washer, bushing, sway, bushing, sway, washer, nut.

http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/7076/img0155g.jpg
http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/4886/img0154z.jpg

[ckanderson]

^use new bushings man!

[fivedoorfury]

Would there be a difference in the handling/function between the two variations shown above? One with the bars about touching and the other with the bigger space and the modified end link..

[smokeyfan1000]

I wondered if this would work 3 years ago, I too try to think out of the box and try things that I have not seen before and or work with what ya got and a tight budget. BRAVO! Simply BRAVO. The only thing that worries me about this is: I have(and others according to IPD) broken 2 end links on 2 Volvos with the 25mm IPD swaybars.Two sway bars has GOT to be more stress on the swaybar end link than set of 1 IPD25mm sways. Not dissing your set-up here, not at all, it is very good thinking IMHO. Just really think a bigger diameter(not much room to increase diameter on swaybar end of EL),so maybe grade 8 material? Please consider upgrading your end link & make it stronger. I know from personal experience, when end link breaks in the curve you have "thrown" the car in, it gets SCARY real quick!! As far as pulling inside wheel off pavement, my 25 mm IPD sways would take enough weight off inside rear tire ,as to make spinning VERY easy in corner, and this was with 79 245 B21(with 500,000+ miles on engine) normally aspirated engine, so you may pull wheel of ground with this set up, rear anyway. This is really cool, because I thought it would work, when I was thinking of it. Did not know it had been done already!! It is "Marvelous,Simply Marvelous"!! You deserve a standing ovation in my book!! Dave Barton too, I suppose. I got 3 sets of stock sways,hhmmmm. I really like this idea, Aspirator!! Really good write up & pics too!

[tryingbe]

Would there be a difference in the handling/function between the two variations shown above? One with the bars about touching and the other with the bigger space and the modified end link..

If you like deformed brackets and bushings, you know which one to follow.

[smokeyfan1000]

Yep, those are a little squished out aren't they?

[Gabe244]

Man i gotta try this.

[nitroboie]

Would there be a difference in the handling/function between the two variations shown above? One with the bars about touching and the other with the bigger space and the modified end link..

I'd like to think that the closer they are, the more it'd be like a single big bar vs two small bars... but I'm not expert. I just went with 2x 19mm, far from big bars but it's still an improvement, plus it only cost $13 vs $50 for a 23mm. Have an extra pair of end links on hand in case you want/need to run the extended/ground off ones.