Welcome to the Corvette Forums at the Corvette Action Center!

Sway Bar rates - Anyone know them?

  • Thread starter Thread starter CSDMagred01
  • Start date Start date
C

CSDMagred01

Guest
I have been trying to find the sway bar spring rates for the GM options FE1, FE3, FE4 for front and rear bars. I have been unable to find them anywhere on the net. Has anyone seen or measured them?

I measured (using bathroom scale) the FE1 bars I just removed from my 01 coupe and FE4 bars I installed but the values seem low and I am wondering if official numbers are available.

Thanks,
Carmen
 
I am an old autocrosser and understand that too much sway bar can overpower the springs and actually lift an inside wheel to the point of losing traction. Although I don't think any of the GM bars can do that. It has to do with how a sway bar works, weight transfer cause the outside wheel to push up toward the body, the sway bar transfers that lift to the opposite wheel, etc.

The problem with rating by diameter is hollow bars besides being lighter, are usually stiffer than solid bars. It's hard to compare hollow bars, because wall thickness on a hollow bar of the same diameter can have a huge difference in spring rate. There are formulas for calculating spring rate from the physical dimension, but I rather not research them unless I have to. I was hoping someone knew the values.

Here is what I did:

I essentially had the bars mounted to my shop bench, had one bar end on the scale while I pushed on the other end, deflecting it in quarter inch increments and reading the scale. So when I was using my bathroom scale, I was measuring force applied to the scale by my deflecting the other end of the bar. This gives a spring rate curve that should be linear. One problem is I'm using one spring (the scale) to measure the force exerted by another spring (the bar). Plus the scale will compress alittle so the deflection readings are going to be alittle off. I thought that would be a minor error, but I'm not sure if there are other problems with measuring with this method.

Another way to figure out the spring rate is mount the bar, fix one end from moving and hang known weights on the end of the bar and measure how much moves it an inch. That would give the lbs/in spring rate. I'll try that and see if I get the same results.

Thanks,
Carmen
 
Re: Not sure..

c5d said:
(snip)
My experience is that rarely (or never) are sway bars given spring rates. I suspect the autocrossers (or Hib) knows for sure on that issue.
(snip)
Unfortunately, I do not have the stabilizer bar rates for C5. I have diameter info but not rates.

(snip)
As for your bathroom scaling, that implies weight, not spring rates (flexibility/stiffness).
(snip)

c5d is correct. The scale method will not tell you the bar rate accurately.

Originally posted by CSDMagred01 (snip)Another way to figure out the spring rate is mount the bar, fix one end from moving and hang known weights on the end of the bar and measure how much moves it an inch. That would give the lbs/in spring rate.(snip)
Now there's a guy who's thinking! That method will give you a fairly accurate bar rate reading. For the front bar, you'll need a lot of weight.
 

Corvette Forums

Not a member of the Corvette Action Center?  Join now!  It's free!

Help support the Corvette Action Center!

Supporting Vendors

Dealers:

MacMulkin Chevrolet - The Second Largest Corvette Dealer in the Country!

Advertise with the Corvette Action Center!

Double Your Chances!

Our Partners

Back
Top Bottom