I'm about to have a custom front swaybar made for my 1200 ute due to the factory one fouling on my new winged sump. The car is regularly used in the sprints at QR and in the future I'd like to do some hillclimbs too. I would like to know if there is any benefit in me going to a larger front bar? Also, are there any negatives to increasing the diameter of the front bar?
Thanks Matty

getting a custom one made sounds pricey...
why not use a 120y one?? I have one in my car, and it works sweet.

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straight out of the tech section

Matty, from years of work with car set up for hillclimbs & other sporty events. don't to big in the size of the bar, 5mm max Why in hillclimbs you need to turn in the bends & still stay flat on the road. when you go to far in thickines wheels lift off the ground in the bend & you need every inch of your tyres to help make the quickest time. If you need space under sump, have, l think there called bush spaces add under the bar. But be careful how much (length of) bush spaces. Good luck & let me now how you went. Bruns

Thanks for the replies. Unfortunately a 120Y one won't fit either but that's the sort of diameter increase I was considering.
Any other thoughts?
Matty

Matty,
In my experience a sway bar is nothing more than a fine tuning device for handling a definitley should not be relied upon as the sole modification for handling improvement.
Remember what feels better or good on the road can turn out to be an absolute dog on the track!
Rule of thumb, the bigger the bar you go on either end, the more you will 'unload' that end during hard cornering. In other words a big front bar is a recipe for having the front end 'wash' out ( or understeer )
My advise, do it with decent springs, go for a decent offset wheel and give the old girl a decent amount of negative camber- say start with 3 degrees, 4 degrees positive castor and toe the wheels out slightly.
A good search through the web site should shed some light on how to achieve this.
Cheers
Dave

Thanks for that Dave.
The car has had a substantial amount of time and money spent on the suspension already. The current set up is -
Front : custom height adjustable coilovers with Koni yellows inserts, 225lbs King springs (have had 3 other sets of springs in the car with varying heights and poundages before settling on these), custom camber plates (engine crossmember has been redrilled to give more camber too) and adjustable castor rods.
Rear : Re-set leaves with the overider spring removed and lowering blocks installed, Koni reds set at the softest setting, custom Caltrac anti-tramp set up (tramp bars removed for track days due to the fact that they increase understeer).
I'm running 14" * 6" alloys with a +20 offset and shagged R rated rubber that needs replacing soon.
I am also considering doing away with the Caltrac all together and installing a half leaf set up as my brother's Fiat works successfully this way.
The car corners beautifully now so the last thing I want to do is increase understeer. This is the reason why I chose not to just get the `off the shelf' Whiteline 22mm bar.
I was very happy with the 120Y bar when I had my A series motor so I may just get the custom bar made in a 20mm diameter.
Thanks again
Matty

sounds like a pretty good setup Matty. I'd like to see it in action one day. I went out to Mt Cotton yesterday to watch and help a mate running his Civic. You should come along to the next one to check it out. Always some good cars worth having a look at.

going from a 17mm front bar to 20mm is quite a significant increase, and it will change the balance of the car - alot. I'd go with the 20mm front bar, but be prepared to have to do some tweaking with the rear end to get the balance back.

I'm not a fan of tramp bars - they treat the symptom rather than the problem. Get rid of the lowering blocks too. They're a great way to make it axle-tramp. And have the springs done properly with the reverse half leaf as you mentioned - definitely a better way to go about eliminating the tramp. I could recommend a few places in Brisbane to get the leaves done.

Hi Harry. Are you still building the CA with the carbs? Is that a class based decision?
Kenny Graham at Accurate suspension did the last lot of suspension work on the car which has made a massive improvement both in lap times and the feel of the car.
I agree with you about the tramp set up but it will have to stay for awhile yet.
To be honest I'm sick of spending money on it and not getting to race it! I plan on fitting a new swaybar and an oil cooler this week and then getting back out to QR. I definitely want to have a run at Mt Cotton soon too. When are you heading out next?
Matty

Matty good luck with Mt cotten in the furture and good answers on swaybars b110sss & very good answer L18_b110. l forgot about rear of the dato. l'm only human!
Bruns

Quote:Yes, the reason for a naturally aspirated CA18 is to remain in the under 2L class. I'm sticking to carbs to keep costs down, as I already have the carbs and to get EFI to work as well as the Webers means going to the expense of quad throttle bodies. And that would certainly tip the scales in favour of a CA18DET.

There's a good group of U2L cars that get to Mt Cotton and the competition in that class is very close. They're a good bunch of blokes too and we've got a good rivalry going. And I like sticking it to the larger capacity classes, and particularly the WRXs. I want to have a proper crack at the class record too.

Its not progressing as quickly as I had hoped. Finding someone to do cams for it was a bit of a problem. No-one in Brisabne wanted to know about it, but some info from Feral and Steve Newing, who was particularly helpful with details about his race engine, has got that problem well and truly sorted.

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You can't go too far wrong with having Ken work on the handling - he's got his 1600 going quite nicely again at Mt Cotton.

Next Hillclimb is 25th Sept, but I'll be away on a 4WD trip that weekend.