Well the New Sway bar “kit” showed up and I’m Very pleased with it. I was happy to see that the bar itself is a “Schroeder” name brand with a part # on it so that I can get the weight specs on the bar itself. I thought it was gonna be some No name brand bar that speedway motors made with no info. So as a total newb (this will be the 3rd sway bar on a gem I have done) the size of the bar looks great & I’m very pleased. Having everything on hand in a kit will make this project move forward so much faster then the rear sway bar where I bought piece by piece to size it as I built it.
Powdercoat the metal pieces for a professional look!!
So the ID of the mounts on the Swaybar tube are around 19-5/8 just shy of the 20-1/2 you need. I’m sure I could have just put a bit of heat on the mounts and bent them out but I decided to grind off the welds and space the mounts out to match the factory frame and re weld them.
That doesn’t look right. Do the arms reach out to the shock mounts?
The photo is deceiving because I moved the sway bar more forward in the 2nd set of photos the Swaybar Arms extend further towards the shock points. I’m going to make a bracket that bolts to the A-arms and gives me a mounting point you can see 1 of the two holes in the bottom of the A-arm circled in red
in the picture. That’s what I’m going to amount to.
Is that near the shock mount though? It seems the shock is outboard from that.
I more/less agree. Is that lower arm going to be strong enough at that point?
Nice. With the exception of the eM1400’s, I’m not familiar enough with the suspension on the newer GEMs to visualize how it will go in there and affect the geometry, but the quality of your builds and mods has always impressed me Grant.
Yes, probably fine knowing Grant. Without seeing where the shock is, I can’t offer an opinion.
I depends on the ratio of the “A” arm pivot point to sway arm mount vs “A” arm pivot point center of wheel.
Lever
Everything affects everting. Example. How stiff is the bar, how long are the Sway bar arms where do the Sway bar arms attach to the a-arms. It all affects one another.
Simply moving the attachment point of where the sway bar arms attach to the a-Arms you can stiffen or soften the sway bar rate. Yes traditionally you wanna attach to as close to the shock point. I think for a few reasons. For the limited info I know. When you attach close to the furthest attachment point you have lots of throw. That throw or movement affects the sway bar way more. Example lots of Input equals lots of sway reduction. Another example. Where the shock attaches to the A-Arm it might move up and down 5x more than where the A arm attaches to the frame. So if you attached real close to the Frame you would need a crazy stiff bar and real short arms. When I did the bar on my 2002 I was VERY limited on what I could do and for the limited knowledge I had this is what I came up with.
As you can see the attachment point was like only 1/2 way up the A-Arm. Not an Ideal set up but it worked like magic. In the picture I had the bar in the Softest (most leverage position) you could unbolt the drop link and reinstall the drop link in a threaded hole further down the sway bar arm. Each few inches made a big difference
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We just did a 30 Mile zip. The car feels slower!
It turns so flat and feels safe and just normal as you would expect in a Normal road going car you feel like you’re going slower LOL! Big difference super happy with the ride! I would not change anything.
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do they make something like this for the 2002 gem car?
Grant has an old thread on his 2002.
Realize in this case “they” needs to be replaced by “he”. This was done by the Grantwest Skunkworks Engineering Division using components intended for other purposes for his car and presented here as an example to show what is possible and to spark creative fires in others.
In his spare time Grant enjoys random jaywalking, petting cats backwards and running with scissors just to see what might happen.
Joe: you could build one yourself just like I did for my 2002. You’re going to need to make some parts and do some drilling but yes you can. The bar I used came off a ATV. And I payed $500 for the “kit that needed” some stuff to be made. If I was to do it all over I would order the same kit I have now and make it work on a 2002.
Here is the thread on the 2002 sway bar
That’s really REALLY cool Grant!! I’m a big fan of the sway bars that you have made. Now that I’m able to go faster, I think the sound of going faster, safer has a nice ring to it.
