Pulled a wonderbar off of a 86' IROC at the local pick-a-part. I had a question, I painted it installed it and as I was tightening up the bolts for the sway bar bushing holddowns, I noticed that you can move the thing left or right and forward and backward because the bolt holes on the wonderbar are elongated for movement to adjust I guess.

Here's what I don't understand....to the best of my knowledge sway bars do not move much if at all side to side with good bushings, since these bolt holes are elongated, I don't really see how this thing gives support when the sway bar is already giving support. Does it slide that much? Apparently this wonderbar helps the steering box stay put as well.....HOW? It just bolts to the the same place the sway bar does!

Somebody explain to me the benifits of this thing, please. I needed a new steering gear box so I bought the wonderbar while I was at it because I figured it couldn't hurt and a lot of you guys use them, not to mention it was only 7 bucks.

 

What you have is a steering Box support (AKA wonder bar) and it is a support item and not a handling improvement one. But people may have different opinions.

 

The sway bar gives no sideways support whatsoever. If the frame decides to change its width up front there due to stress from steering action or bumps or whatever, the bushings can simply slide along the sway bar; much as the sway bar rotates constanty inside of them while driving down the road.

The single biggest thing it does is to keep the "parallelogram" of the steering system a parallelogram, and not a trapezoid. If you look at its design, you'll notice that with the wheels straight ahead, the distance between the Pitman shaft and the idler arm shaft, is exactly the same as the distance between the 2 joints on the center link that the other ends of each of those arms attach to. i.e., the 2 arms are parallel and the same lengeth, and the other 2 distances are parallel and the same length, forming a parallelogram. Now imagine what happens to the wheels if the Pitman shaft can move around and change its distance from the idler shaft. That's exactly the situation that the frame flexing will create. When that happens, the Pitman arm and idler arm will no longer be parallel. Obviously, the wheels will toe in and out as you drive down the road as a result. That's the main thing it will control. Plus, it helps stabliize the place the steering gear bolts to, so that it won't tend to crack from that part of the "frame" flexing from forces applied to it.

Go ahead and put the brace in, you'll notice a difference, guaranteed. The tighter the rest of your car is, the more difference you'll notice.

 

I put it in before I wrote that message. The steering does feel a bit tighter, I was just curious of how exactly it was occuring.

 

For proof that the swaybar doesn't help, just jack up one control arm on the car and watch the bar move.
The brace is a great idea. Uni-body's can never have too much bracing. Especially with the steering setup. Might want to put a solid bushing in place of the steering coupler. I've heard that helps. Just looking at the coupler you can see where the safty tabs are touching. Seems like the couplers were made out of mush. That's a project for a warmer day .

 

The elongated holes allow for install in different year cars.
My friend bought the BMR bar for his 82 Trans Am and it didn't line up, so we took my GM unit off of my 86 and it lined up fine on his 82. I now have the new BMR bar, but man, it took me 5 hours to get that sucker installed.

 

My global west bar was just as hard. Doing it yourself is a royal PITA using stock hardware. First the bushing retainer had to have it's "locating prong" bent out of the way. Then there was the annoying super thick flange that makes the GM wonderbar look like childs play. Oh yeah, and a 36mm hollow sway bar needing to be suported while you get a thread started.
I ended up using a jack to hold the sway bar up, royal PITA.

 

I bought new sway bar bushings, 1.25" and they were too small My bar is almost 1.5" in diameter.
I did use them since I already greased them up and got them dirty,

I used jackstands and a jack as well to get everything up.