As the title says, I just installed a 36mm front sway bar to replace my stock 34mm bar. First off, I can't believe 2mm would make such a big difference. It feels like a whole new car. But I have a question. When I installed the 36mm bushing for the bar and had it all torqued down, there was a gap where the slit in the bushing is. It's maybe 1/8 in. Anyone know what I did wrong or if it is normal for that size bushing?

Another reason it may have gotten stiffer is the extra welding I did. Since the wonder bar came out with the sway bar, I decided to grind off the rust and paint it. After grinding it down I noticed the factory only welded it a total of 6 times on each end (3 spot welds on each side of the bar). So, I decided to make it one solid weld and then i also added a little on the opposite side (the side facing down when it is installed). I'm not really sure if it helped or if it was because of the sway bar but I figured the welding couldn't hurt.

Mike

PS - I'm still looking for a solid 24mm rear sway bar. Does anyone have one for sale?

 

Sounds like you used the 34mm bushings. You need to run the 36mm bushings with that bar, they are sized and its probably binding to some extent right now.

 

They are the 36mm black poly bushings with grease fittings. I purchased them from Spohn.

 

My 87 WS6 had the 36/24 bars on it. The 86 I just got to replace it had 34/22 i believe... And I can tell you I know what you mean about a difference. The difference in handling between an 86 Trans AM non WS6 with 40,000 miles (still tight) and an 87 Trans AM WS6 with 80,000 hard miles is pretty dramatic.

J.

 

Thats odd. In thinking about it 1/8" probably isnt enough but I wonder if you ended up with the right bushings from Steve.

 

This is what my receipt says:

Quantity: 1
Item Code: Poly-36-8292F
Description: 36 mm greasable poly front sway bar bushings 83-92
Price: 39.00

 

Unfortunately what you get isnt always whats printed on the receipt nor the box.

Anyway, if it was a set of 34mm bushings you should have more like a 1/4" gap. I drew it up in cad, figuring expanding the 34mm diameter bushing hole to a 36mm bar size.

 

I went with a 36mm front and 23mm rear, havent got them put on though, still waiting on my 1LE end links to come in. So im glad I bought them if their is a noticeable difference.

 

It couldn't be the 34mm bushing because the 36mm bushing is the only bushing that is greasable, and mine are greasable.

I emailed the Spohn tech people and hopefully they will have a solution for me. Until then, I guess I'll just keep driving it the way it is.

 

Does anyone know about how long it typically takes for the Spohn tech people to reply to emails? I sent mine 4 days ago and have not gotten a response.

 

What rear bar do you have right now?

19-22 really is the best choice. The 24 makes your car more tail happy, than the smaller bar would, especially in autox.

I have a 24, but I'm thinking of looking for a 19/21/22 rear bar.

 

My stock sway bars are the second best you could get. I had the 34 hollow front and 22 solid rear. At first I was under the assumption that it would be best to get the WS6 set but after driving the car for a while and hearing of what others have said I think I might leave it. I just haven't had any track time with the current setup so I can't say for sure if I like how it feels. I also plan on installing Koni Yellows. I was thinking I might want the 24mm rear sway bar just in case the shocks/struts drastically change the way the car handles the turns.

 

No...Keep your 22 & up the front to the 36.

 

I have had track time with my 34/22 setup, just not the 36/22 setup. I just installed the 36mm bar when I started this thread.
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how can you tell what size they are

 

It's not a bad idea to have as many sway bars as you can. They are a good tuning aid and are pretty easy to change. I'm looking for a 21-22...still need to try the 24 in place of the 25 though lol

 

There are many ways to do this. I always use a caliper to measure them. You could also use an adjustable wrench. Just slip it on the middle of the sway bar and adjust it so its tight then pull it off and measure the gap with a ruler. You could put a string around it to get the circumference and then use a formula to get the diameter.

The hollow bars have little holes on the ends and the solid bars are, well, solid.
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25(Twenty FIVE)? I've never heard of a 3rd gen rear bar bigger then 24mm.

 

There are no 25mm GM bars. Mine's the Spohn bar.

 

drag-phag

 

I'll be going to the junkyard either tomorrow or the next day. I went today to get another TPI intake because I am going to try and make a higher flowing one out of fiberglass but that is for another thread. Anyway, it turns out there are a ton of sway bars there. I found a 36 hollow front (doesn't look like it has any rust), 2 22mm solid rears (a little rust), a 34 hollow front (a little rust), and some smaller rears... never really paid close enough attention to look for wonder bars. Is anyone interested in one or more of the above? If so, send me a pm and I'll check into getting it.

On a side note: I also found a passenger side IROC tail light in perfect condition but there is another car on top of it so I can't get the hatch open to get it out.
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Yeah, how much would you want for the 22?

 

Could the mounts be greasable, but the poly only 34? Maybe the poly got put in the wrong mounts? Just a thoughgt.

 

Sorry,
I haven't responded until now because of 12 hour work days for the past 3 days. I decided not to head over to the junkyard because some rain came out of no where so it would have been a big mud hole. I'm going to try and head over there either tomorrow morning or Wednesday morning (depends how tired I am tomorrow). If you give me a shipping address I can give you a better quote for shipping and the over all price. You can use 53154 Oak Creek WI if you want to try and get an idea of what shipping might be.

That could be a possibility but I really don't want pull it off to measure it.

I got to check my e-mails today and Spohn still hasn't responded. Anyone know whats up? Did their system go down or something (I highly doubt it would be down for over a week)?
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The 25mm Bar exists. I've got one from an 85 Tans Am. I think the front bar I pulled off the same car was a solid 34mm.


Remember - the springs were matched to the sway bars at the factory. If you install IROC sway bars on a 88 Coupe you can't realy call it an IROC suspension............... swapping the bars will make a big difference - but don't forget the springs !!!

 

Im going to have to call you out on this one. It was probably a 24mm bar if it was stock, sorry no 25mm bar.

 

When i set up my car in the early 90's I went with the 36/24 combo. car was too tail happy, so I swapped in a 21mm rear, good choice for 10 bolt rear. When I swapped in the Strange 12 bolt, I went to a 18mm bar, which driving normally makes the car understeer; but on the gas hard is neutral. Once I put the Global West TQ arm on I might have to go back to the 21mm (more bite).

 

I beleive the e-mail address on spohn's website is replied to by Steve Spohn (the owner). In the past (roughly 8 months ago) he has replied either the same day, or the next day, his response time is pretty short.

However, incase you missed the thread on another forum on TGO, they had a bit of a disaster (actually a huge one), and he is trying quickly to get back on his feet.

Try e-mailing him again, there was alot of damage, so he may not have received your original e-mail. But be patient, he will get back to you.

 

I actually was posting in that thread your talking about as you posted here. I realize how much damage was done and the trouble it caused for everyone... himself, employees, costumers, everyone. But if I remember the date correctly, he posted that everything was back to normal the day I sent the e-mail so it shouldn't be the reason for such a slow response.

I know what you mean by response time. My order was received, processed, parts gathered, packaged, and shipped to my door step in a shorter time than it is taking to get a response to the e-mail.
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You are incorrect, there is indeed a 25mm bar. John in RI is absolutely right. It only came on pontiacs (to my knowledge anyway) but i don't know the exact year range.......i am assuming limited given how rare it appears to be and that many make the mistake of saying that 24 was the biggest.

I can say with 100% certainty that it was at least available in 85 (which supports John's findings) as i have the Pontiac spec package for that year and it identifies a 25mm rear bar as part of the performance package.

 

This morning I went to Harbor Freight and bought a digital caliper with a mm to inch conversion button. Then I headed over to the junkyard and got the 36mm front sway bar but I wasn't able to find the 22mm bars I found yesterday... sorry 91_5.7_TPI. I don't know if my old caliper was off or if someone took them during the last couple days.

Since I had the new caliper I went around and measured several sway bars on the many third gens that are there and found 2 other 36mm front sway bars. The bad news is one is on a car that is on top of another car that is surrounded by 1ft of water, and the other is on a car that has another car on top of it so I can't jack it up to get room to take that bar off. I also found 3 quick ratio steering boxes with the larger stops in it for cars with 16" wheels. However, I decided not to get them when the owner said he wants $75 each. Is it just me or is that way to much money for just a steering box? Oh, and none of the cars there had any wonder bars.
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It's ok man. I wasn't actually looking for one, but I wasn't going to pass one up. Yea, that does seem a little high for a junk yard steering box. I've never priced them though.

 

I have 32/21 bars with Prokit, Yellows, 275/40/17s and a lot of other stuff.

The car is very neutral on long fast tracks and the back end is sold into the long sweepers.

It understeers a bit on short tight tracks but I'd rather have it stable at high speed.

 

If you upped your front to the 36, you'd increase the short tight track stability & keep your high speed stability. 36/21 would be nice.

 

I've stopped running the short tracks- too hard on the car and they're boring for the most part.

It was stable enough on the short tracks - but understeer was slightly problematic - 36 mm front bar would make the understeer worse.

Handling is neutral and predictable at Mosport International and the car is very stable/balanced into the fast corners there.

The car tachs out at about 140 mph on the main straight and entry into the next sweeper is maybe 90-100 mph where it scrubs off more speed through the corner - so that's what I was referring to when I said I'd rather have it stable at high speed.

As it is now it's working well for one of the fastest corners that I have to deal with so I think it's best to leave it where it is and just work around everything else.

There are more difficult corners at that track but they are blind downhill left handers and slower - the car sticks pretty good with them as well.

A guy I know got brake hop in his 4thgen at the end of the straight; launched it good and ended up in the tyre barrier after the gravel trap - he was OK but the car was messed up.

 

I just got my 36mm front sway bar in. I used the spohn bushings too and they do have that 1/8in gap. I have a feeling it will get smaller as they wear in. I've read it everywhere. It can't be that bad if they haven't changed them yet.

Stock on my 86 Iroc-Z FE2 i had 34/24. The tail of the car seemed to side step, but it never pulled away from me. This is exactly what they say in every article though. Stock Irocs tend to have some oversteer or neutral feeling when plowing into a turn.

Now with 36/24 i can play a little more with the throttle when coming out of the turn. It definetely has a more noticable understeer, but then you tap the throttle and the back end likes to swash out. The 36mm bar definetely made the car more stiff though. Front end doesn't roll at all. I also have alston subframe connectors.

The Drain holes on my 36 bar are facing up.... is that normal???

 

Sorry, I forgot about this thread. Spohn finally did respond about the bushing. They said... "That's normal, they should have around 1/16" or so gap, that means you have a tight fit, you do not want a loose fit." I don't know about that... but I guess it must be ok otherwise they wouldn't be selling them.

The drain holes should be facing down. This allows any moisture that may get in them to escape, therefor preventing excessive rusting from the inside out. You must have put it in upside down...

Mike