I also want to know what is a panard rod and sub frame connectors. And where do they all go?? once again
1 Sway bar
2 Strut Tower Brace
3 Panard rod
4 Subframe connectors

Thank you very much for any help.

 

your car most likely has 2 sway bars front and back, if you look under your car on the rear end there is a kind of curvy, slim, long bar running the entire length, thats your rear swaybar, there is another much thicker one in the front, same kinda thing. When you turn fast, your car will lean onto the tires on the oppisite side your turning (itll lean on right side tires during left turns). This is called body roll, the sway bars are there to try to kepp your car from rolling and keep it flatter to the ground when turning, the bigger the bar, the less the roll. Subframe connectors connect your subframes. If you look under your car you will see kind of flat steel structures (almost rectangular like structures) one in the front that goes from after the nose till about the end of the wheel well, the other in the back from bumper to end of wheel well. Subframe connectors are stell tubes that run along the rocker panels and weld to the front and rear subframes (one sfc on each side)(go to sphons site on top of page for more info) these improve handling, increase structural integrity and help prevent chasis flex in high output cars. If you know where your front struts are, you know they are in a "tower", a brace for these is a steel tube that runs across engine bay and connects them, improving structural integrity(see post on strut tower brace pics) and as for panard rods, i havent the slightest so im interested too.

 

Look under the back of the car, you should see a metal rod the runs from the rear end to a bracket under trunk floor, it is at an angle so it is easy to spot. This piece locates the rear end side to side.

 

A strut-tower brace is just what the name implies: a structure that braces (reinforces) the strut-towers. Those are the upper mount points for the struts which are basically holding up the front of the car. On hard cornering, the strut towers will actually flex in relation to each other and that takes away from your handling.

The panhard rod is a rod that connects the rear-end to the body and positively locates it laterally (keeps it from moving side to side). It's jointed so that it can still allow the rear-end to move up and down. Imagine holding one end of a pen in your hand horizontally. You can move the other end up and down, but if you push it side to side, it won't move. The trailing arms (aka LCAs) locate the rear-end front-to-back and are actually what "pushes" the car when the wheels turn (the analogy would be you pushing a shopping cart: your legs are providing the power, but that power is being sent through your arms). They're also jointed to allow up/down movement of the rear-end. The springs limit the upward movement of the rear end (or the downward movement of the car), and the shocks limit the downward movement of the rear (or upward movement of the car, and also "slows" down that movement so that there's no "shock" when a bump or puthole is run over). Confused yet? Don't worry. Check out what time I posted this. That's right, I've been up all night. :lala: If you understand this type of rear suspension setup, you can understand them all. It's pretty much the most complicated solid-rear setup out there.

And the swaybars are basically to connect the moving parts to the non-moving parts and limiting movement to: what gives in the bushings and the bars themselves flexing. They connect to the body (or front control arms) through "end-links", which are basically a long bolt and nut with lots of bushings and washers on them.

The car has two subframes, as explained above, and subframe connectors serve to "tie" the two together. It takes energy to bend something, and anytime something in the car is flexing, that's energy being taken away from the pavement and put into the car's body. So stiffening up the body with subframe connectors, strut tower brace, steering box brace, sway-bars, etc. all chip in to make the car handle better by making sure that energy isn't being wasted flexing the car. Everything trades off to a rougher ride though.