sway bars

[c5vair]

Hi everyone, hopfully someone knows if you can bend highcarbon steel as what would be used for sway bars and not have to heat treat them. Also I need a good place to buy hollow high carbon tubbing , I live near detroit, MI thanks Phil West

[c5vair]

whow I thought somebody on this sight would give me a little insight. Comon someone's holding back even if to tell me Iam stupid. Need help here. Phil West

[Salt Racer]

More than likely it will be just fine on a light weight car if you design the bar properly, meaning finding a good compromise of bar rate (area inertia/lever length) and motion ratio such that stress within the bar will be minimum.

Not that I'm recommending it, but I've used mild steel bars bent with heat. They hold up OK unless you beat the crap out of your car at tracks on regular basis. I just bent up a DOM tube for my financially-challenged OT car. I'll find out how long it's gonna last. I'm not too concerned about it since it's for rear. If it yields, the car would just push instead of spinning.

If you're OK with solid bar, you can use ETD 150, 1144, etc. You can get those from here. Scroll down to the bottom.

http://www.aedmotorsport.com/Steel/Steel.html#Anchor

Or have a custom bar bent. There are places who can bend up bars to your specs for $200 or so, that includes heat treating if I'm not mistaken. There was a link to such a place on CC.com not too long ago.

[c5vair]

Thanks for the information, I would rather use hollow tube. I am trying to get setup to have several sets of bars for different tracks. Do you have any idea where I can find more information of heat treating of sway bars. I have carroll smith's engineer to win & race to win but still leaves me needing more specific information. By the way this is a car I have totaly built myself Its a 1965 corvair with a square tube chasie upper and lower unequal length contol arms at all four corners running a 450hp Ls1 and c5 corvette transaxle mounted mideng style whitch really helped in the suspension geometry design. Any thing you can think of is appriciated. Phil West

[Salt Racer]

Judging from what you're doing, you're probably aware of other alternatives (splined shaft/arm, blade-type adjustable bars). I'd assume you need a bent bar due to packaging and/or budget.

I'd check some metallurgy books if you couldn't find enough info in Engineer to Win. Figure out how much stress your bar will be subjected to, and have it heat treated just enough to prevent yielding (perhaps with very small safety factor) based on the composition of material you're using. Obviously you don't want it too brittle.

How about 4130 tubes? You can get pretty thickwall tubes depending on OD, though they might be bitch to bend on tight radius.

And post some pictures of your ride please.

[c5vair]

Thanks for the information The 4130 is what I was planning on using for my sway bars. I wont it to be something simple and inexpensive. I have a tubbing bender so bending is not a problem, I have already bent a few mockup piceses. I have to get some up to date pictures taken and will post. I just returned from a racers get together and the responce on the car was amazing. Phil