G-body rear sway bar, which one actually works? The Hellwig one doesn't.

[83hurstguy]

I've had my car apart for the better part of the year, and one item I've been trying to install is the Hellwig 55809 rear sway bar. The first issue is the end links... I've cut out about 2-1/2" so far to get the bar to sit level, and there's still have another 1/2" to go! Here's a picture of that process...

I knew before bolting it up that the bar was going to be really tight to the stock cover (and I have installed an LPW cover), so I fabricated some 3/8" thick aluminum spacers to lower the sway bar to add some clearance. Now that I have it on the car, the Hellwig bar hits my LPW cover after only 1-1/8" of rear suspension bump travel. The sway bar and brackets are installed level to the car to optimize sway bar efficiency, as it should be for proper installation. Here's two pictures at ride height... sorry for the poor lighting, it's dark out by the time I get out to the garage.


All Hellwig had to do was add another 1/2" to 3/4" of rear offset on the bar and this wouldn't be an issue. I'd gladly pay a few more bucks for a bar that actually FIT the car, instead of spending $200 on a pile of scrap. This thing would be really close on a stock rear end cover too.

Here's the questions. Does anyone else have any experience with this issue? I don't want to swing the mounts backwards by 10* to make it work, as it looks terrible and will mess up link angles for the stiffest bar setting. I'm ready to buy a new rear bar from another company, but don't seem to be having much luck... my car isn't THAT lowered, it has Eibach springs and still uses stock length rear shocks with no bottoming. It rides great!



Spohn: bar only offered in 7/8" diameter (I'd prefer 1")

UMI: seems promising, but this picture below from their website (with their swaybar installed on their Monte test car) shows the characteristic issue of having too long of an end link, where the bar is pointing nose down at the ground. At $400, I wouldn't want to trim end links or buy custom ones...



DSE: another fair option. End link lengths aren't adjustable, and seeing some feedback that they hit the support covers on turbobuick... (http://turbobuick.com/forums/threads...upport.410501/)

ridetech: Still using the old school design of attaching to lower control arms.

HR Parts N Stuff: Drag bar (1.25" diameter) only.

Speedtech: Won't work, talked to Ben a while ago about it.

I never thought buying a rear sway bar just to fit my car would be so challenging. I could probably have designed my own and already have it on the car for the time I've wasted on this project... are there other options out there I am missing? Has anybody had luck with the DSE bar on a lowered car and support cover? Same with the UMI? I don't want to start playing a $400 guessing game.

Thanks for any help.

[killer69]

I have a Hellwig bar on my G body with our endlinks and it fits fine.

[83hurstguy]

I have a Hellwig bar on my G body with our endlinks and it fits fine.

Stock cover, right?

[BMR Sales]

I'm surprised you didn't even look at ours, especially since at least one company you mentioned Copied our Old Design!

http://www.bmrsuspension.com/index.c...=29&superpro=0

[83hurstguy]

I'm surprised you didn't even look at ours, especially since at least one company you mentioned Copied our Old Design!

http://www.bmrsuspension.com/index.c...=29&superpro=0

I did see it, but didn't mention it in my write up because 1-3/8" solid is HUGE! The rates per your webpage vary from 1600-2400 lb/in. Not looking for a drag racing bar with that much stiffness and weight. 1" tubular should be fine for what I need, DSE lists theirs as approx 720-950 lb/in. Do you offer one an axle mounted bar for a street/pro-touring application?

[killer69]

Stock cover, right?

yes but you can rotate the axle clamps back slightly to give clearance can you not?

[BMR Sales]

I did see it, but didn't mention it in my write up because 1-3/8" solid is HUGE! The rates per your webpage vary from 1600-2400 lb/in. Not looking for a drag racing bar with that much stiffness and weight. 1" tubular should be fine for what I need, DSE lists theirs as approx 720-950 lb/in. Do you offer one an axle mounted bar for a street/pro-touring application?

No, the Only Axle Mounted Bar we make is the 1.375"

[83hurstguy]

yes but you can rotate the axle clamps back slightly to give clearance can you not?

Not really. It fights itself because as it moves back by rotating the clamps, the bar also rotates up. It also pulls the front links away from vertical once you run out of rear crossmember to attach the bracket to, reducing the bar's effectiveness. Note that the clearance I have above already has 3/8" flat spacers installed too.

I told a friend the other day that I'd be willing to bet that Hellwig designed this bar around a 7.5" rear end in a G-body, and the larger 8.5" housing is eating up most of the clearance, and the aftermarket cover puts it over the top... there's no logical reason to make the bar that close to the housing.

[killer69]

call David at hellwig they are a sponsor here and he will be able to answer your questions and probably help out he is a good guy

[Nicks67GTO]

Did they send you the wrong bar by chance?

Is it possible you might have the bar installed upside down? It's hard to tell from the pictures. It could just be the angle of the picture but it looks as if the bar is angling upward in the middle in the second one?

I know on my 67' GTO which is obviously a different car and different bar... Hellwig said to install the bar with the hump in the middle, angling downward tward the ground.

Heres mine installed and I havent had any issues. Notice the middle part actually hangs below the 9" housing.

[Nicks67GTO]

I just saw you have the SC&C package as well. Have you tried calling Marc yet? He's a G body guy and you have his parts so im sure hes got some answers for you.

[Marcus SC&C]

Luke, you don`t have so much of a sway bar issue as you do a cover issue. The Hellwig bar fits fine even with big aftermarket 9" housings. It fits with TA Performance girdle covers too. But take notice to the big chunk of protruding aluminum that says "LPW" on it on your cover. That`s the difference. That said, you CAN use that bar with that cover, you just need to run the optional taller axle mounts. Give a call and we can fix you up with what you need.

[alphaenvirmgt]

I am guy with DSE bar. My car does sit lower than stock. I fab'do some spacers to lower rear mounting point on erase end. Worked fine. Just be sure to install bar with car sitting at ride height. Don't use 2-post lift to install.
Conrad

[Rod]

I say cut that LPW tab off

[j-c-c]

I agree, sometimes the obvious is not so obvious, and while we are at, why is level so important on a car with a rear bar that hasn't been road/track tested yet, any minor sacrifice in bar efficiency might just be the needed rate for this application, this is not an exact science yet. Am I missing something?

[83hurstguy]

I agree, sometimes the obvious is not so obvious, and while we are at, why is level so important on a car with a rear bar that hasn't been road/track tested yet, any minor sacrifice in bar efficiency might just be the needed rate for this application, this is not an exact science yet. Am I missing something?

"The obvious is not so obvious?" Take a grinder to a virtually brand new $180 cover? I would buy a different cover before I gave it the hillbilly hack job. And yes, you are missing the point that a non-level bar creates a force magnitude that has axial and perpendicular components... if I wanted a pile of junk under there, I could have left the binding stock-style bar in place instead of spending lots of dollars. Answering your question of "why do things the right way?" is a personal decision that we won't resolve here.

Conrad, thanks for the response here. I went the DSE bar route, made spacers similar to you described and ended up shortening the end links slightly as well. I'll try to have pictures up here sometimes soon. I have the car sitting on race ramps so I could install it at ride height, as you mentioned.

[j-c-c]

When you stumble upon the performance purpose of that $180 alum tab, let this hillbilly know.

And sorry it wasn't obvious to me that you were dealing with a pile of junk. I'll know better next time.

[UMI Tech]

I've had my car apart for the better part of the year, and one item I've been trying to install is the Hellwig 55809 rear sway bar. The first issue is the end links... I've cut out about 2-1/2" so far to get the bar to sit level, and there's still have another 1/2" to go! Here's a picture of that process...

I knew before bolting it up that the bar was going to be really tight to the stock cover (and I have installed an LPW cover), so I fabricated some 3/8" thick aluminum spacers to lower the sway bar to add some clearance. Now that I have it on the car, the Hellwig bar hits my LPW cover after only 1-1/8" of rear suspension bump travel. The sway bar and brackets are installed level to the car to optimize sway bar efficiency, as it should be for proper installation. Here's two pictures at ride height... sorry for the poor lighting, it's dark out by the time I get out to the garage.


All Hellwig had to do was add another 1/2" to 3/4" of rear offset on the bar and this wouldn't be an issue. I'd gladly pay a few more bucks for a bar that actually FIT the car, instead of spending $200 on a pile of scrap. This thing would be really close on a stock rear end cover too.

Here's the questions. Does anyone else have any experience with this issue? I don't want to swing the mounts backwards by 10* to make it work, as it looks terrible and will mess up link angles for the stiffest bar setting. I'm ready to buy a new rear bar from another company, but don't seem to be having much luck... my car isn't THAT lowered, it has Eibach springs and still uses stock length rear shocks with no bottoming. It rides great!

Spohn: bar only offered in 7/8" diameter (I'd prefer 1")

UMI: seems promising, but this picture below from their website (with their swaybar installed on their Monte test car) shows the characteristic issue of having too long of an end link, where the bar is pointing nose down at the ground. At $400, I wouldn't want to trim end links or buy custom ones...



DSE: another fair option. End link lengths aren't adjustable, and seeing some feedback that they hit the support covers on turbobuick... (http://turbobuick.com/forums/threads...upport.410501/)

ridetech: Still using the old school design of attaching to lower control arms.

HR Parts N Stuff: Drag bar (1.25" diameter) only.

Speedtech: Won't work, talked to Ben a while ago about it.

I never thought buying a rear sway bar just to fit my car would be so challenging. I could probably have designed my own and already have it on the car for the time I've wasted on this project... are there other options out there I am missing? Has anybody had luck with the DSE bar on a lowered car and support cover? Same with the UMI? I don't want to start playing a $400 guessing game.

Thanks for any help.

Thanks for mentioning the UMI bar. I can't recall if the endlinks are fully shortened in that photo.

Other than a little bit of an angle I don't know that the nose down of the front of the bar hurts anything?

[83hurstguy]

I finished this project a while back and have been driving the car again, but haven’t had time to get this updated. Sorry for the poor picture quality, the first few were taken with my badly aging phone in poor light.

I ended up buying a Detroit Speed 1” rear bar so I wouldn’t reduce ground clearance when spacing the Hellwig bar way down at the axle clamps, since the DSE setup routes behind the differential cover. I installed the DSE bar with the end clamps at their shortest length and got this result…



The sway bar was at an approximate 8-degree angle, front nosed down. Also, with 1.5” suspension bump travel, the bar would hit the LPW cover preload bolts. I called Detroit Speed to find out if I got all the correct parts (since their Monte SS test car is lowered a similar amount), and if they had any recommendations or other parts like taller axle brackets to lower the rear of the bar. The DSE sales rep recommended I change the rear end cover. When I asked about the angle and what I could do to get the bar level so it would operate properly, he replied that the Monte test car wasn’t at the shop, but he would call me back once he looked into it. That return call never came.

Anyways, I went out and bought some 5/8” thick 6061 aluminum plate, and made spacers to fit on the u-bolt between the axle saddle clamp and the sway bar bushing bracket. The picture below shows spacers mocked up out of MDF to take measurements before I cut the aluminum. I did have to buy some 7/16-20 Grade G flanged top lock nuts from Fastenal to gain back half a thread of engagement and ensure I had locking capability (not shown here).



This lowered the rear of the bar significantly, but it still wasn’t close to level. To resolve this, I ended up shortening the end link, both the male and female threaded portions. Here’s a comparison of the length supplied by DSE, and the length I ended up with.



After installation, here’s the completed product, you can make out the aluminum spacers if you look close. The bar is really close to level; of course, ride height varies a bit based on passengers, trunk contents, and fuel load.



The car handles very well with the bar, it’s extremely flat around corners on the weakest setting, with no noise or degraded ride quality. I’m really happy with the end result, it was definitely worth the effort to get away from the stock style bar. I can’t say I appreciated the lack of DSE interest in discussing or helping solve this issue, and having to cut on new parts always sucks. I guess it's part of the hobby and having OCD to do everything as correct as possible...

....and yes, I hope to get rid of those outdated red shocks soon. Hoping some ridetech HQ's or coilovers will work their way into the budget.

[Number1]

Would this be an issue for a 7.5 rear end as I can not find an 8.5 yet? What rear brakes are you running and any car pictures?