7/8" rear sway bar

Well, It only causes more body flex when you sling it into a turn hard. I used hood pins to locate my decklid on the rear section of the car. This mod makes the deck part of the strength of the chassis. before I was nicking the rear corners of my quarters. Now the big X ender the lid is triagulating the chassis. If you have body flex, you may want to use other means to strenghen it. IE The kits for the rear lower that connects the lower a arm. I'm sure you have seen the front kits too. Go for it,and do the deck pins as shown in my pic.

Tom, I have seen a lot of posts on here speaking to changing/improving the handling characteristics of their car. First off, stiffining the suspension is not necessarily going to improve handling simply because there is so much flex in the Pantera (especially the rear) that unless you have siffened the chassis, nothing predictable is going to happen. Mark Donohue's (a famous racer from back in the day) motto was use the softest setup you can to achieve the lowest lap time. When I was racing Covettes back in the '70's, we wanted a softer bar and springs and shock settings so the car would take a set in the corners on short tracks. Faster longer tracks like Road America we went stiffer but not much(mostly just shock settings). The same idea goes with tires, if you have gone to wider lower profile tires, you have already siffened the car some, since sidewall flex is part of the suspension equation. I put 17" 10" wide tires in the back 8" fronts(I got a great deal from Steve Wilkenson) and now have understeer. I'm sure it's because I have way too much tire in the back but they just look soooo good on the car. Also, sorry to state the obvious, but whatever you do tot he rear will affect the way the front handles.

6661's sugar daddy Steve

quote:

Originally posted by new & slow:
... 7/8" sway bar in. Many plusses for increasing the size per many previous discussions. I did hear one negative from Jerry at PIM. He was not for it as he says it causes more body flex. True or is he not a proponent because he does to sell the larger sway bars?...

If Jerry commented negatively, it's because he truly believes what he said is true. He was looking out for your best interest. Not his.

If you were my customer, my first comment would be a question. What problem are you experiencing with the handling of your car, that you think a larger rear anti-sway bar is going to fix?

If you are seeking improved handling "in general" there are other more important things to do first, before you bolt on an anti-sway bar. We could discuss those improvements if you like.

Your friend on the DTBB

Shouldn't the larger rear bar be used if you go from the 7/8's to 8/10's?

Like many things automotive, it's really tough to generalize sway bars. If everything is in good repair on a car and it still has too much understeer, then a larger rear bar may help. Remember though that a bit of understeer is good on the street, especially true when a car has enough power to throttle steer. When setting up my current BOSS302 Mustang, I eventually ..reduced.. the rear swaybar size to improve handeling. Reducing the bar by 1/8" made a very noticable improvement (on that application). Good luck...

quote:

I did hear one negative from Jerry at PIM. He was not for it as he says it causes more body flex. True or is he not a proponent because he does to sell the larger sway bars?

Sounds like a trade-off, according to Jerry.
Although I still have my original rear swaybar, long-time Pantera owners will tell you that handling is markedly improved with going to a 7/8 inch larger rear swaybar.

Josh