Is anyone familiar with this rear sway bar setup? I think I've seen this type of setup for Porsche 911 at the track. But I have never seen this on a Pantera until now.
The vertical rod ends have heim joints. The upper a-arms also have heim joints, and are adjustable for camber. The vertical rods connect to the square tubing that is welded to the a-arm. Someone did some nice fabrication on this.
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The Group 4 race cars had an adjustable sway bar, but I don't recall having seen one quote like that.
IMHO, it does not look like a very good design. Too many cantilevers and unsupported sections, not to mention bulk.
I've seen a similar setup on the Andy Warhol Pantera. Don't have pics available to me right now.
I used to be the owner of the Warhol Pantera that I bought back in 2005 from Walter Dethier.
The car had "just" a factory GR4 adjustable sway bar, and nothing like the one on the picture.
Patrick
I'm not a fan of this design either and am not sure why anyone would need to go to this extent to make the rear adjustable? There are other alternatives I can think of.
The big deal on a race car though would be the mounting to the rear chassis cross member.
The original car just had 8mm studs dimple welded and you need to use caution when removing the retaining nuts so that the studs don't snap off.
I think that if it was necessary to go this railroad iron route on this car then we are into at least 1/2" diameter bolts through the cross member?
You are going to be twisting the heck out of that car and best check for wrinkles in the roof sheet metal.
I have a similar system in the front of my '69 T/A race mustang .
think it's an aftermarket universal part, what needs a modifiction to connect the lower A -arms
Simon
Thanks all for your input. It looks like this is something that should not be replicated and I will be disposing of it. The upper a-arms might be useful to someone in the Pantera world since they have adjustable camber. Of course the sway bar adapter would need to be removed. The balance of the contraption might be useful to the road racing community.
stevebuchanan posted:Is anyone familiar with this rear sway bar setup? I think I've seen this type of setup for Porsche 911 at the track. But I have never seen this on a Pantera until now.
The vertical rod ends have heim joints. The upper a-arms also have heim joints, and are adjustable for camber. The vertical rods connect to the square tubing that is welded to the a-arm. Someone did some nice fabrication on this.
If need be, I can send pictures of the original factory GR4 sway bars mechanism
Best to you all !
I would like to see those pictures. Could you post them here?
Thank you for posting. This makes much more sense. How thick is that bar? Is it a hollow tube?
That looks like it could easily be copied but does anyone make the parts for it now?
Bar is GR4 original, i.e. 3/4 inch, and is plain, not hollow
That's a much better execution. Glad to hear that the design shown in the original post was not a factory GR4 setup. On the GR4 setup the rear lower control arm link mount doesn't need to be made with five through tubes. Properly designed mounting tabs will suffice.
Mike,
I thought a race suspension was best designed to include multiple adjustments to compensate for track, weather conditions, tire compounds, etc.
Are you saying, in your opinion, the adjustability provided by the five tubes is not needed?
Or are you saying the adjustability could’ve been served by simply fabricating a tab with five holes?
Larry
Larry,
Sorry for being confusing. Yes, race car suspensions must be adjustable. Typically, components like anti-sway bars have a useful range used within their mounting system. It's good practice to keep links and levers in good alignment so the spring rate of the bar remains predictable. Once the alignment is overly compromised from gross adjustments it's best to change bars. I would think anyone racing a GR4 Pantera should have at least two bar sizes for each end of the car. The cramped space and short links don't help. My guess is that with those short links, moving the link from one tube to the next doesn't do very much. Increasing the angle of the link minimizes gain and side loads the bar which further compromises the effective bar spring rate. I'm not saying that it won't work, it's just not ideal.
Mike
