Turn your Rear Sway bar into an adjustable RSB

[brad]

I bought a Golf GTI sway bar for the price of a few cups of coffee. It's not a huge upgrade from stock. 19.6mm up to 21.6mm give or take 0.1mm.

What I did notice was how much flat was on the lever arm & it got me thinking about the aftermarket adjustable RSB I had on my Subaru.

I decided to drill an additional mount hole 20mm shorter along the bar. This effectively reduces the moment arm & makes the bar stiffer.

I was concerned about drilling a hole in what should be spring steel but the 3mm pilot hole & 10.4mm clearance hole went through like a hot knife through butter.

Haven't bothered to drive it yet but I doubt the difference will be huge on such a light-duty RSB - more incremental.

There's possibly room for a 3rd hole if you felt so inclined or make the spacing 30-40mm.

[zei20t]

wow, cheap mod! functional too!

please let us know what you think after throwing it around some corners.

[brad]

I think any differences in feel will be swallowed up by the Eibach springs & konis. I don't hook into corners that hard anyway. It's more "I'll do this because I can".

Logically, if the material is about the same, going from 19.7 to 21.7 should be 10% stiffer (I would have thought)? But according to the Whiteline sway bar chart it's ~+45% (WTF?). http://www.whiteline.com.au/docs/bulletins/BL-281.pdf

The lever arm is about 200mm long so shortening by 20mm is apparently like adding 1mm ~+75% total according to Whiteline. I would have thought this is good for +5-10% so I haven't a clue.

Either way, it can't / isn't a step backwards & next time I have the front wheels off I'll be looking at what I can do about redrilling the FSB insitu.

[zei20t]

please keep us posted!