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St. Jude Vendor Donor '03-'04-'05-'06-'07-'08-'09-'10-'11
Originally Posted by qwertymess
The rear sway is a pfadt also but that one is fine. Couldnt I just replace the front with something else? or do both front and rear have to be the same?
Hi Gang,
with regard to the rear bar, we were never allowed to discuss this when Puff Daddy (pfadt) was in business but the rear bar does not function as a sway bar. It acts like an additional rear transverse spring.
When the car is on the ground at ride height, the arms are up over a 70 degree angle pointed up. Then as the suspension goes through its travel, instead of rotating the sway bar, it acts more like a transverse spring. Even on a straight run, both sides of the bar are pulled up instead of rotating the bar, it pulls up both sides of the bar.
Essentially it just adds spring rate to the rear by binding, but it does not act like an anti roll bar. (sway bar)
The angle of the arm, even with the car up on jacks, is already past the point where it will rotate the sway bar. Then when the car is set on the ground, there is no way to rotate the bar so it can act like a sway bar. on a video you can see the bar deflect up rather than rotate.
At LG Motorsports we have a slogan that says, "We race, you win". We could not have won so many pro races over the last 40 years if we made mistakes like this. (same goes for our Coil overs)
We already have 5000 miles of testing on our new C7 bars and coil overs. We are at the Corvette Museum 20 year bash as I write this. We will put up some video of our C7 on track with our Coil over shocks and Sway bars.
this thread would have been deleted a year ago. It is good that this info can finally be brought out.
Thanks
Lou Gigliotti
note the angle of the arm even with the car on jack stands. Then imagine what it will do when the car is on the ground.
__________________ LG Pro LT Headers, MOST HP, MOST TORQUE
Wow!!! Those arms were so soft that to get any high roll stiffness out of the package you had to have a moose of a bar. Between the two arms I'll bet 75% of the compliance was in the arms!!! Might be ok if you had a soft "street" bar on it, but basically those are two soft arms, and a bar that isn't twisting at all. Remember that the overall compliance of a bar system is the compliance of the stiffness in series. You want the arms to be "relatively" stiff so that you can tune the overall stiffness with the bar. With those arms you could double the bar stiffness and the overall roll stiffness might change 10%.
There's nothing wrong with aluminum, but you have to respect that the fatigue limit is really pretty low. That is, if you have it in a situation where there is reversed stress, you can't put stress in it up near yield, like you can with steel, or it will fail in fatigue. A high strength tempered spring steel is worth over 120 ksi, and aluminum in this case should be stressed to about a tenth of that.
Watching how much that bar was flexing, it's no wonder that it broke right where it did, that's the obvious high stress location and right where the stress is concentrated by the radius, but I don't think you could add enough material to make that work without doubling the thickness of the part. This is an area where a steel part is probably the way to go.
just bought a set of used joc bars...is there a problem with the bars or their endlinks? what endlinks should I use
(street use)?
just bought a set of used joc bars...is there a problem with the bars or their endlinks? what endlinks should I use (Street use)?
I think the JOC bars are pretty conventional, similar to the stock bars but a bit stiffer. Their claim to fame was that they were well balanced.
Being a conventional bar they should be fine.
There's a whole thread on end links and the bottom line was that the QA-1 links were pretty good in that they stayed quiet for a good long while. The primary reason to go to end links like that is so that you can corner balance the car and not have the bars being preloaded (at least at one end of the car). If it's just street use and you aren't corner weighting the car, just stay with the stock metal links, they're fine for street use.
If you are going to use the adjustable end links look up the thread in this forum, do a search on end links, there's a whole set of tips on how to do it so that you don't end up with a lot of noise that will drive you nuts on the street.
"
I think the JOC bars are pretty conventional, similar to the stock bars but a bit stiffer. Their claim to fame was that they were well balanced.
Being a conventional bar they should be fine.
There's a whole thread on end links and the bottom line was that the QA-1 links were pretty good in that they stayed quiet for a good long while. The primary reason to go to end links like that is so that you can corner balance the car and not have the bars being preloaded (at least at one end of the car). If it's just street use and you aren't corner weighting the car, just stay with the stock metal links, they're fine for street use.
If you are going to use the adjustable end links look up the thread in this forum, do a search on end links, there's a whole set of tips on how to do it so that you don't end up with a lot of noise that will drive you nuts on the street.
"
From a for sale ad I just posted in the Norcal section, I have these:
6. Pfadt light weight sway bars (great for street/track). These are used with wear, tear, some broken and repaired parts. These will work as a set on your car or as spares for someone already using Pfadt bars. Includes endlinks shown.
Clearly they are not fancy, just really cheap for a good upgrade to a standard or Z06 C5. $100
The reason I posted in Norcal rather than everywhere else is because shipping will probably cost as much as the bars, but if someone wants them and is willing to pay shipping I will ship them.
Lol, the infamous Pfadt sway bars that the guys at aFe still swear up and down that there is nothing wrong with! You should send them a picture of the broken lever arms and tell them about your issue and see if they will fix them. More than likely though they will just give you the we rarely see any issues with Pfadt products line and offer you a tour of their facility if you ever happen to be in So. Cal like they did for me
Either way though classy move putting them out there at such a reasonable price as spares for anyone still trying to make theirs work and smart move on changing to different bars
Did he/they/whomever stop welding the splines on the ends of the bars like when they were first released? Welded on at a smaller diameter than the bar itself! WTF?!
I removed all the Pfadt parts from my car and installed all LG parts (sways, coil overs and mono *****) and I would never go back. The car instantly handled better and there was a noticeable difference in the quality of parts.
I just removed my Pfadt bars as they were making a lot of creaking noises even after changing the end links and bushings. I put in the LG G2 bars, and I must say they seem a lot stiffer than the Pfadts I had on.
Also, the end links on the Pfadt were so small and flimsy compared with the end links on the G2 bars. I look forward to giving the LG's a try on the track soon.
with regard to the rear bar, we were never allowed to discuss this when Puff Daddy (pfadt) was in business but the rear bar does not function as a sway bar. It acts like an additional rear transverse spring.
When the car is on the ground at ride height, the arms are up over a 70 degree angle pointed up. Then as the suspension goes through its travel, instead of rotating the sway bar, it acts more like a transverse spring. Even on a straight run, both sides of the bar are pulled up instead of rotating the bar, it pulls up both sides of the bar.
Essentially it just adds spring rate to the rear by binding, but it does not act like an anti roll bar. (sway bar)
The angle of the arm, even with the car up on jacks, is already past the point where it will rotate the sway bar. Then when the car is set on the ground, there is no way to rotate the bar so it can act like a sway bar. on a video you can see the bar deflect up rather than rotate.
At LG Motorsports we have a slogan that says, "We race, you win". We could not have won so many pro races over the last 40 years if we made mistakes like this. (same goes for our Coil overs)
We already have 5000 miles of testing on our new C7 bars and coil overs. We are at the Corvette Museum 20 year bash as I write this. We will put up some video of our C7 on track with our Coil over shocks and Sway bars.
this thread would have been deleted a year ago. It is good that this info can finally be brought out.
Thanks
Lou Gigliotti
note the angle of the arm even with the car on jack stands. Then imagine what it will do when the car is on the ground.
Ironic timing of this thread revival... I had mine up on the lift last week (heads/cam upgrade!), and as I walked past the back of the car the angle of those Pfadt rear arms caught my eye. I made a mental note to look at that when it was down on the ground... but forgot all about it until just now!
I just removed my Pfadt bars as they were making a lot of creaking noises even after changing the end links and bushings. I put in the LG G2 bars, and I must say they seem a lot stiffer than the Pfadts I had on.
Also, the end links on the Pfadt were so small and flimsy compared with the end links on the G2 bars. I look forward to giving the LG's a try on the track soon.
Smart move, they work a lot better! The only sad thing is the tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars that all of us collectively have wasted on these bars just to end up junking them!
Werks position concerning Pfadt suspension components is 100% right on. As he stated here some time ago the Pfadt components appearance is very nice, but how well they preform, is at best, questionable. I agree.
I would have replaced the Phadt suspension on my car, but have not primarily because am nearing the end of my hpde days.
While my coilovers have been trouble free the front sway bar has been very problematic. After most every hpde the lever arms are sliding off the end of the bar. To prevent this I installed a fastner between the end of the bar the arm. This shade tree solution worked.
Imho I would not waste the money on fixing them. I too had lever arm issues with the Pfadt sway bars, it's kind of a known issue. I have never seen them break before though, Normally because the splined section is machined at an angle the force applied to it when the car rolls causes the splined section to deform which results in the tightened down lever arm simply sliding off. So you will be going around a corner and suddenly the lever arm will just fall off! That happened twice to me before it just got wedged under the lower control arm and completely ripped off and tossed onto the track after which I promptly switched to LG bars. Save your self the potential grief and get something that is designed right those things are an accident waiting to happen.
That is what happened to mine. Fortunately, mine did not fall off at the track. Replaced with T1 bars and no issues.
So is the consensus that the Pfadt sways are a no go? I ask because I am just getting into HPDE and have a set of the light rate bars that have been sitting in my garage for a couple years.
I was finally going to get around to installing them, but then started reading about them failing at the track.
From my experience...The Pfadt gear is great for the street and nothing more. I had the lite rate bars, and Lou at LG Motorsports is spot on...it doesn't really act as a sway, but more so an added transverse leaf spring. It worked okay for street use with their coilovers I had; however, I always felt that something was left on the table when it came to track use. And then I installed LG coils/sways on my buddy's Z...right out of the box on the initial drive...I felt a dramatic improvement in cornering and handling. So guess what I got coming in for my car now.......
08-29-2014, 06:07 AM
best advise in this thread. 
