qwertymess

So as you can see in the pictures, the arm that extends from the bar to the end links has snapped. Good thing i decided to take a look....
When i bought this car from the previous owner the arm was welded together, so this was a weak point to begin with. Running at Road America didnt help it either.

My question is this: since this is a pfadt front sway, and pfadt is no longer in business; what are my options?

LFZ

Get a set of LG bars.

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?

yakisoba

new set of bars is your fix. Many make them.

crimlwC6

I don't think you need a matched set. If you like the rear bar then get a front bar from elsewhere, stiffer or less stiff depending on if you want any change to the car. 2 cents.

Olitho

I think I can get you a contact for getting another set of those arms.

e-Mail me, oli at Alvaka.net, and I will get you hooked up.

qwertymess

Thanks Oli, Just emailed.

Werks

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.

froggy47

This was one of Pfadt's "fail" products. And no the brand does not have to match f/r. Just buy a new bar that suits you/the car
The last thing I would do is try to find another.

qwertymess

Thank you everyone. I might just order up some new LG G1 front and rear sways and call it a day. No reason in fixing a part that looks like it will just fail again.

yooper

Olitho

I have not had any problems with mine, but I am ordering a pair of spares as I like to have as much spare everything as I can. There is nothing worse than driving across the country for a race and breaking a part in qualifying two hours before the big race.

I have had mine for well over a year with no problems. Just this year I have more than twenty races and numerous track/test & tune days without any issues.

I like them for their increased stiffness, lightness and adjustability compared to my prior T1 bars.

Solofast

Those arms were most likely typical billet stock which has a hardness of T6, but after welding you get basically "0" temper which is about half as strong. Never should have been welded in the first place, as noted, those bars are an accident waiting to happen.

LFZ

I know of 3 other people that had Pfadt sway arms break like this...and I had issues with a previous set of Pfadt bars on my car. Got a set of the "newer" light rate bars a few years back and have not had a problem with them....yet.

*I really liked the Pfadt products because they give great adjustability...but damn...something about their quality control and response to hard duties just makes them a bad choice for anyone who is very serious about tracking.

0Bobby @ LG Motorsports

This is something we notice and pointed out over 6 years ago. Just look at how much the arms flex.

qwertymess

Wow... I fee better about my decision now to just ditch the pfadt sways and go with the LG G1 front and back.

froggy47

It would be a better comparison is someone had some T1 or LG bars and did a video from the same perspective.

It might be they all flex some, although that does look like a lot.

0Bobby @ LG Motorsports

Suspension cams start at 3:45. Ours seems to flex less even when running over a 6x6.

froggy47

That's a stout bar.

Thanks.

I never cared for aluminum bits on the ends of a bar.

Solofast

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.