95jersey

Are there any good links or "how to's" on installing and setting up sway bars (on a C5)?

davidfarmer

it's not rocket science, just put them on the same as the old ones came off. THEN, with the car on the ground, adjust the last heim so that the bar is neutral with the car sitting on the ground.

I have some big 6x6's that I park the car on, so I can roll it back and forth a little, then still have room to crawl under and attach the heim.

RAFTRACER

I agree with above.......but here maybe some additional tips.

Install front and rear bars with heim-jointed end links onto vehicle, install one heim completely per bar, only put one bolt in the other heim. (one heim missing a bolt). Do the same for the bar on the other end of the car............Don't forget to lubricate the sway bar bushings , and before hooking either heim up, make sure that the sway bar rotates freely in its frame bushings, if not this will add to the rate of the bar. If it will not rotate freely in its mounts, shim mount brackets accordingly.
Then as David said above, you need the car to be setting on as level a surface as possible with access under the car ( open centered trailers work pretty well for this ). The car needs to be bearing all of its load on the tires. Drive-on lifts are best for this. While car is setting loaded on level surface with access, it is time to install the last bolt in heim to either control arm or bar. The last bolt should go through the heim and component with absolutely no effort required, no load. Adjust heim joint length to accomplish this. When doing this make sure that car is ballasted as raced , with driver (or equivalent weight), fuel load etc. Doing this as the vehicle is competed in is important as wieght affects ride hieght obviously. Also make sure that female and male ends of the heim are installed parallel and are not binding on control arm or sway bar, and that you tightned the lock nut on the heim. Check that the hiem length is correct and that the bar is not contacting the front control arm. Additionally if you are corner-wieghting and aligning your car , the one bolt should be missing from one heim, and should be the final thing that you reassemble after scaling and aligning the car. Something else to be careful of is when installing the rear bar and removing lower sway bar bracket bolt, the lower control arm genreally moves and can hose your alignment so be careful.
Hope this helps more....................

TedDBere

Here, this might help: http://ls1howto.com/index.php?article=16

acrace

Another detail to consider. When installing an Addco bar on my autocross car and using the supplied heim joints, it appeared to me that there wasn't enough articulation in the heim joint. Thus, when the heim joint was adjusted to provide neutrality per Raftracer's instructions, the joint was at the limit of its rotation. So the thinking was that when the bar would move, there might be some binding. Seems that different heim joints have different amounts of articulation, or the shank might have some relief. My friend machined up some brass spacers to put on both sides of the rod end, thus buying a little more room.

RAFTRACER

I agree, and I have seen what you re talking about happen before. It is important that the heim be "free" and not in bind with itself of any other componenet. This should be checked at static race ride hieght.

95jersey

Thanks guys! Interesting, because the article states the opposite, that you should attach the sway bar endlinks first then mount the brackets to the cradle. But I guess to make sure the bars are set neutral, you would mount one side then both brackets, and finally the last side should slide in without being binded or tight. I have adustable endlinks, so I assume if they bind or do not line up, you would simply adjust the endlinks to correct the problem.

I assume different bars will require different levels of adjustability and no (2) may be the same. Do you want both ends to be adjusted equally? Or can you simply mount one end and just adjust the other end as needed? The car has been cornerweighted and recently alligned, so I want to be as non-invasive to this set up as possible.

acrace

95jersey:

The way I installed my bar is to mount the bar to the vehicle via the two center frame mounts first. As Raftracer pointed out, make sure the vehicle is in "as raced" configuration (fuel load, driver weight) and that it is sitting so that the suspension is properly loaded. And, as he also pointed out, make sure that the center pivot bushings are lubed. Then I attached the heim joint on one side (I selected the passenger side), taking care to make sure that there's proper clearance and no binding. I tried to duplicate the OE mount length. Then I attached the driver side heim joint, suspension end. Adjust so that the attaching bolt is lined up from the bar to the heim joint so that it slides in easily. Hand tighten. Jack up the car and take off the tires. Tighten everything as appropriate. You may need to check all fasteners after driving around a little.

Assuming that the vehicle was corner balanced with the original bar disconnected, you should be fine.