Dolfan

I've seen many comment shere that to properly corner weight car that the sway bars need to be disconnected in order to get proper readings and do the job right.

I was thinking about that I wondered about my situation. I was at a Chevy shop day with my local Corvette club and the Chevy tech lowered my 04 Z06 about 5/8" or so. But nothing was done to the sway bars???? Based on the other information doesn't this mean that the bars may have some additional "load" or "force" established into their static position? I was wondering if they should be adjusted in order to return the intended forces that were designed into the suspension?

Maybe I'm off base? Set me straight! Thanks.

TedDBere

If you have adjustable endlinks they could be adjusted after you lowered and re-balanced the car. But if you don't have adjustable endlinks then there's nothing you or your mechanic can do about it. FWIW

Dolfan

I guess I figure that as the car was lowered that the sway bars would have been "flexed" more in one direction. I just figured that maybe by loosening the bar then putting it back into place it might put the bar back into it's "original" static position.

davidfarmer

the larger issue is how they lowered the car. If you arbitrarily screw each adjuster ALL the way down, then you end up not keeping the car balanced from corner to corner. Not that it was necessarily right from GM, but you have to start somewhere. I always check each adjuster, and adjust them all an even number of turns (or at least keep each axle even).

If you lower the front the same on each side, and the rear, then it will not change the bar any significant amount.

TedDBere

The bar would have "flexed" only if you lowered one side more than the other. If both sides were lowered equally then the bar would not have "flexed". The endlinks may be at a slightly different angle but that shouldn't effect anything.

Remember, the swaybar works when one of the wheels moves up or down and the other doesn't move as much, acting as a torsion spring.

wtknght1

The first question I have is do you plan to "track" this car? If so, then by lowering the car like that, you've most likely really screwed up the handling of that car - suspension geometry, rake, cornerweights, sway bar zero, bottoming out of the shocks, etc, etc, etc.

I'm tellin' ya guys - NEVER, NEVER, NEVER let anyone lower or adjust the ride height of your car unless they are doing it on a set of scales and know what the hell they are doing. It may look cool, but trust me, it won't handle well and your lap times WILL reflect it!

Dolfan

The use of the car is 70/10/20 of AutoX/NCCC-HS,PDX,or HPDE/street use. I also am looking to get the car corder weighted so I assume I can have the individual lowering setting set properly when we weigth the car. After the lowering and an alignment change the car did "feel" better in autoX event to me. I've only had the car at Road Atlanta once and that was a wet PDX event after lower and align so no telling yet on track events.

wtknght1

I will bet my last nickel that simply, arbitrarily lowering your car did not help it...unless it was horribly 'jacked-up' to begin with. These cars are sensitive to ride height (I've posted about this many times and have the experience and associated lap times to prove it) and you have to get it right for the car to work properly. The suspension on the vette has to have travel room for it to work properly. And, unless you are using adjustable end links, trying to set the cornerweights is probably a waste of time because the sway bars will always be loaded on one side or the other.

Again, if you want to have a great handling car, take it to the pros and let them set the CORRECT right height, cornerweight, sway bar zero, etc. You will not regret it!

gmsnowball

Anyone know of a good place to properly set the ride height on a C5 coupe in the Oklahoma City area?