96CollectorSport

Everyone knows the very popular Pfadt sway bar rate comparison chart but I'm trying to put together some specs on the various sway bars offered for the C5/C6's. There is some good info out there and I'm trying to fill in some blanks. Wall thickness is the big thing I'm looking for (since bar diameter is fairly easy to find) - so if you have one of the bars that I don't have info for all you have to do is measure how thick the medal is at the end of the sway bar. (Ideally with a caliper but a ruler will give us an idea if one of the specs below are way off.)
A lot of this info is 2nd hand from previous threads - the stuff I have measured personally is in bold. One thing that I have found is that powder-coating will be .010" thicker from one end of the bar to the other so if you can measure both ends and post up the smaller of the two numbers that will help. Besides the end it seems like the rest of the bar is usually coated with roughly a .005" thick application coating. It looks like most of the numbers below are uncoated numbers which is what we're looking for.

C5 Base: 23.1 mm-front / 19.1 mm-rear / 3.81mm/2.0mm thickness verify?
C5 Z51 (97-99): 25.4 mm-front / 21.7 mm-rear 4mm/3mm thickness verify?
C5 Z51 (00-04): 28.6 mm-front / 23.6 mm-rear / 4.15mm/3mm thickness verify?
C5 Z06: 30.0 mm-front / 23.5 mm-rear / 4.5 mm/3.5mm thickness verify? - actual .926" no powder-coating - .285" with powder coating
T1: 38 mm-front / 27 mm-rear / 6.35 mm/5.15 mm verify?- I've seen 6.35 mm listed as the rear wall thickness and when I measured it myself it was only 5.15 mm.
Actual measurements are 1.500" F without powder-coating / 1.065" no powder-coating - .503" with powder-coating / .411" with powder coating.

C6 Z51: 31 mm-front / 25.4 mm-rear - looking for wall thickness
C6 Z06: 31 mm-front / 28 mm-rear - looking for wall thickness
Eibach: 32 mm-front / 29mm-rear looking for wall thickness
Hotchkiss C5: 31.75 mm-front / 25.4 mm-rear / 4mm/4mm thickness verify?
Hotchkiss C6: 31.75 mm-front / 28.575 mm-rear looking for wall thickness
I believe Hotchkiss only has one front bar (not sure if there is a difference in wall thickness).

The other thing that I am curious about is for any of the adjustable rear bars what is the hole spacing between the 3 holes? .5" or 3/4" centerline to centerline etc.
I don't have any info on any of that, from what I've heard the middle hole of the adjustable T1 bar is the similar to the old 1 hole bar (which is what I measured above.)
Also if you have something laying around feel free to measure it and throw the info up I'm interested in whatever you have.

Thanks,
Joel

SunnydayDILYSI

fastrash

Must be winter in Wisconsin and the Moo Cow is running low....

96CollectorSport

That's the great thing about WI Todd, we never run out of Moo Cow! You must still have your C6Z bars laying around somewhere in your garage - go find 'em and measure them for me.
You'll even be compensated for your time in Moo Cow, free 6 pack per bar you measure.

RAFTRACER

Joel, you MUST certainly be bored, but I think it is actually going to be thickness of the smashed end divided by 2 for wall thickness.

You should come visit Todd and I , I have a stack of sway bars that you would not believe ( and no time )

96CollectorSport

Danny,

Next time Todd is over watching you work on his car, give him a caliper and a 12 pack and have him go to town!

blkbrd69

I sure wish some company would graph out actual deflections at a standard load not just a relationship graph.

Diameter and wall thickness only tell part of the story, as arm length and alloy will make a huge change in stiffness.

fastrash

Measure do I better when drinkin..

96CollectorSport

Pace yourself Todd - try to get at least 5 bars done per beer!

RAFTRACER

el es tu

Great thread!

Id love to eventually have an excel chart or word doc set up with all the suspension information options and part numbers so everyone would have an easy to use reference...

BTW C6 ZR1/Z07 (FE5) is 33mm up front 31mm in the rear

Hotchkiss:

http://www.hotchkis.net/corvette_c6z...y_bar_set.html

front is supposed to be 20% more than the Z06/Z51 (tire rack claims 15% - not sure why)

rear is adjustable for 15% 45% and 80% more than z51

so it looks like the hotchkiss front bar is about the same as the Zr1 front

and the hotchkiss rear does about the same thing as the Z06 & Zr1 rear bars (unless youre looking for something between the z51 and z06 rear bar)


I have attached a modified version of pfadt's chart showing the relative rates from hotchkiss



There's one more currently available option - addco. however I dont think theyve advertised the rates.
diameters are: 1 1/4″ (31.75mm) front and 7/8" (22.25mm) rear

http://www.addco.net/aftermarket/catalog/chevrolet/

SunnydayDILYSI

I don't mean to hijack the thread, but has anyone measured a performance difference between the sway bars (e.g., I went from 2:20 lap times with stock C5 bars to 2:18 with T1 bars?

RogerT

I have read in an auto engineering related book that sway bars being solid or hollow had little to do with stiffness.

Roger T

MisterMidlifeCrisis

The torsional stiffness of a bar scales to the 4th power of its diameter. If you have a hollow bar, you subtract the 4th power of the hollow diameter. So, if a solid 1" bar has a stiffness of "1", then a 1" hollow bar that has 1/8" wall thickness is 1^4 - (3/4)^4, or 68.36% as stiff as the solid bar.

hklvette

I'd have to go back and check the PN cross references, but If memory serves the '00+ C5 Z51 and Z06 front bars and springs are identical. The '00+ Z51 rear spring is slightly softer than the Z06 spring, and the Z06 rear bar was smaller than the '00+ Z51 rear bar until '04, when it was given the Z51 rear bar as well.

I learned all of this when I did a factory-correct Z51 conversion on my F45 car...