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There is somewhat of a misnomer that the stock linkage for a rear c3 sway bar is the only one that works and all aftermarket bars are junk,
It depends on the type bar and linkage if it will move as it should or not,
Some aftermarket bars surpass stock because the links are adjustible...
Yes, I've had this VB&P 3/4 with adjustable end links since the 80's and I think that it is a superior product. I bent the ends in and that is why it isn't straight vertically. I did it to clear some wheels with bigger back spacing.
The rear tires are 335/17's on 13 inch wheels. The rear slides around easier with the 3/4 sway. So my setup actually runs better without a rear sway even with the best Utra performance street tires. 345 rear road racing slicks or 12X28 drag slick like the sway bar. So I turn the adjustable springs open for on the street so the bar doesn't even work unless I have large wheel movement.
Increase front grip (neg camber, stiffer springs, better ride height, caster, wider stickier tyres etc) and you may find that you don't need to reduce rear grip with a bigger swaybar in order to balance the car. My car has the factory gymkhana bars (big front and puny 7/16" rear) and is definitely not "an understeering pig".
Gkull,
Yeah thats them but i cant find them on a google hunt,
My 68 chassis was rebuilt with VBP transverse up front and their top end kit out rear but the guy i bought my chassis from said it was complete which wasnt entirely true,
My rear bar is missing the links
Increase front grip (neg camber, stiffer springs, better ride height, caster, wider stickier tyres etc) and you may find that you don't need to reduce rear grip with a bigger swaybar in order to balance the car. My car has the factory gymkhana bars (big front and puny 7/16" rear) and is definitely not "an understeering pig".
Metalhead
Just for clarity and to be clear about what i said earlier is that running a BIG front factory OEM front swaybar (1 1/8 inch) with NO REAR BAR will result in big understeer most of the time, in general. All C3's whether base suspension or sport suspended were setup from the factory to understeer...it is a safer posture for the average driver to have the car push. The sport/gymkhana SBC C3's had a bigger front bar than the base suspension C3's which had no rear bar and a smaller FRONT only sway bar. The 1 1/8 inch big front swaybar on the gymkhana cars was balanced with a small rear 7/16 bar to reduce the inherent greater understeer that would result using a bigger front 1 1/8 inch front sway bar WITHOUT a rear bar to offset the increased understeer. None of this information is new or groundbreaking about our C3's and their suspensions but wanted folks to understand what happens with different swaybar configurations and why GM did what they did.
I don't disagree with you, and I think the bigger rear bars will 100% help the car feel stable with more street oriented ride height and alignment, and for spirited driving on the road, and particularly if using the ever popular staggered wheel/tyres sizes. I was just saying that there are other options and factors also, and that it is not an absolute rule, particularly in competition oriented cars driven at ten tenths rather than for street spirited driving. I think that's why some of the earlier posters had been given advice to try without the rear bar, or with a factory rear bar, and then see if they felt the need for a bigger rear bar. Gkull also said that his car drives best without the rear bar except on slicks. I don't think it's an unreasonable approach.
Last edited by Metalhead140; 09-21-2018 at 08:39 AM.
Gkull,
Yeah thats them but i cant find them on a google hunt,
My 68 chassis was rebuilt with VBP transverse up front and their top end kit out rear but the guy i bought my chassis from said it was complete which wasnt entirely true,
My rear bar is missing the links
The spring end links are discontinued at Ecklers, but you may be able to contact ADDCO who originally made them to sell through places like VB&P or ecklers
The spring end links are discontinued at Ecklers, but you may be able to contact ADDCO who originally made them to sell through places like VB&P or ecklers
The ultimate rear sway bar was rancho of all people... but thats like gold to get now
i have no idea how the corvette gets overlooked now... Addco seems to be making the bulk of the rear bars from what i looked at, none of the big guys do, hotchkiss, helwig, QA1 (now makes a front) eibach, none of them make a rear
and as pointed out, the attachment style of Addco is WRONG, using eyelet with bushed links on the rear sway bar will introduce binding, there us a reason GM did it the way they did
What the spring links do is soften the total bar rate per bump, and delay it for maybe 1 or 2 inches of suspension movement. Most racers like consistancy in their suspension loading, not a sudden increase when the spring link bottoms. The spring link winds up being a band-aid for a bar that really is too big and has too large of a rate. Just sayin. I ran a custom fully adjustable bar like the VSE or Rancho for 25 years of pro-solo. Guys that had the spring links wound up removing them. The adjustable bar is a better system but not readily available for our cars. Arrgh!! No good solution for us. About all we can do is buy several size bars and swap them out. Not much fun. GKulls spring link solution allows him to compensate for the two different size rear tires, and quickly. No other way you could do that without a completely adjustable bar.....Someone should make one. I found my Rancho bar was actually too stiff on my solo car, even on full soft, They were enormous in diameter, but it wound up being hard to feel the tires on my car, I also had stiff springs. I wound up making a custom one. Talk about not cheap.
Probably the best most of us we can do is go with someone's stock type combo that works, and go with that. More consistent. The Gymkana package should be a good start, or a slightly softer front or stiffer rear for slightly more neutral handling. JB78L-82 did just this and said it works great, and he has a lot of racing experience, so I would probably go with something like that. Factory 1-1/8 front with a larger 3/4 rear. Or back both bars down one size if that is too stiff for your taste, or you don't have the stiffer springs. If the rest of the car is far from stock, with custom spring rates, wheels, especially staggered wheels, that throws a huge monkey wrench into making that a one size fits all recommendation.
Question: Has anyone ever done a full suspension dynamic rate analysis on our C3s??? Any results to post?
Probably the best most of us we can do is go with someone's stock type combo that works, and go with that. More consistent. The Gymkana package should be a good start, or a slightly softer front or stiffer rear for slightly more neutral handling. JB78L-82 did just this and said it works great, and he has a lot of racing experience, so I would probably go with something like that. Factory 1-1/8 front with a larger 3/4 rear. Or back both bars down one size if that is too stiff for your taste, or you don't have the stiffer springs. If the rest of the car is far from stock, with custom spring rates, wheels, especially staggered wheels, that throws a huge monkey wrench into making that a one size fits all recommendation.
I agree that the variable spring aftermarket endlink is NOT the best way to manage the C3 aftermarket rear sway bars...it is a band aid that will work but certainly not the most efficient solution to the issue. The heim joint using the GM rear sway bar bracket is a far superior solution for using an aftermarket rear sway bar for a C3.
The real issue is that the C3's in general, particularly the SBC C3 which Duntov far preferred as the handling Corvette and designed them as such, (due to to the nose heavy front weight bias of the BB cars (the BB guys absolutely despise whenever I bring the severe front weight bias of the BB C3 issue up)) are also pretty much the only GM car or any American made car going back to the C2's which have almost the exact same suspension as the C3's that had a roughly 50:50 front to rear weight distribution. Frankly, most folks are not accustomed to a rear biased car (my 78 gymkhana C3 is 48% front:52% rear weight distribution) and pretty much do not know how to handle any type of oversteer (the rear getting loose and coming around for a nice 360 spin). There have been numerous comments over the years on the forum that no rear sway bar is needed on a C3 because the rear sway bar induces oversteer. Yes it can BUT the only way to properly balance any street car (not a dedicated race car, naysayers) is to balance the handling with Front AND rear bars....every car today on the road has both...take a look for the uninformed. GM was actually way ahead of the learning curve back in the 60/70's....using a big front bar and a smaller rear bar.
I can get my FWD W body Grand Prix that is EXTREMELY nose heavy to oversteer on an auto cross course, if I try hard enough. My formula race car that was REAR ENGINED had a rear bar coupled with a front bar. Now why would that be if the car has a natural tendency to oversteer with that rear engine and then add a rear sway bar for more oversteer? The answer is that the anti sway bar on that rear engined race car coupled with a front sway bar to balance the handling is the fastest way around a road course. Trying to maximize any street car handling with a front bar only is the difficult way to solve the equation which is why all OEM manufacturers use 2 sway bars to address the handling issue.....
Properly balanced front and rear sway bars allow fairly compliant spring rates on the car for a better ride quality but minimizes the poor handling characteristics of soft springs only with no anti sway bars which allows for superior handling with those softer springs.
Here is my attempt at adapting the Ridetech splined bar with stock type front lower control arm mounts. Ridetech uses a 1.25 inch bar on the front and 1 inch rear but also say rear bar is not needed in less than full race trim.
09-19-2018, 03:16 AM
