Swar Mount Re-enforcing

[North Coast Cab]

My sway bar mounts are very solid, but I want to do somehting to re-enforce them before there is a problem. Excuse the crude drawing, paint is about all I can manage, but which option do you think is best?

John

[Rot 911]

I would do neither. Just keep an eye on the mounts and if you see any cracking just reweld the crack or go with the OEM reinforced mounts.

[911SCfanatic]

I was going to do B on my car.

[gumba]

Smart Racing makes a reinforced bar mount. It's also available as a kit. You might want to consider that. I would reinforce it now before it cracks. They usually break in two areas. The L shape mount cracks, and or the welds holding the nuts breaks.

[North Coast Cab]

Mine plan was to re-enforce before it cracks or breaks. I know the replacement one is better, but I should be able to beef up the oem version and accomplish the same thing. I've seen one with a support to the torsion bar tube as well as across to the top of the mount. I want to do one of those as well as add some welding around the perimiter of the mount. I perfer the torsion bar tube method, but I'm not sure if it can support it.

John

[jpachard]

I second replacing now with the Smart racing ones. If you plan on tracking the car alot this will break. Re welding only goes so far. I tore my re-welded ones off at a Club race and as a result it also began to tear some of the unibody too. It's not a fun job so you only want to do it once.

Cheers, James

[North Coast Cab]

Doesn't going to adjustable sway bars eliminate the problem?

John

[gumba]

No, your still putting a load on the mounts. I tore the stock and reinforced mounts off with 22 mm adjustable bars.
I would at least install the kit from SR if you don't want to remove the old mounts. I had two friends both tear there mounts off at the track after their mechanic had reinforced the stock mounts.

[911SCfanatic]

Good to know. If reinforcing them is only an excercise in futility, I might as well replace them now.

[Chuck Moreland]

Be proactive. It's easier to reinforce these than it is to grind them off, then weld on new ones.

I'd recommend a modified version of B. Bring the reinforcements straight to the torsion tube, no angle.

If you get a chance to look at the reinforced factory mounts as equipped on the 87-89 cars, that is basically what you want to do.

[banjomike]

In fact adjustable bars will typically be stiffer than the stock bars, and certainly will be stiffer when set stiffer. The loads will be greater and the mounts will fail even sooner. I now have the factory reinforced mounts on my car. I broke one last summer and another this summer. I was aware of the Smart Racing part but in each case I needed the car fixed NOW, and couldn't wait even one more day to have the part delivered. So since my mechanic had the factory part on hand, that is what I got. I'm a bit bummed because the Smart Racing part is a better design and cost only $10-15 more. I think it is $90 where I got charged $79.90 for the factory part. Of course the labor is the $$ part. Once I got charged 1.5 hours and the other time it took 2 hours. Oh well I probably will never break the factory mounts, that would be more likely in full race setups.

The lesson to learn from me is... if you plan ahead for this you can get the best part on your car, but if you wait and need it fixed asap you'll get the very good, but not best, replacement part.

here is a link to the Smart Racing part. If you're gonna DIY, I'd try to copy this.

[jpachard]

Originally posted by Chuck Moreland
Be proactive. It's easier to reinforce these than it is to grind them off, then weld on new ones.

I'd recommend a modified version of B. Bring the reinforcements straight to the torsion tube, no angle.

If you get a chance to look at the reinforced factory mounts as equipped on the 87-89 cars, that is basically what you want to do.

The problem is these break too under extreme usage. My '87 had the new factory mounts and they begin to tear or pull the nut out of the hole. Not pretty. Mind you, I'm running 27mm ARB's on my car

Cheers, James

[North Coast Cab]

Can you use a longer bolt and put a nut on the top? This would solve one of the issues. Hopefully that coupled with the re-enforcement this will be ok. I have to agree with Chuck about working with the good ones I alreay have. I'd hate to cut and grind the old ones out for no apparent reason.

John

[jpachard]

Originally posted by North Coast Cab
Can you use a longer bolt and put a nut on the top? This would solve one of the issues. Hopefully that coupled with the re-enforcement this will be ok. I have to agree with Chuck about working with the good ones I alreay have. I'd hate to cut and grind the old ones out for no apparent reason.

John

John, There is a nut on the top(it's actually a weld nut). The problem I had with mine was that this started to pull through the mount. Also, the trailing edge of the mount where the flat part transitioned to vertical to meet the body started to tear too. like I said before, this car sees 25 track days a year with 10 of those being race days so my car is really a worst case scenario.

Cheers, James

[North Coast Cab]

Maybe I need to be clear. How can I CHEAPLY re-enforce the sway bar mounts to HOPEFULLY prevent them from cracking or tearing away?

Answer. Add vertical support from outer edge straight up to torsion tube. Add small plate and nuts to top of bracket bolts.

Thanks for all the input.

John

[Schrup]

I had my mechanic weld on reenforcements when I upgraded to Carrera sways. Here is a pic that Nostatic posted that is identical to what my mechanic did.

[Chuck Moreland]

John

I mispoke when I said "to the torsion bar". I meant straight to the base of the mount, exactly as Paul has pictured.

[North Coast Cab]

Chuck,
I looked in to doing it the way you and Paul have said, but it will do nothing to keep the mount from tearing away from the body.

John

[Rick Lee]

Well, John, you can make a long drive out to Newark, DE and pay Steve Timmins a visit. I think he charged me around $120 and used his own homemade stuff. No way will those mounts ever break again. I had an '87 Carrera at the time and they are notorious for having these break. Dr. T. uses some cheap steel stock from Home Depot and welded it up such that it looked indestructable.

[North Coast Cab]

The Plan.
1) Fabricate some plates to tie the bottom of the mount to the top, similar to the pictures above. This will mimic the replacement version.
2) Add weld materail around the outside of the mount to secure it more to body.

Thank you all,
John