The Smart Racing bars are of superior design since they use splines to locate the drop links. I have always felt the welded in approach is inferior due to the issues stated above.

Also, it sounds like you have a lot of ARB rate for your given spring/tire rates on your suspension. Then again, Mark Donohue was a big fan of high rates in ARB's.

Cheers, James

The downside of the Smart Racing system is you don't get pink brackets.
I was looking for a close up to see if there was some sort of spline, thanks for clearing that up.

I see what you mean regarding the design of the Smart Racing setup, it looks like a straight through circular bar all the way and then clamped around at the ends so no possible weakness from welding etc. They do look very nice....$200 extra though!

I was concerned as the stiffness of other bars over the TRG I have, there 25mm solid although the adjustable roll rate is only set half way.

Im thinking if I got a 22mm hollow bar setup I would probably have to set the adjustable roll rate alot closer to its max setting to give equivalent effect as my current setup.

I notice the Smart Racing bars are 20,23,27 and 31mm. 27mm would be nice :)


So would 22mm hollow bar be able to give me the results Im after?
When I try to rock the car its tolaly solid and hardly rolls at all when driving :)

I knwo its not a race car but I want that race car feel.

Or should I stump up the extra cash for the Smart Racing, with there 27mm bar
and possible better design?

A local guy had his TRG rear bar break the same way- snapped off clean right at the weld. '84 Carrera with std. 19/24 torsion bars and R compound tires.

I also noticed on my bar what Cory said- hex insert & the plug weld could stand to be cleaner, especially since it's a bearing surface. I had to file mine down and polish it up to take down a lump of weld. Also, if it's MIG welded, wouldn't the weld be a bit more brittle than if it were TIG welded? Or would TIG not be strong enough in this location?

I agree that the TRG bars are a reduced-detail knockoff. I had a set of the TRG and they are decent pieces- a good step up from the Weltmeister basic stuff. I sold them to a friend when I bought my racecar, since it came with the SmartRacing bars. But I think the Tarett bars are very good and up to par with the SRP bars.

Seems like even more elaboration went into making the SRP bars, but the Taretts get the job done very well nonetheless. The SRP bars go a bit far with the machining of the torque arms and the splined bars. Also some of the the "special" fasteners like shoulder bolts (rear drop link connection to torque arm) and fancier connections to the suspension arms add to the cost. Tarett's standard fasteners & attachment hardware make it easy to replace them if the need arises. With the SRP you'll have to improvise in a pinch, until you can get the SRP-specific pieces needed. If I were looking to buy sway bars, i'd have Tarett on the top of my list.

Oh yeah they do look sweet :0

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1305568386.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1305568421.jpg

Yeah take your pick of anodized colors- pinkish red + gold Tarett or greenish yellow + black SRP.

Another thing to note is that the SRP rear bar does away with your alignment eccentric bolt for setting the toe. They replace it with a cone spacer to set the droplink geometry and also spread the load at the trailing arm connection. So you need to keep that eccentric handy when it comes time to align the rear suspension, or else your shop might not be able to align the car if they don't have a spare older Porsche eccentric bolt lying around (not too likely).

How do you hold the alignment when you swap the eccentric for the SRP bolt?

Yes, on my old 911 racecar i just left the eccentric bolts in the glovebox so they could perform the alignment and then re-insert the Smart ARB component once they were done.

James

There are, as you know, two eccentrics on each side. Do your setup, tighten it all down, then just remove one eccentric and replace with SRP part. Easy.

The alignment is held by the trailing arm bolts (the ones at the end of the spring plate behind the brake caliper) and also the camber eccentric is fixing the position of the trailing arm.

You can usually wiggle the eccentric out and insert the replacement swaybar hardware/bolt pretty easily. That's another thing to note about the Tarett bars. Ira provides a nice beefy eccentric to replace the pesky hex-keyed original eccentric, because the Tarett bar is similar to the SRP bar in that it uses the toe alignment bolt location as a pickup point for the drop link connection. The TRG bar uses the factory pickup point on the trailing arm- a steel post that is pressed into the trailing arm. The factory trailing arm pickup point doesn't have quite as good of a geometry due to the offset created.

"Torsion bars - standard as far as I know."

Please confirm size. If stock, install larger torsion bars and a slightly smaller dia. sway bar. You may not want such a large sway bar (25mm) restricting suspension movement.

Who recommended such a setup?

Sherwood

The sales guy at TRG (Austin) said the 25mm bare would be fine for my setup.
We went through tires, suspension mods etc. I do like the results the bars gave when installed and now wouldn't want anything less. That's why im wondering if 22mm hollow bars
would be antiquate.
I will also upgrade the torsion bars asap.

You're giving up a lot of suspension compliance for maximum roll stiffness. This setup may work its best on very smooth road surfaces, but typical streets and dental fillings - not so much.

I'd suggest larger torsion bars and smaller dia. sway bars, both ends, but don't take my word for it. I do suggest you peruse the archives for suspension recommendations to arrive at a desired setup for your intended purpose.

Sherwood

You generally don't want to use the ARB as a substitute for spring rate. The ARB should just be used as a fine tuning device to get the car balanced for the track/driver. My recommendation would be to proceed in the following order:

1. Choose spring rate based on track data from similar chassis
2. Revalve dampers according to spring rate.
3. Select ARB size accordingly, install and set in the middle of the adjustment range.
4. Spend 3-4 days at the track testing!!

Cheers, James

Apart from an automated reply from 'The Racers Group' saying they have received my email and will respond I have heard nothing from them :(

After not getting a email reply from TRG I called them and after explaining the situation, a day later they very nicely agreed to replace the 25mm sway bar for free, I would just have to pay shipping.
They agreed they had some issues with the early bars and have improved the fabrication so the problem shouldn't occur again.
I have to say after a not to promising start there service and support has been outstanding on the matter :)

Well that's good. I'm not sure I understand why you are paying for shipping, oh I see they are doing you a favor since it is out of warranty.

So you're replacing a poorly designed part with another poorly designed part from the same company. This is not going to end well. :rolleyes:

Richard Newton
Shock Calibration

I'm guessing that since its been 5 plus years that it did go well? ;)