Sway Bar Upgrade
 

As I am trying to put together my suspension upgrade, one thing to consider are changing the sway bars on my 83' SC. From what I have read, it seems that a lot of people simply go with a sway bar from the 3.2 Carrera as an upgrade.

I will probably use Elephant Racing for many of the bushings, torsion bars, shocks, etc...

Elephant Racing also sells a Hollow Adjustable Sway Bar System for my car. I am wondering what the difference is between the 3.2 Carrera sway bar & the Elephant sway bars, and if it is worth it.

I will in all likely hood not track my car, but I do like to let it fly on the back roads on a regular basis.

Depending on 'which' elephant racing sway bar... most likely they will be adjustable, allowing you to change it from 3 different settings.
The sway bar from the 3.2 isn't adjustable. besides that, a 30 year old sway bar is probably not going to be in the greatest condition.

If you aren't going to worry about adjusting the bar, the factory 3.2 is a little thicker than original and a simple replacement. Since getting 10/10ths out of the car isn't your real goal, save time and money?

What torsion bars are you going to upgrade too? What handling characteristics are you hoping to improve upon? All of these pieces need to work together towards your goal after all.

The Carrera bar is probably the way to go. Unless you are going for the ultimate. In that case along with a torsion bar, bushing and shock upgrade you would most likely change to a through body adjustable front sway.

Aren't the 3.2 Carrera sway bars available new through pelican or other sources?

FYI, I don't think they went with the bigger sway bars till 86, one year before the G50..

Carrera sway bars.......
 

The 22-mm front and 21-mm rear sway bars were available in '87/'86 or the other way around respectively up to '89 Carrera 3.2 models.

Tony

close, but the change in bar size coincided with the G50. the later, larger rears have a different bend to accommodate the larger gear box.

on another note, across the 3.2 915 gear box run they were equipped with the fortified 915 side plate. if you are doing transmission work it is a great upgrade for the 83 & older 915s.

86 is the year Porsche upsized the swaybars, which carried onwards to the 87s to 89s with the G50s.

Another consideration is the new swaybars coming out from Eibach that fits into the factory mount locations. They are significantly beefier than the 86-89 bars without any of the harshness of solid mount/monoball links. The rear bar is three hole adjustable. Eibach installed a set on my stock '86 and the car corners noticeably flatter with less set time needed between transitions.

Steve,

I called Eibach and the gentleman I spoke with said that they did not sell a set of swaybars that would fit my 83' SC. He said the only set of sway bars that Eibach sold for a 911 were for the years 99-04. Do you have a part # for the set of sway bars that they installed on your car? Or is there someone at Eibach in particular that I should ask to speak with who knows what sway bars were installed on you 86 that would also work on my 83?

Thanks

Undermount sway bar? The hassle of removal and replacement sort of negates any advantage provided by a larger diameter. And the drop links are fixed length, compromising potential corner balancing. However, it's probably the most economical option.

A more valid upgrade would be to install a through-chassis sway bar, the type used on earlier 911s (pre-911SC). However, these will require access openings in the chassis sheet metal and reinforcement plates to strengthen the sway bar mount. This would be offset by the fact that adjustable sway bars provide a range of understeer adjustment as well as provisions to accurately corner balance the vehicle via the adjustable drop links.

Sherwood

The bars AFAIK won't debut until mid October this year, so that is probably why it's not officially in their catalog yet. Both Ryan, and Christian Sebralla - VP Operations , both of who are members here on this forum, know best as to their timeline. There's another thread here with Eibach's Eibachtoberfest event on October 14th that will debut the new bars. Hopefully it's ok with them if I post some limited 'spy' info and data on them. The final specifications and such may be subject to change and/or further refinement so take my info for what it's worth. The factory bars from my 86 and an 87 were provided to them to 3D digitize their shape and profiles, which which were analyzed and a new set of bars were re-engineered and test fitted to go exactly into the factory underbody mounts and end attachment points on the suspension arms, with no alterations or drilling of the chassis or ancillary parts of any kind. The goal of the bars is not to create another set of track/race car bars, but to develop a set of drop in bars for improved street and sport performance, what 90+% of owners are Everything is engineered, fabricated, manufactured, and installed in house in their massive 150,000 sf facility - which is impressive and state of the art. A whole episode of 'How It's Made' could be produced just at this facility. They produce the suspension products such as shock, sway bars, and springs for many of the OEMs, such as Toyota and Ford Motorsport, and smaller aftermarket business such as GMG etc.


Anyways I digress, but I am told the overall design is that the front bar is 70% stiffer than the 86-89 factory bars, and 67.5% stiffer in the rear while being 3 hole adjustable. The front bar is 24mm while the rear is a hollow 25.4mm bar. As mentioned, no drilling of the front wheel wells or welding of mounts to the control arms. This is better for cars that prefer to preserve originality and value. I have Smart Racing 31 and 27s on my other 3.2 that I have for track use, and they are fantastic, but I would be reluctant to hack up what is my original stock 86 to install those. Regarding removing any sway bar preload, I suppose you could replace the rear drop links with adjustable ones, or just shim one side or the other of the bar mount down if needed.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1505931482.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1505931491.jpg


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1505931537.jpg


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1505931547.jpg

Once everything is finalized and we kickoff production I will shoot you a line.

Sorry our rep misinformed you. Word on what we have in R&D or "in the works" doesn't always make its way to our sales team as it should.

I have an 82 SC and I am very excited about these.

Ryan

The thing about sway bars is that w/ the right t-bars installed you don't need a lot of sway bar. It would be really handy to have at least one end of the car adjustable.

The whole purpose of sways is to tweek the handling, not make gross changes in it.

To piggyback onto Bill's comments, ride harshness, if that's a consideration, is more a function of big sway bars rather than larger torsion bars.

Sherwood

Oh neat that front bar at 24mm is going to be the new biggest available underbody front, displacing the 7/8" (22.22mm) Addco.

Bigger not necessarily better. Depends on your operating conditions.

Thanks for the info steve.

Thanks Ryan. I may end up holding off on the sway bars for now anyway to see how the other modifications (shocks, torsion bars, bushings, etc...) effect the ride. This will also give me another potential option in a few months (Eibach)

Thanks again

Sherwood,

Ride harshness is definitely a consideration, so this is useful information. Thanks for speaking up.

Jason