Sway Bars Question
 

So I have an '87 944 NA and right now the handling is garbage. Lately I've been doing quite a bit of autocross with the car so I'm trying to improve the whole suspension one piece at a time. Right now I'm looking for sway bars. My car didn't come with a rear one so I definitely want to get that but, I also want to upgrade them to much larger bars to reduce the unholy amount of body roll my car gets.(see pictures below) Anyways I just found a good deal on a front M030 sway bar and I think I can get a rear one for a reasonable price. My question is what else would I need to put these sway bars in my car? I know I'll need bushings for the front and rear and drop links for the rear but what else do I need?
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Koni Sport adjustable shocks front and back would help. Lower the trailing arms in the rear and install 1.5" 200-250 lb. lowering springs in the front. If you get the rear 18 mm 3-way adjustable sway bar that's part of the M030 package, the 30 mm front sway bar might be a little too stiff. I've done all of the above and got a little more understeer than I'd like to have.

To mount the new bars:
For the front, you will need a larger retaining bracket, along with the larger bushings. Get the cheap triangulation braces too.
For the rear, you also need the bushing straps and the drop link mounting bolt, which should come with the bar since it is NLA, at least on Pelican. My used bar came with them.

I just did the exact same thing, adding a rear bar and upgrading the front, though not to the M030 set, just the late 80's turbo size.
It made an quite a difference in corning, where before I was understeering quite badly, now I am much more neutral, with a hint of overseer with the throttle. I will probably put in a slightly larger front bar for a little more balance.
BTW, I also just put in a strut brace, and that also helps noticeably in hard cornering.

That's basically what I'm planning on doing eventually. The front bar isn't a 30mm though he said it's 26.5mm. Did they make two sizes of the m030? This one's off of an '89 turbo S. Do you think a 26.5mm in the front with an 18mm in the back will be a good combo?
I was originally looking for 944 turbo sway bars but I found this one pretty cheap and I think I'll get it.

I always wondered if those strut braces actually work. Maybe I'll get one at some point during my suspension upgrade.

I have the 30mm front sway bar on my car and it is from the 968 as well as the m030 rear. I think it was one of the best improvements I've done.

I had alerady added Koni's, stronger front lowering springs, adjusted the rear height to match the front, and Turbo 16" rims.

When I added the 30mm bar, to my surprize, the ride comfort improved substantially, even on the straight aways. Even though the sway bar is primarily for the turns, it helps on straight pavement too because not all bumps are on both sides of the car. The 30mm added much more control to the entire ride and handling and really eliminated the ride harshness that came with the addition of Koni's.

I would recommend getting the triangular front swaybar brace as I hit a serius pothole onetime and snapped the stock bracket in 1/2.

How much does it usually cost to get the torsion bars reindexed at a shop? Cause I'd definitely like to lower my car a little

oof!

IF you can find a shop who will do it, you are looking at about 8 hours of labor, but be prepared for it to be more, as most people miss the first time on how many teeth to move it, and guess who gets to pay for the time to correct it

best suggestion would be to get a firm price, and not let them do it by the hour

if the eccentrics don't lower it enough, and you can't live with it, get the checkbook ready

p.s. you get to do an alignment afterward too

rough guess would be about $1000 to do the job

take this one step at a time

do the sway bars first, then shocks and sport springs in the front, by that time you will have a good idea as to where you still want to improve your suspension

I say sway bars first because they are the easiest to get out of the way, and you will do them eventually anyways, so might as well get that out of the way

get good shocks - either koni or billstein hd's, autocross springs in the front, drive your car for a little bit and see if you still want even more improvement

everyone wants a different thing out of their car, some daily their car and autocross, while others just autocross, and others have "race" cars - and they all value improvement in response differently, because some cars are daily driven while others are not

once you see what makes you happy, you can decide if you want to do torsion bars, or switch to rear coil over system

this way you don't dump a whole lot of $$$ at the same time, and you get to do everything in a nice progressing way - you learn more about the car, and what improves and where improvement still needs to be done

and also, HOLY body roll! especially that rear 3/4 shot! wow!

& also, don't be afraid to start with softer spring first, you will always find a buyer for a used 200-250lbs springs, and they happen to be a pretty good match to stock torsion bars, so if you still want to go "lower" and "stiffer", it won't cost you an arm and a leg

good luck! this is what I'll be doing ...

I guess I'm getting a little ahead of myself talking about springs and reindexing my torsion bars. You're right I should just be taking this one step at a time otherwise it gets pretty overwhelming pretty fast.

So, back to the sway bars. Now that I know what to get to install them what size rear bar should I get? The front is 26.5mm so what should I do for the back to get a good balance and avoid getting too much oversteer or understeer?

Fattest one you can find. I recommend the 968 M030 unit, 19mm adjustable, still available new from PCNA at a reasonable cost.

i got a used 18mm rear bar for my 26.8mm front bar.

to fit it i bought drop links secondhand from dcauto and a rear swaybar adaptor kit from paragon Porsche 924S and 944 Rear Sway Bar Adapter Kit.

Lindsey Racing sells a 19mm that is 5way adjustable.... For $120... It made a monumental difference on my car going from a 13mm to the 19mm....

this is what I was going to suggest as well, its 5-way adjustable - which is better then 3-way 968 bar

or, you could go with Weltmeister sway bars, 28mm front and 22mm rear, they are expensive though, VERY

you can find a good deal on the 18mm rear sway bar, they are pretty cheap compared to 19mm sway bar, and again, if later on you want to go bigger - you will pretty much always find a buyer for this one, so don't be afraid to experiment a little

I found an 18mm rear sway bar locally. The guy said he wants $100 for the bar and hardware. I think I'll go check that out tommorrow.

Does that sound like a fair price? I figure the hardware usually costs around $90 and an 18mm sway bar's usually about $85.

does that include droplinks?

try and get new bushings still if you can.

it all comes down to what you plan to do with the car - reducing body roll is not always a good thing - in autocross, it can actually cost you time - further, if you don't have the springs to handle it, it is easy to overbar the car - it's all a balancing act

from the shots, there is more roll than desired, but as soon as you reduce it, you will begin to find that those tires are too small and too tall, and that may be a slippery slope you don't want to go down

that being said, the 968 M030 bars are decent for spring and wheel rates up to about 275# front and rear wheel rates of about 275 - after that, you need bigger bars for a track car, but can still get away with those on street cars

a less expensive improvement would be to grab a set of standard 968 bars - they can be had for nearly nothing - the front will be 26.8mm and the rear will be 16mm - typically a set can be had for less than $200, complete with bushings

Well I got that 18mm rear bar today all ready to go in the car for $100.

And as a plus when I left the guy's house I found some crazy winding roads. So me and my friend played around on them for a bit. Me in the 944 and him in his E36 325is. But I can't help but feel ripped off cause I had the bar right there in the car and I didn't feel any diffenence in handling. I mean it was right there in the trunk the whole time. LOL :D JK

But seriously now I just can't wait to get my front one.

Flash, I guess I'm not understanding why less body roll is bad. I've always been told it is good. I understand you have to make the whole car work together and it could be bad if the only thing your doing is putting on bigger sways...but I guess I'm just a little confused. :confused:

it's all about weight transfer and the timing thereof in the transitions of turns - if the bars are too stiff relative to the suspension, the car will skate like it's on marbles

in autocross this happens all the time - i constantly see guys over-barring cars, and ending up with both understeer and snap oversteer on the same car

typically in autocross i either disconnect the front bar, or go with a small one - the rear i set up to be barred stiff but sprung soft - but then, i don't use the bakes much either, and steer with the rear of the car a lot

this setup would be a mess on a road race course though, and not much fun in a canyon

setup is tricky stuff, and with a dual purpose car you have to make compromises - if it's dedicated car, you can tune much better - heck, we used to change gear ratios, depending on the course, just to get the right exit launch

Ahh, I see. Thanks for the clarification.

So you think I should keep my stock front bar around just in case I want to use it for events?

it depends on how much you like getting under there to change things, and how many event you plan to do

you might consider an adjustable front bar if you plan to switch back and forth

To the OP.. what is the current status of Shocks and Tires on the car already?

Also, be sure to check the rulebook for who you run with and what mods would move you out of class.. ie, adding a rear sway to a car that doesn't have one.. is that protestable to kick you up a class?

Also curious as to how much seat time/experience you have.. I mention this only because i have seen some VERY soft / stock, leaning cars be driven to victory in classes where it wasn't expected.

Don't worry I checked what mods are allowed before I bought the sway bar. The last thing I'd want would be to move into a class with much faster heavily modifyed cars.

As far as seat time goes I don't have a lot just yet (only 6 events so far) but I'm planning on doing alot more.

My current tires are just some cheap all seasons and my front suspension is just the stock sachs struts. I replaced the rear shocks with Bilstines and I plan on replacing the front struts and getting better tires. I just wanted to start with sway bars cause it seems like they did a lot for not that much money.

What Flash said...and...suspension design is very tricky business. "In theory" more body roll has some significant theoretical advantages, the biggest of which is evenly distributing the weight across both tires. The ugly, practical, truth is that most suspensions start exhibiting pretty ugly camber when compressed (or unloaded) too far from static position. Another problem is most people don't want to design a suspension with that much travel at all. The heavier the car, the more this is a problem; you run out of roll very quickly unless you want to raise ride height.

Some cars like a lot more bar than others. Many Lotus cars have little or no roll bar, especially in the rear. Watch a stock Elise at an autocross; it rolls a lot. But, it seems to work. 924/944/968s seem to like a lot of roll resistance. People have a number of theories on why but I think a lot of it has to do with the strut front suspension. Historically, the strut-control arm arrangement doesn't have the prettiest camber curve and this necessitates a large bar up front. You simply have to go big at the back to avoid a car with terminal understeer. Add in the fact that the weight distribution is so good and you have a car that can thrive with a bigger rear bar in the hands of someone with skill. One other issue is the micro-physics that occur on less than perfectly smooth pavement.

Does anyone know what I would need to put the above described 968 (basically S2) sway bars on an early car? I have a 85.5 N/A and a very nice seller has agreed to install them for me at his house but I want to make sure I have everything I need to do so before I head out there.

The rear bar will bolt up, but the front will require some fabrication. Do a search.

The standard 968 setup will induce understeer just like the standard 944 setup.... Now if you went with an M030 rear bar and something a little smaller in the front you get a nice tail happy car.... :D Ask me how I know. :D
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LOL, I have been searching for the last 30 min or so. Which is how I ended up in this thread.

So basically the 26.8mm and the 16mm won't change much? Or you think it will mess it up?

I ended up getting a 27.5mm front and 18mm rear and I'm happy with it for now. What are you going to use the car for just street use? Or are you going to do autox or track?

Right now its just a street car for the weekends, I drive "spirited" and would like to end up doing some DE, maybe some AutoX and Time trials in the next year or so. In order to prepare fir this I wanted to do the "Koni Adj Mod" and add some beefier sway bars. So I found a guy that offered to help me install all of the above (he is the seller of the stock s2 sway bars) and me being a tool-less, timeless, inpatient bastard I figured I need to take him up on the offer to both upgrade my car and learn about it in the process. There, thats the long answer lol!

I fear that the answer is to go with the 30mm up front and the 19mm in the rear which this is not. The question is will the 26.5mm and 16mm even make a difference? To be honest, the 14mm in the rear I think was optional and I am not sure I have it. Its an LSD car, not sure if that makes a difference

If the car doesn't have a rear sway bar it'll make a HUGE difference. I started this autox season with the stock setup and as you can see from my original post the body roll was horrible. Now that I've upgraded them I can't imagine going back to the stock 944 sway bar.

The only thing I will say to you is that maybe you should get a slightly bigger rear bar. These cars as most cars are tuned to have more understeer because it's safer for people who don't know what they're doing. That being said if you're going to do autox you might not want that much understeer cause it'll be frustrating when you get better and you have trouble getting the car to rotate cause it's just plowing.

The best thing I would say for you is to get a basic set of tools, a jack, and some jack stands. That way you can just change the sway bars yourself later if you don't like them. They're not very hard to do. Besides you'd be crazy to own a 20+ year old car and not be able to do ANY work to it yourself.

if this is any help, I had no rear sway bar on my 924S, then I installed 14mm factory option and on faster bends during sprints and hillclimbs it helped balance the car but on slow sharp corners on Autox it still understeers like crazy. I am thinking of fittting an 18mm swaybar on the rear to try to counter this whilst leaving front one stock.

After skimming over all of the replies, the thing that I don't see mentioned, is that you will have to weld on the 2 clamps that secure the rear sway bar to the cross tube that holds the torsion bars. I had to do this on my 80 924, which did not have a rear sway bar. I got mine from a JY (had to chisel them off), but I would recommend purchasing new ones.

my '78 and '80 turbo both had rear sways. its possible that early 924's that didn't have rear sway bars as stock didn't have the mounts that the clamps screw into. luckily theyre there on 944's. late ones anyway, i havent seen an early 944 without a rear sway but judging by the threads coming up about no rear sways, the mounts are present.

@wildman - The later cars (as opposed to the early 924's) all had the rear sway bars optional and all the mounting points are already there, so if there really isn't one on the car is should just bolt right up.

I just haven't had time to climb under the car and look. Sounds silly but I have 3 kids under 4 and a wife that works full time so by the time the day ends, I have no energy to climb under and look, lol. Maybe tonight.

I think I am going to give this a shot though, at least for now and I can upgrade to bigger ones in a year or two. If the 16mm rear bar isn't doing the trick then I will move up to the 18mm or 3 way adj 19mm, no9 big deal. What I am understanding from all of you and all the research I have done is that a car set up for street and mild track use is very different from setting one up for AutoX. Since I am not anywhere near ready to autox the car and even when I do it will be infrequent and just for fun. If I ever need to upgrade for events then I will cross that bridge when I come to it. I have all the metric wrenches and sockets, jack stands, a hydraulic floor jack, a nice warm garage to work on the car. My issue is time. This winter should be interesting though, thats when I'll have time to "play with it" Right now I am having too much fun driving it! So the bottom line looks like the S2 bars would be a bit of an upgrade for cheap money and I get help doing the Koni's which I am very intimidated by, sounds like a win to me. I can always go back to stock if I upset the car too much.

I agree, they should be there on my car but if not it should mount no problem, I just need to make sure I have the correct hardware and bushings

My 77 924 did have the rear sway bar. But like was said, it was probably an option. On the 924's, the mounting "clamps" were welded onto the torsion bar carrier tube. But it sounds like they are bolt-on for the 944's. That's a welcome upgrade, I suppose.

I just got off the phone with another Porsche Parts company that starts with the letter "P" ahem ahem and the guy told me these sway bars would be a nice little upgrade from stock and since I am getting a great deal on them that it wouldn't be a bad investment even if I did want to move up to the M030's in the future.

On top of that I ordered the yellow adj koni's and upper strut bearings for the front and he told me these are much easier to install on my 85.5 as opposed to the later cars which was great news to me. He said no cutting, they just drop into the stock sleeves (I'll believe it when I see it) but I can't wait!! thanks for your input folks!

Correction: It IS the clamp "mounts" that are welded on.