Sway-bar-deficiency-syndrome

[Logansneo]

Somehow through the haze of Chevy-loving, Camaro-inspiried self gratification and the utopian bliss of having my favorite moniker alive in any form once again, to do battle with Mustang and Challenger ludites alike, I seemingly lost focus in my exhaustive study of the car and let something of critical importance escape the crosshairs of my mental-microscope. And now I must remedy this titanic lapse by asking exactly who the F@(# designed the Camaro's pathetic excuse for a front anti-sway stabalization system, and how can we fix it?

I normally wouldn't be too upset at small design flaws, say a trunk lid that had a larger gap on one side vs. the other, or an interior cloth insert that had the equivelent texture of 40 grit sandpaper. Quibbles! Mere hiccups!

But to allow a vehicle representative of the level of performance we have hoped for and have come to expect from the Camaro, to be built with such an enemic, literal weak-link in it's suspension is inexcusable! While paging through the current Hot Rod magazine article on the new Camaro's I came across a picture that I had seen before (in fact on this very forum) of the strut/steering rack/sway bar setup that illustrates just how and where the sway bar connects. This is when I noticed seemingly for the first time that the end of the sway bar does not terminate into a bushing in the lower control arm, as it does in many McPherson strut-equipt cars, but by way of an aprox. 15" long, extremely thin bar connects to a tab located at the base of the spring seat for the strut.

My problem is that no matter how large the aftermarket sway bars get, that link is bound to flex signifigantly to the point that I'm willing to bet it will hinder or negate proper function of the anti-sway bar. In fact the larger the the sway bar, the more this link will probably flex as well, allowing unwanted body roll and suspension movement! This "might" be remedied with the application of thicker link bars, but with the Camaro's substantial weight being distributed by 52% up front it may not make a difference, and even if it does those thin metal mount plates on the struts cylinder housing would most likely fail with the added stresses!

I do feel this problem may be addressable through the development of a re-designed lower control arm/ sway bar package that allows for the end of the sway bar to fit into a bushing on the lower control arm, possibly developed by Detroit Speed Engineering or the like, to more directly affect the body roll of the Camaro and increase it's stability in cornering. This I feel would go a long way in helping eliminate this potential fly in the Camaro's otherwise brilliant redesign. As I was postulating this yet another poorly executed bit of engeneering reared it's head......the strut towers!

Again, since the new Camaro rely's on McPherson struts for front suspension, the towers will require braces across them to help properly stabalize the highest points of the cars suspension architecture. Even with the professed rigidity of the Camaro's chassis, the car weighs nearly 3900lbs in it's heaviest configuration, so wouldn't further stabalizing measures be helpful? Alas it seems as though the designers didn't feel the need for such extravagences and deemed it unnecessary to have more than 1 bolt point for each strut to attach to its respective tower. One bolt, being the threaded shaft of the strut, to attach any type of tower brace to, shouldering the lateral stresses of hard cornering! Also they designed each tower in such a way to require serious engineering to attach any mount points, other than to the 1 strut bolt.

In contrast a substatnial number of strut towers I have come across in my years working under my father in his frame and alignment shop have had at least 3 bolts attaching the top of the strut to the tower, including the 2010 Mustang, allowing more even distribution of the stresses created during hard cornering. (This fact probably also attributes to the Mustang's .95 lateral G numbers as well, since a tower brace comes standard on all GT's, that and it weighs about as much as a Radio Flyer wagon ) Now a single-bolt style tower brace would probably work OK, but I'd be concerned with the pontential failure of the strut's treaded shaft and how the Camaro's suspension would react in that situation. Being a mechanic I feel a weld-on work-around solution utilizing multi-bolt gussetted plates on either tower would also fix this issue, but as far as I can see in stock form the Camaro's design signifigantly limits bolt-on solutions for this problem.

Now understand that I LOVE the new Camaro! I adore it! And it's performance numbers aren't anything to sneeze at! But I feel with a tiny bit more thought and engeneering it has the potential to rake far more performance vehicles across the coals than it does now. I'm talking Aston Martin's, Audi's, Jaguar's, Maserati's, and maybe even a few Ferarri's. I'm dead serious!

So....there's my rant!

[AdioSS]

it will be interesting to see what the aftermarket does with this...

[Logansneo]

Well they don't go into great detail at this time but Detroit Speed Engineering just posted PICS of the exterior of their 2010 project car that will carry their soon to be released suspension upgrades for the Camaro, including "front/rear sway bars, front/rear drop-springs and high perfromance adjustable aluminum end links." I sent them a condensed version of my post addressing my concerns and hope to hear back from them soon.

[DMS]

We are working on sway bars as I type. Pedders already has all the bushings, a coil overs and we do have adjustable front sway bar end links. Will also have lowering coils only very soon.

thanks
mike
dms

[Silverado27]

This is only the beginning for this z-platform Camaro. In a few years just like with all the other American cars all of the kinks will be worked out and things will be fine, more balanced, and even better. We always see missing links in a car's maiden voyage.

[JeremyNYR]

Originally Posted by Logansneo

utopian bliss ... moniker ... ludites ... exhaustive study ... crosshairs of my mental-microscope ... remedy this titanic lapse ... Quibbles! ... postulating ...

hey I didn't know Dennis Miller was a member here!

[Logansneo]

Sorry, I didn't know I was going to owe tax on my $4 words!

[shock6906]

Sweet baby Jesus! That color and that car just look absolutely menacing! I've seen a lot of pictures of the 2010 Camaro in all sorts of different iterations of color, wheel combo, ground effects, stripe packages, and so forth and so on, but this combination is the best that I've ever seen. Wow.

[DMS]

Originally Posted by shock6906

Sweet baby Jesus! That color and that car just look absolutely menacing! I've seen a lot of pictures of the 2010 Camaro in all sorts of different iterations of color, wheel combo, ground effects, stripe packages, and so forth and so on, but this combination is the best that I've ever seen. Wow.

Great shots. thanks for sharing. Who did the Camaro?

mike
dms

[shock6906]

Originally Posted by DMS

Great shots. thanks for sharing. Who did the Camaro?

mike
dms

I'm not sure. They were on the DetroitSpeed link in post #3.

[My Red 93Z-28]

Is that Cyber Gray Metallic or whatever its called?

[Logansneo]

Detroit Speed Engineering has released their drop spring and sway bar kit for the 2010 Camaro, including redesigned sway bar link arms. Though I am not entirely satisfied that they didn't engineer a new lower control arm and sway bar they did send me an email response that they have tested this setup and were quite pleased with the noticable handling improvements so I guess we'll have to see. So far a similar kit offered by Pedders on the Hennessey Camaro with 2+ inches of drop and 275 front / 315 rear tires was still unable to improve upon stock SS suspension through the slalom, but that could just be too much HP/TQ and not enough time with the car on Edmunds part.


The DSE kit sells for $1150 and can be ordered by calling them. I'd love to see a comparison between DSE's Camaro, Hennessey's Camaro, and eventually the SMS Saleen Camaro.

[z71collector]

I can't understand how there cannot be a significant improvement over OE with the pedders kit? Look at the track numbers on the G8. Pulling 1.01 and UP on three different runs! 10% improvement.
I have to call something fishy on the edmunds test.

[DMS]

Originally Posted by z71collector

I can't understand how there cannot be a significant improvement over OE with the pedders kit? Look at the track numbers on the G8. Pulling 1.01 and UP on three different runs! 10% improvement.
I have to call something fishy on the edmunds test.

I have not seen the article nor could I find it, But the guys at Hennessey said all the magazines were seriously impressed. Now the yellow Camaro we did took a 2.5 second off the lap times just by doing our Xa coil overs, front radius rod bushing inserts, and a rear diff bushings. Pete thinks with a Pedders complete system, based on G8 performances, we can get to the 4 second off the lap time range. That is way more than any $10K engine mod could do. I willo find out about the Edmonds article from the guys.

mike
dms

[Logansneo]

Originally Posted by DMS

I have not seen the article nor could I find it, But the guys at Hennessey said all the magazines were seriously impressed. Now the yellow Camaro we did took a 2.5 second off the lap times just by doing our Xa coil overs, front radius rod bushing inserts, and a rear diff bushings. Pete thinks with a Pedders complete system, based on G8 performances, we can get to the 4 second off the lap time range. That is way more than any $10K engine mod could do. I willo find out about the Edmonds article from the guys.

mike
dms

Here's the Edmunds Inside Line review of the Hennessey Camaro.

By the way, Edmunds generally posts less dramatic performance numbers in all of their reviews than most any other automotive journalist group, just FYI.