I need a new front swaybar because mine has a crack in it. I have my eyes set on a bmr one. It seems like a good price for what it is. Will i like it, will it help my turning a lot, and how does the weight compare to stock?

I am worried that it may be too stiff for my daily driver, just curious?

 

Use a hollow 35mm bar.

 

the hollow one is significantly more expensive, will it be worth the difference?

 

I have the solid 35mm bar and it's awesome. Yes, a hollow bar is lighter, but the improvement in handling with the Suspension Techniques 35mm solid bar more than outweighs the brawback of any added weight.

Either way, I would recommend a solid or hollow 35mm bar, especially if you have stock springs. If you have stiffer than stock front springs, then a 32mm bar might be o.k. www.stranoparts.com is a great place to start.

By the way, the big front bar does not make the car any harsher, like springs do. It simply is a great improvement.

Dan

 

By the way, this seems to come up every few weeks, so I don't know if you've read the posts before... Your stock swaybar is hollow, and the ends are flattened where the endlinks attach. Looking at the end, it will look like it's split down the middle, but that's just where the thing was flattened out. So if that's the "crack" you're referring to, it's normal, that's the way it's always been.

Dave

 

The difference in stiffness between a solid 32 mm bar and a hollow 35 is slight. The weight difference is several pounds that you are unlikely to notice. Unless you are racing and have to have the minimum weight, the 32 solid BMR bar will be fine. It makes a tremendous handling improvement.

 

Noticed a huge diffference with mine. My tires don't like me though.

 

That depends on what you call slight. A HOLLOW 32 is only about 2 pounds lighter than my HOLLOW 35. A solid 35 is about 14 pounds more than a hollow bar. A solid 32 is about 11-12 pounds more than a hollow 32. Also since most of a bars strength is derived from the Outer Diameter, a 35mm bar (even a hollow one) is much stiffer than any 32 solid or otherwise). And as many here attest to, the car like a pretty big front bar for everything but pure drag racing. Street, track, autox, etc.

 

Sam, how much stiffer is the hollow 35 than the solid 32? How is the stiffness of a swaybar measured? I based my comments on some calculations I saw posted on FFRAX that indicated the stiffness of the two bars was similar but maybe that was not correct?
But based on your post there is a 9 or 10 lb difference between the two. I think its fair to say that the typical driver would be hard pressed to detect the extra weight.

 

There is a special formula for calculating the relative rate of a hollow bar vs a solid one. And it's more complicated than the OD minus the ID.

Since bars work by twisting, the inside adds very little to it, and that become less and less as the outer diameter gets larger. If you can mark the end of a tube, and twist it you'll see the farther to the outside you go, the more movement there is.

It's been a while since I figured a 35 hollow toa 32 solid, but the difference was not a lot less than a solid 35 (which is twice as stiff as a solid 32). You give up approximately 3-5% of the stiffness of a solid bar in theory. But my bar also has less bends, as well as less acute bends than an ST bar does. So we make some of that back by having less metal to flex in the first place (which does matter,that's why shortening the arm of a bar makes it stiffer).

I don't disagree that someone would be hard pressed to tell the weight savings. I don't even think they could. But you also can't tell 10 hp, but nobody wants to give that up either. And it's a cheap way to keep weight down some if you are upgrading bars anyway.