Sway Bars
01-16-2020, 07:16 PM
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01-16-2020, 11:57 PM
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Re: Sway Bars
It depends. In addition to needing to know more about your car as Injuneer rightly points out, we need to know more about you and your intentions as well.
How do you use the car? Street? Drag? Road race? Autocross?
Exactly which swaybars do you have in mind?
I have a set of BMR swaybars for my 2002 Z28 which I installed in 2017 along with Strano SP141 springs and Koni single-adjustable shocks. I got it all as a package deal from a guy that was returning his car to stock. It was a decent setup, and with those changes and nothing else, I shaved 2.5 seconds off my personal best lap time at Grattan Raceway (relative to 100% stock suspension). But the car felt too tail-happy. Sliding around is tons of fun, but it wasn’t confidence-inspiring.
So, I called Sam Strano, of stranoparts.com. Sam is pretty well known in the F-body community as the guy that knows how to make our cars turn and stop, and he has numerous wins under his belt to prove that he deserves that reputation. I explained my experience, and his response was that the BMR swaybar setup is both too stiff and not ideally balanced — matching what I felt behind the wheel. So I ordered a set of Sam’s own Strano swaybars, which he developed personally and uses on all of his fourth gens.
A series of unfortunate events we don’t need to get into here mean that I haven’t yet tried the new setup, but I’m confident it’s going to be an improvement and looking forward to getting the car put back together and back to a road course in 2020. In addition to the anticipated cornering improvements, the new bars are thinner and lighter than the BMR bars.
All of that said: not everybody runs their cars at the road course, and for some, tail happy is exactly what they want. If I had different springs, wider rear tires, and wanted to get into drifting, maybe these would be just the ticket.
As such, my BMR bars are for sale if someone wants them. 🙂
Moral of the story: call Sam Strano and tell him what you have and how you want to use it. He’ll give you great advice and sell you the right parts at a fair price.
🙂
How do you use the car? Street? Drag? Road race? Autocross?
Exactly which swaybars do you have in mind?
I have a set of BMR swaybars for my 2002 Z28 which I installed in 2017 along with Strano SP141 springs and Koni single-adjustable shocks. I got it all as a package deal from a guy that was returning his car to stock. It was a decent setup, and with those changes and nothing else, I shaved 2.5 seconds off my personal best lap time at Grattan Raceway (relative to 100% stock suspension). But the car felt too tail-happy. Sliding around is tons of fun, but it wasn’t confidence-inspiring.
So, I called Sam Strano, of stranoparts.com. Sam is pretty well known in the F-body community as the guy that knows how to make our cars turn and stop, and he has numerous wins under his belt to prove that he deserves that reputation. I explained my experience, and his response was that the BMR swaybar setup is both too stiff and not ideally balanced — matching what I felt behind the wheel. So I ordered a set of Sam’s own Strano swaybars, which he developed personally and uses on all of his fourth gens.
A series of unfortunate events we don’t need to get into here mean that I haven’t yet tried the new setup, but I’m confident it’s going to be an improvement and looking forward to getting the car put back together and back to a road course in 2020. In addition to the anticipated cornering improvements, the new bars are thinner and lighter than the BMR bars.
All of that said: not everybody runs their cars at the road course, and for some, tail happy is exactly what they want. If I had different springs, wider rear tires, and wanted to get into drifting, maybe these would be just the ticket.
As such, my BMR bars are for sale if someone wants them. 🙂
Moral of the story: call Sam Strano and tell him what you have and how you want to use it. He’ll give you great advice and sell you the right parts at a fair price.
🙂
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