Torsion Bars / IFS

[Ryan Gee]

I have a feeling I look at this a little different than some. So why no start a conversation....

Why upgrade to a stiffer set?

Well the first reason that comes to mind, more to spring? Heavy bumper, winch, etc... OK, this is a real good reason! If a guy has a set of bars rated at so many Lbs and he adds a bunch of heavy goodies to the front is the rig he may want to add some heavy weight bars. They would rated 10-20% higher and it would make up for the weight.

OK more on that "make up" part... what is a guy making up for? Why not just crank the OEM units a little and call it good? Well a guy can! Then why do they make units at different rates... this makes no sense.

Well this is why I started the conversion. Now correct me if this is totally wrong, cause it may be!

A Tbar is rated to twist so far and when it is twisted out of limits the spring rate is reset. From what I remember they call the point at which the bars hold the truck with level ground and no extra load the "static position". As the spring gets old or over-stressed the static position tends to get beat down by the cycles causing "sag". For the sake of conversation lets say a spring is rated to twist so far and the limit is 100%. This would also insinuate a spring under no load would be at 0%.

OK, so a guy has an Xterra with 20,000 miles and he wants to put a new ARB bumper on and fill the hole with a nice new Warn winch. Before he did all this his suspension was setting right at the half travel point. So on his rig goes all these new goodies. After it is all said and done it is setting and inch or two lower and the suspension looks to be at the 70% travel point. So under the rig he goes... crank crank crank... a few minutes later Viola! Back in business. A couple weeks later the front end sags a little more so...crank crank this time... sweet it is back where he wanted it.

Now here is something to think about! Why did they sag? I would think the first 20,000 miles on this rig would have broke them in? Maybe the bars have been twisted further than they were designed for? A HA!!!! That is why there is an option for a tbars with higher ratings. With the extra weight a guy has tbars and supension that are setting at 50% twist/travel. Not 70% for the bars and 50% for the suspension. Hmm? :confused:

OK, the other scenerio.. A guy wants some height. So he does a PML with some shackles and a few cranks to the tbars. Ok, so we changed the static postion of the bars none... (Same weight, just cranked them alittle). However the suspension is jacked up so it sets with 10% uptravel and 90% downtravel. So guy hits a good bump and it does what the suspension is ment to do... bottom out! Umm, at what point did the bars hit 100% of the twist they are rated for? Goodness, look they are sagging!!! Imagine that....

So in comes springs with a higher rating! Heck with the weight of the rig and the crank job they set at 20% of twist because they are rated for a higher weight! So when they hit a bump that bottoms things out they still had 80% to go from the static ride point.


Something else to think about... So when these bars hit 100% of twist at what point do they stop! Breakage? At what point does the spring rate ramp to a point of a set of steel bars? And at this point what then gives? Would it be steering parts, lower control arms, tbar adjusters? Just a thought.:twocents:

Sorry about the grammer.. not feeling it tonight.

[Allen Cox]

I've had to crank the wife's bars................ um............

So anyway, I've to adjust the ride height a couple of times now. I did the PML on her X and have seen the sag of the stock bars. I'm thinking of a set of 10% stiffer t-bars for her. I just won't tell her they're stiffer, just let her comment on the fact that ride quality is back. :thumbsup:

[Ryan Gee]

They should be setting at the same lbs/inch as the stockers as they set there. They are still holding up the same amount of weight I would think the biggest difference would be they would have a whole lot further left to twist than the OEMers. They would also have less uptravel then the stockers did... but most of the crank jobs are within an inch of the bumpstops anyway.

I have those white ones, they're yours if ya want to give them a try ... I think they are aftermarket?

[bogof]

Another scenario.
What about re-indexing T-bars?(actually taking them out and turning them 1 notch)
Wouldn't that reset the "static position" causing less stress on the T-bars?
This is assuming no extra weight.

BTW I'm running stock T-bars cranked.

[Ryan Gee]

I would think they would still be twisted a certain percentage. The bars wouldn't care where the adjusters are setting. The anchored end is just setting there static once the height is set.

[Sully4x4]

So more weight wears out the compression of the spring from the twisting of the t-bars?

[DamnHippie]

Well I'll just chime in with a bit of my own personal experience... If you go to the aftermarket 30% stiffer bars and you DON'T have all that extra weight on your rig, you might not like the ride.

This is where I was at last winter when I had to use my truck as a daily driver for a few months. To get better mileage, I stripped everything off the truck -- skid plates, sliders, tools, recovery gear, spare parts. I still had a 3+3 lift, but the only extra weight I was carrying was a hi-lift and a rear bumper about 20 lbs heavier than stock.

I had to un-crank the t-bars to get it down off the bumpstops. Not just a little, like 7-8 turns of the adjuster. I guess that makes sense after removing about 530 lbs of steel and stuff from my truck. But what I then noticed was the stiffest twitchiest ride I'd ever had in a truck. It was awful. It had the look and feel of a ricer with an overly stiff racing suspension, but of course it was still a big heavy lifted truck, so it sure didn't have handling like a racing suspension.

It was just annoying and uncomfortable.

[Ryan Gee]

We have ran Swayaways on both my red Pathy (when it was IFS) and Laura's Xterra. Neither had a winch, I guess the X has an ARB bumper. They both road alot better and felt smoother thoughout the travel stroke.

The X came with a set of white aftermarket units? AC? Not sure what brand cause the last owner had sprayed black over the stickers etc. Not so impressed with those. They felt alot like what Ian just experienced above. Who knows, they had been beat on Alaska roads for a few years so maybe that was the culprit.

[OdiN]

We have ran Swayaways on both my red Pathy (when it was IFS) and Laura's Xterra. Neither had a winch, I guess the X has an ARB bumper. They both road alot better and felt smoother thoughout the travel stroke.

The X came with a set of white aftermarket units? AC? Not sure what brand cause the last owner had sprayed black over the stickers etc. Not so impressed with those. They felt alot like what Ian just experienced above. Who knows, they had been beat on Alaska roads for a few years so maybe that was the culprit.

I thought the A/C ones were swayaway?

[Ryan Gee]

They may be...

Just now went and looked at them on the site. They are white?

Swayaways are normally red.

Again.. mine may have a had a brutal pastime.

[Ryan Gee]

Sway-A-Way torsion bars are designed specifically for lifted and lowered trucks and SUV’s that demand superior suspension performance. The bars are manufactured from aircraft alloy steel have a 20% - 30% increase in spring rate over stock bars. Sway-A-Way torsion bars eliminate hard bottoming when offroading or towing heavy loads, improve vehicle handling on the street, and provide a more consistent spring rate for better vehicle control.
That is from swayaways site..

[Packman5280]

i always thought part of the reason they were called sway-a-way was that you could remove the sway bar and the truck would still drive good. dunno, maybe that's dumb.

[Ryan Gee]

Well... it would fight the sway. I would imagine that is where the name came from.

[DamnHippie]

I think AC's bars are no longer swayaway based on two pieces of evidence: they're now white rather than red in the pictures, and a few months ago they had the swayaway bars on sale for like 1/3 off, as if they were trying to clear out the last of the inventory so they could update the website for the new (apparently nameless) brand.

As for the words from the swayaway site, I discount everything except maybe the assertion that they're 20-30% stiffer. The rest of the words seem to me to be typical information-free marketing speak. Of course the company claims they're better onroad, better offroad, better just sitting on your shelf waiting to be installed, better than sex.

[Ryan Gee]

Ya, there isn't much there is there... good old snake oil sales pitch.

[tbecktold]

I'm fairly certain that at least the older AC tbars are made by Swayaway. I've heard that all aftermarket tbars for at least the (W)D21 chassis are all made by SAW, just painted different colors. I know I had backing evidence when I had the tbars but can't remember it now.

I really liked having the tbars on my truck; I didn't have a winch or heavy bumper or anything, but liked how much tighter it rode. At the time I was mostly driving it on the road, most of the time on paved canyon roads. The tbars combined with the RS9000s I had at the time made it about as sporty as one can make a 4-banger HB, which I liked at the time.

As far as the sagging and everything goes, I've always wondered that as well. I still don't understand it and could make some conjectures, but nothing based on too much truth.:crazy:

[Dowser]

On my Original Pathfinder I had Swayaways on it with Crapini UCA's and with a home jobber steel bumper the front end was heavy. I found that the Ride quality was quite nice and It handled well until my steering went to shit. In fact the bars I'd easily buy again... the UCA's.......... no thanks. High priced for BEEF UCA's that are VERY noisy with the poly or urethane bushings (can't recall which), The Shock hole was too small to fit Rancho 9000's without hitting the shock body on the UCA, came with lame ass Ungreasable Balljoints, and cost me a small fortune here in Canada to get at around 460ish bucks. I got Raped.

[pathmaker1]

sounds like calmini UCA's Dowser

[Dowser]

Crapini = Calmini in my last post... just how I feel about them, :D Thread Jack over, sorry.

Back to Topic.

[Sully4x4]

How are your S.A.W. tbars workin for you Rich? It seems like your pathy is pretty level, as mine sits really low in the front. I mean, the front is still higher than it was with my rear springs, possibly because my old springs were old and tired.

[ChefTyler]

New rear springs will help lift up the front end a little bit...kinda hard to explain why without making reference to physics and it's too early in the morning for that :D

Jordan, you could put brand new STOCK t-bars on your Pathy and notice a WORLD of difference. I'll tell you from personal experience, the SAW bars are the shit, do it and you won't regret it.

[DamnHippie]

Jordon, your front end isn't sitting low because of any problem with the t-bars. It's as high as it can go without being dangerous on the streets (you only have about a half inch between the UCA and the bumpstop).

The only thing that's gonna get your front end higher is balljoint spacers, and you'd probably want to do a diff drop before doing that. Even that's not a real ideal solution, I'm finding. Now that I've done a diff drop and added some BJ spacers and ultra-low bumpstops, what I find is that the steering linkage is now at an extreme angle, and the extra range of movement the front suspension has affects the steering. Specifically, as the front suspension moves from full droop to full stuff, the toe-in angle of the steering changes because the suspension and steering linkages are moving in different arcs.

I'm not sure yet whether it's gonna be harmful in any way. I'd say "We'll know when something breaks" but the reality is that I break things all the time.

[Ryan Gee]

If I remember correctly that is where the calmini steering has an advantage. I think it lowers the whole linkage.

Something else I noticed while working on Laura's X is the fact that these D/WD22 CV shafts bind up quick. The Pathy had AC arms, low profile bumps, and 1/2 inch spacers. Every once in a while I would hear a clicking sound from the CV being maxed out. These new rigs just flat bind.

However, the pathy couldn't run in 4wd for an extended period on the highway. It would blow the boots everytime.