This is the part of his comment that confuses me. At no time have I been able to seperate the two.

Re-torquing all the bolts is an excellent idea. You might try it on full soft (no bolt) too just to see what happens. I'd try it but I hate taking taking that pesky bolt in and out!!

Mack

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Mack
[B]JZR-

Are you sure about it being two seperate bars. It was my understanding that the inner and the outer were welded togeteher at the point nearest the bolt hole for the softest setting. You can actually see the weld if yo look closely. I dont recall any play in mine before installation without the bolt in place ie the ability to seperate the two.

 

Thanks for the reply Jason. Hope you did take my comments the wrong way......

You may be right in that I didn't pull hard enough. Not sure I ever tried as I always assumed that the bars were welded at one end. and as you moved the bolt the two bars worked in tandem from the weld point to the bolt. Not hat the bars worked in tandem from the bolt....or the outer bar working to one side of the bolt and the solid to the other......if that makes any since.

It makes more since to me now that you have described your situation why the hole in your bar would over time become elliptical as the loads on it would be extreme at least in full stiff.

Maybe Mike B. from Comptech could weigh in on this one and clarify some of my/our confusion.

Thanks

 

FWIW, I've been driving around in the rain today and the clunk is gone. That would seem to reinforce the idea that the noise is emanating from the brackets where the Teflon tape is wrapped.

Or not...

 

The bar is supposed to be welded on one end... if you can slide your bar apart it is broken.

 

Thanks for the clarification Jason. I thought that was the case.

 

It is welded at one end, but I could slide mine apart out of the box, it wasn't broken. Since I've failed utterly to describe the bar's construction in words, here's an equally awful cutaway-style picture:

As I said earlier it's possible they re-welded the "cut" portion in a later manufacturing run, but it wasn't in mine, one of the very first bars. If somebody has a bar off their car and is willing to pull it apart for the camera, the people in this thread would be most grateful!

 

I thought the inner bar was one piece, but that would be pretty tough to manufacture. Seems pretty dodgy that the bolt carries ALL the load of the swaybar. Thanks for the diagram jzr, and if what you draw is true these are going to start breaking bolts sooner rather than later!

 

indeed about the bolts. I wonder what kind of shear forces there would be on those particular bolts. fatigue will come into play very quickly for the autox'ers - at least that's my take on the bar. after seeing it at SEMA (but not on a car to date), my impressions on the bar were something along the lines of leg adjustments on a walker. that's what it looked like to me.

 

FWIW, I put more "use" on that bar in the 3 months I had it than most people will see in a year, and the hardware never failed. I originally had it at full stiff, then ultra mega stiff, with bolts at both ends of adjustment. 5000+ street miles, 10+ autocross days, and 3 track days. I remember thinking to myself how huge the loads must be, surfing the curbs of the chicane at the Streets of Willow.
It all held together, even the stock endlinks. The bolt provided is pretty beefy, I don't think it will be the failure point. With extreme use you will see an increase in ellipticity of the bolt hole.

I'm certainly no spokesman for Comptech, but I believe the bar is a solid product, albeit a bit overpriced at $750. I just bought a clean and solid running RX-7 (next racecar project) for that.

If one chooses not to buy the bar, it should be because of the price, not fear of failure.