You could always try mounting the bar directly to the subframe and flipping the arms. Go over the steering rack boot instead of under it. Use a 6-7" endlink.


<---Exactly what I have on my car. Except I'm not sure my arms look anything like the Gendron ones.

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Test fit pics from a couple years ago

 

Gendron:

 

[QUOTE=josh7owens,Nov 15 2010, 04:41 PM] Don't flame me for this. I'm just passing on information. I talked to small fortune racing (maker of gendron bar) about maybe getting the new mounts. He was talking about the benefits and how it lowered the bar about 5/8 of a inch to help keep it out of the boot for us lowered car guys. I then mentioned that some guys where making spacers for the mounts that we all ready have. He said that the honda mounting points werent the strongest to start with and spacing them out makes it that much "softer." he said he had a guy do some testing and called them talking about how loose the car felt after installing the spacers. So this guy took them off and tested the car without the spacer and the car tightened back up. From my understanding this is why he never offered the spacers with the bar. The mounting points won't be strong enough and

 

No -- it's about the mounts themselves, not the frame. The stock mounts are cantilevered out into space. Gendron's new mounts have considerably more bracing than the stock ones (plus utilize ball bearings instead of nylon or rubber bushings).

Note that Ankeny and Comptech also saw fit to include upgraded sway bar mounts with their bars -- in that respect, Gendron's just catching up.

 

Stock mount:



New Gendron mount:



Ankeny mount:



Comptech mount: (terrible picture)

 

Aaahhh... misunderstood what was being said... see what i get for coming into a conversation late? hahaha!

fwiw though, i'm not quite sure how lowering the stock bracket with a spacer is going to cause it to flex any more than it already may in the stock position... <shrug>


Something that would be very neat to see in action by the way if any of y'all happen to have a go-pro camera set on 60fps...

[edit] p.s. lookin forward to havin fun with y'all this year in STR... my co-driver and i have his car pretty well dialed after spending this last year on it... sucks we weren't able to make it to Nats, but both of us were far too busy with our businesses... but next one.... yeeeaaaa!

 

But what Bill allegedly said was that the stock mount was fine without a spacer, and too flexible with a spacer.

I'm skeptical about the claim, too. The stock bracket is just 1/2" lower, there is no extra leverage on it. The extra "leverage" would be applied to the bolts, the spacer, and the attachment point. Since the upgraded bearing mounts also position the bar father from the attachment point, and would use the same longer bolts, then apparently there isn't a problem with the bolts or with the attachment point. How does being 1/2" lower change the forces experienced by the stock bracket?

There are definitely benefits to having a sturdier mounting scheme -- the Energy suspension brackets bend pretty easily, so it would be nice to have something I don't have to keep checking for damage.

 

Agreed, that makes no sense. If he's saying the original mounts are not stiff enough, and his are, then fine that makes sense. But saying that spacing them out with a solid steel or aluminum alloy block makes any difference is baloney unless there's something I'm missing. Maybe his guy that was testing this out used a block of cheese as the spacer?



Edit: I guess if he's saying the frame deforms, but not enough to be an issue - then by spacing it out you're theoretically magnifying the deformation at the bushing, maybe enough that now it makes a difference. That makes sense I guess.

Edit again: I'm not really familiar with the new mounts. If the new mounts use the same mounting point and same bolts without further bracing the mount or frame, then nevermind the above edit and I revert back to the block of cheese comment.

 

Well the spacer doesn't change anything much... its not like the aluminum is going to 'squish', and the bolts are longer than stock, but i used stock honda bolts from something else since i have a pile of em here...


There is extra leverage being exerted on the FRAME mounting point, but there is no extra leverage change being applied to the mount itself, since it has basically no idea that anything has changed... its still botled to something... but what its bolted to would see a change (the frame) since the spacer is there...

but i doubt it flexes any at the frame... and certainly not enough that us wannabee f-1 drivers that are lost in parking lots can actually feel and comprehend while throwing our street cars around...

I think i'd rather be more focussed on actually driving and working on that whole "skill thing" more than being worried about my front sway bar mount flexing a couple thou, and how that may change my roll geometry (or whatever, insert random suspension issue here) and thus affect something else that i need to spend money on to "fix"...

K.I.S.S. theory sometimes works to...

 

I think the telephone game's at work here -- what he said to me over email is that the stock mount's insufficient for today's sway bars, with or without the spacer. Here's a quote from some correspondence we had about me upgrading to a 1.5" front bar:

[QUOTE=Bill Gendron]Here are a couple of thoughts about big bars/mounts: