I have a –69 Chevelle.
Homemade adjustable upper rear control-arms. I also made an adjustable aluminium bracket to rise the arm on the rearend (No-hop bar). Harder rubber-bushings from a Volvo everywhere. On the track the car hooks pretty good with slicks, sometimes lifts the left front wheel a little. At the same time the body rolls side to side. Now I wanna try to preload right rear tire with a big sway-bar.

Now to the question.
What is the biggest bolt-on yankyard swaybar + lower control arms i can have?
Will a Caprice swaybar and control-arms fit? (Or anything else)

I also plan to lower the car about 2 inches to get the rear-end angles right for racing and maybe make ride-height adjustable with a screw.
Anyone has an idea how to make an adjustable sway-bar?

Please keep away from big dollar fixes!

How do you pre-load with a swaybar? The bar would have to be twisted, wouldn't it?

Why not use an air bag?

Tim.

I have heard of guys running large rear sway bars to help better plant the rear tires upon hard sudden acceleration. There are however no bolt in junkyard swaps for large diameter rear sway bars. These bars are however availible from a bunch of aftermarket suppliers. Lots of guys on this site are running air bags to help better plant the tires as well. The benefit of these is that they can be adjusted at the track for optimum conditions. I've also heard good things on Southside Machine (SSM) Lift bars. These would replace your lower control arms.

My plan was to do a simple bolt-on swap and save time.
On hard acceleration the sway-bar will move some force from left rear to right rear tire and try to equalize the forces.
If you make the sway-bar adjustable, you can twist it to get some preload.
You can also preload with an air-bag or adjustable ride-height.
Rearend angles are very important too.
I belive you got to find the right combination of all parts together!

SSM Lift bars. Don`t you mount these under the lower control arm just like a traction-bar on a leaf spring? The idea is to override the stock suspension travel and instead let SSM lift the body. I think they are good if you use stock, soft rubber bushings in your control arms.
If you mount harder bushings it is better to work with rearend angles (No-hop bar).

Circle track racers use differant length end links to preload the FRONT sway bar. Camaro rear bars use an end link thats similar to a front setup.Maybe you could graft on something like that.

I use a 1 1/2" anti sway bar on the rear of my 71 Chevelle. I think it came from a 68 GTO.

Originally posted by Spang:
SSM Lift bars. Don`t you mount these under the lower control arm just like a traction-bar on a leaf spring? The idea is to override the stock suspension travel and instead let SSM lift the body. I think they are good if you use stock, soft rubber bushings in your control arms.
If you mount harder bushings it is better to work with rearend angles (No-hop bar). Nope. SSM bars for an A-body replace the lower control arm. They relocate the mounting point on the housing end to change the instant center. They correct the rear end geometry like no-hop bars.

Tim.

I did some search about sway-bars. This is what i had in my mind. It is taken from
The Chevelle Online Interchange Manual. http://www.angelfire.com/tx/lonestarclassics/chassis.html
”The lower arms are intrchangeable (all years), and a car that did not have a sway bar can be modified to fit.
1973-77 lower rear trailing arms will bolt in, if using either 1973-77 rear anti-sway bars, or 1977-96 B-car sway bars, common on vehicles like Cadillac limos and police-optioned Caprice 9C1s.”

Does anybody know anything about mounting this?
Is the swaybar much stiffer?
Interfearence problems?
Or is it simply better mounting a “stock type” lower arm and HD aftermarket sway-bar?
I now understand 73-77 swaybars mount under the lower arms.


SSM lift bars.
It was pretty hard finding info. about them. It seems they been “out of buisness” for a while, but JEG´S now sell them. http://www.jegs.com/cgi-bin/ncommerce3/ProductDisplayprrfnbr=191757&prmenbr=361
And yes, they replace the stock lower control arm.
A few years ago, when I bought my car it had stock rear suspension. I had serious problems with wheel-hop. When I did a burnout the car shaked like crazy. If you only wanna cure this problem you can mount harder shocks (on extension), or lower the rearend (moves instant center down and backwards, that is good), or both. SSM lift bars moves the instant center backwards/up and probably it will cure the problem by itself too.
But if you whant a real “standing start dragrace” action from a stock suspension, I think a better way is to mount No-hop bars. They move instant center backwards/down in the car and eliminate wheel-hop. Together with a sway-bar, matching shocks, hard bushings, correct rear-end height and maybe an air-bag it seems to me the way to go. And in front soft springs and 90/10 shocks will help too.

Any guys making a wheelstand on “stock” suspension have any comment`s?

No wheel stands here but no-hop bars didn't stop wheel hop on my 67 EC. SSM bars did stop the hop. Most have had good luck with the no-hops, I might be the only one that they didn't work for.

Wouldn't an air bag be much cheaper and easier. Plus you have very easy adjustment of the preload, no wrenches needed.

its not a direct bolt on but i made the caprice police rear bar fit.

http://www.chevelles.com/cgi-bin/forum/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=7;t=005998