Scofco

What are the pros and cons of taking the sway bars and throwing them in the garbage?

4Paws

The front end would collapse ? I cann't think of other cons.

mt_goat

I would say you just have to be aware that it handles differently in an emergency situation than it did before with the sway bars. I would say slowdown at least 10mph, if you normally drive 70mph on the freeway slow down to 60mph. If you normally take a curve at 40mph slow down to 30mph. You will be doing something that will worsen the on-road handling of your truck and you may not notice your limits have changed because you don’t always drive your truck to its limits, except in an emergency situation.

I have disco's and have tried it both ways, I like sway bars for on the road.

Andrey

With sway bars off, your chances of rolling your truck over are at least 60% greater.

-- Andrey

934rnr

I dunno about that if it is lifted with out sway bars maybe.
I wouldn't say it's 60% more.

I agree I do usually go a little slower than normal without swaybars on. Hey it's a SUV not a street racer.


I am running mine without sway bars with a 1.4" BL and torsion crank with 33's on 15x8's w/4" backspacing and FJ80 coils in the rear it feels pretty stable infact more than when it was stock.

It's upto you though if you want mad flex and wheel it alot then pull them if it's a daily you should probably find some disconnects.

I also think it depends on your driving skills as well if you can handle recovering from tedious situations then go for it pull them if not I would leave them in.

Scofco

Thanks guys
Now who the heck makes disconnects for 2nd gens?

Phalanx

Here's one. Custom Sway Bar Disconnects
I removed my front sway bar about a year ago and havnt had any real handling problems, just a little tipsy on highway on ramps.

Scofco

Thing that may be different for me:
There are no 8 lane freeways here. No off-ramps, no need to go over 60mph.
Our highway is a 2 lane road basically, of which I never go over 55mph. My truck gets me to work and back, and up the mountains. Not exactly the kind of driving some of you city slickers do

Either way, I think I'll still opt for the disconnects. No sense in putting myself at risk.

Thanks for the link Phalanx.

MTL_4runner

I would get rid of the rear swaybar but keep the front one.
Then use the disconnects just on the front one.

The steering will be VERY sloppy without any swaybar at all.

mt_goat

Here is where I got mine. http://www.frontrangeoffroadfab.com/disconnects.htm

AverysDad

i just used the writeup from robinhood150s website and made my own.........wasnt all that hard and they work pretty good.

AverysDad

here

Nobody

Im considering doing this..how long have you had it off? - notice any ride difference? (on and off road)

Flygtenstein

Well done web wheelers, and those to whom that does not apply, you should understand.

60% more likely to roll?

Front end will collapse?

Sloppy steering?

On my 95, there is not a darn bit of difference. If one of you snuck into the land of cheese and put a swaybar back on, I would be unable to tell.

I have been swaybarred, disconnected and swaybarless in stages for the last 4 years. I have not rolled over, my front end has not collapsed and the only sloppy steering was due to a tweaked idler.

Best advice on this? Ditch the bar. It is really easy to take off or put back on. See how you like it.

Robinhood150

Wow, finally something we dissagree on, Adrian...well sort of. Maybe it's the placebo effect, but I'm fairly sure I can tell the difference between a connected and a disconnected swaybar. But I do I agree removing the sway bar will have a minimal effect on everyday driving and it certainly does not have an unsafe feeling. I've probably driven around for weeks at a time without the swaybar connected, just because I forgot to reconnect or was too lazy to reconnect.

But, I think where the swaybar is really going to shine is when I have a blowout (or other emergency) doing 70mph on a crowded freeway. I have absolutely no proof of it, but I like to believe the swaybar could mean the difference between staying in control and careening into oncoming traffic.

anthony1

iTrader: (1)

When I had IFS in the front, I ran with Sway-a-way t-bar and no sway bar in front. I kept the one in the rear. I thought it drove fine. Get stiffer shocks if you want to feel more secure about it. I never had problem with flex with the rear, just the front.

Robinhood150

I heard the argument to just get stiffer shocks too, but I just don't buy it. For one thing, I've driving with my rs9000s set to the stiffest setting and it's just painful. It feels like my truck's going to rattle apart.

The other thing is that shocks and swaybars do fundamentally different things and therefore cannot do the same job. Swaybars are designed to limit articulation relative to the left and right side while shocks are designed to slow down the travel cycle. I think that when the truck with stiffer shocks goes around a corner the driver perceives less roll because the shocks slow down the time it takes for the body to roll. However, in the end, the body still reaches the same roll angle (if the corner is long enough).

Sure, you can get stiffer Tbars, but that defeats the purpose of removing the sway bar.

ruizs

Just get disconnects - when I wheel, I unhook the front, but I really don't like driving on the street without. I mean, why decrease your on-road performance (which is probably where you spend 90% of your driving time), when you can buy disco's for $100, and take 1 minute at the trailhead to pull out the pins?
Or, you can be like my cheap a$$, and take 5 minutes at the trailhead to unbolt the sway bar

Flygtenstein

Steve, you and Anthony provided personal experience of what it does on your truck, as did I. The point that I meant to get across was that I notice no difference on a comparable rig except for the fat t-bars I have. When I was stock height on a stock truck, it was apparent when the bar was not connected.

On my truck, right now, it makes not a bit of difference. That is how stiff aftermarket bars are. I was trying to encourage this dude to take it off and see how he liked it in his truck, not how 12 people across the country, some of whom do not even have the same sort of truck and none of which actually have his truck think it would do.

The other thing is I drive my truck like a truck. I go slow and corner carefully, not so much because I have to, but because I prefer to. Knock on wood, but I do not swerve, I do not drive aggressively and when things jump out in front of me, I hit them. I really do not think that a swaybar is going to make a darn bit of difference if I crank it full left at 75, the truck is going over.

RobT2k

I'll answer since Mtl didn't (maybe he doesn't actually have any first hand knowledge of doing this yet) I've had disco's on mine for 2 months and had the rear bar removed since Oct '03. The first time I noticed a difference in ride change was going from one trail to another via a few miles of freeway with my front bar disconnected. It felt like it wanted to wander a bit on the freeway(keep in mind I have very stiff 675ppi SAWs) and really rolled and leaned in turns. If your springs are less stiff, probably gonna lean more. But with the disco's connected, I didn't notice any changes in handling.
I think it was Lars (made my disco's) that said he had done some testing and determined that the rear bar made little or no difference to the handling of the truck. With mine removed, I love the amount of rear flex I get, might be too much though my OME's are showing signs of being stretched to the limit. Time to get those straps tacked into place.