New 67-69 Camaro Rear Sway Bar from RideTech!

[darren@ridetech]

We have been doing a lot of testing in Velocity with a prototype rear sway bar. Previous testing with an AirBar equipped first gen. showed that a rear sway bar was not necessarily needed. But most of the early testing was done with our Red 67 Camaro (the one that was stolen), with 275's on the back wheels. However, Velocity has 335's on it.... this added traction facilitates the need for a rear sway bar.

The design followed our newest Modular front MuscleBar's in a 3 piece design, with bolt on arms. It also utilizes our PosiLink endlinks.

Ready to ship.....
http://www.ridetech.com/shop/index.php?dispatch=products.view&product_id=6584

[Rod P]

looks sweet :thumbsup: lets see some slalom results and maybe just some seat of the pants opinions

[732ndgen]

looks nice,now all i need is a first gen

[Bryce]

looks awesome!

[bret]

looks sweet :thumbsup: lets see some slalom results and maybe just some seat of the pants opinions

The pages of notes and data that we generated from several test sessions boiled down to this:
Using the same track [although on different days] we had been making laps of around 49 seconds. The car had a pretty good frontend push at the limit. We started tightening up the rear shocks [on compression valving] and the car got faster and faster. When we got to the limit of the shock adjustment we installed a .750 solid rear swaybar and brought the rear shocks down to their previous settings. We started tightening up the rear shocks again and the car got faster. We again got to the limit of the rear shocks compression valving so we tried a 1" dia .219" wall bar and reset the rear shocks to a more monimal valving setting. That made the car faster yet. Increasing the rear shock valving at that point made the car oversteer so we started going down on the rear tire pressure.
The bottom line was that we ended up with a 1" .219" wall rear bar with the rear Titanium shocks set at 10 clicks from full soft [about halfway through the adjustment]. The rear tire pressure seemed to work best at around 26 cold / 30 hot. The fastest time at that track was 44.59, a 4.5 second improvement.
That is a huge improvement, one that I cannot attribute to only the rear swaybar. There was also shock and tire pressure tuning that went into it along with some driver tuning. Also remember that this is an autocross track with a rough concrete surface. Your car, your driving style, your track surface, and YOU will vary. Every car must be tuned individually.
At this point I think our rear bar is appropriate for an early Camaro using the 335mmm wide BFG KDW tires. If you are using a narrower tire you will likely not need a rear bar becasue you wont have enough traction back there to make the car push.
Also remember that this all comes into play when driving the car at its ultimate traction limit. You will notice no difference at all in street driving. It won't hurt anything, but you won't feel any improvement on the street. Its kind of like a set of 6 piston 14" rotor brakes...not much difference on the street, but on the track making repeated 100mph stops...you bet!

[FreddieCougar]

OK Bret, let's not clutter up a good bench racing conversation with facts and data.....geez.
Tim

[bret]

Sorry:) Was all that out loud?

[Vegas69]

Good info Brett. I'm in the middle of a Hellwig bar install with some custom brackets and end links. If I would've known this would of been much easier.