DeTomaso Mailing List: January 98, Message #104
     



From: 	MikeLDrew@aol.com

Subject: Re:  Sway Bars [part 1]

Date: 	Mon, 5 Jan 1998 04:54:13 +0000



Hah!  The new list admin pogues have limited the max allowable length of a

posting to less than I'm capable of writing when I get spun up!  So here's

part one:

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Date:  Mon, Jan 5, 1998 05:39 EDT

From:  MikeLDrew

Subj:  Re:  Re:  sway bars

To:      DeTomaso@realbig.com



Andy wrote:



>Interesting, Jack.  Do you mean the whole rear (as in traditional Pantera

flex) or something entirely different?  If the latter, what would be

evidence of this flexing?



I'd assumed that because that section of the chassis (the tail piece) seems

pretty well braced that I could go as stiff as I wanted bar wise with no

worries.  Now you're worrying me... :-)



>>>The actual source of the flex is a subject of pure speculation.  But the

empirical evidence supports Jack's contention.  Years ago PCNC ran a skidpad

day, and as part of the experiment, we started with a Pantera with stock

configuration, ran the skidpad and took G-readings, then gradually upgraded

the swaybars.  Huge jump resulted simply by swapping the rear bar for a GTS

bar, from .79 to .93.  Moving to a 1-inch bar in front with GTS bar in back

actually saw G's drop from .93 to .91.  Increasing the rear bar to 1-inch

also saw them drop further, to .89.



With no other changes to the chassis, and after consulting with Dennis Quella

(who had generously loaned them to Larry (this was before Larry was in the

Pantera business himself), the conclusion was that the overly-stiff rear bars

were compromising the ability of the suspension to work, and the loads were

being absorbed by the chassis (which, since it's not fitted with any

dampening mechanism, is free to oscillate at will, degrading handling.)



For those that haven't seen it before, here's the article we wrote

summarizing everything (see Part 2):

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