Doing some research on Sways..

I've come to the conclusion that the highest quality bars are made of SPRING STEEL and SOLID has it's advantages, but Hollow should be Spring Steel.

Hollow Bars:
Read this:
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/5554786-post3.html

First major point I see is: Why are you looking at a hollow bar?
Hollow bars are only done for a little bit of weight savings. The metal on the outside of the bar contributes more to the spring rate then the metal on the inside. Removing the inside metal removes the least effective weight of steel. It introduces a problem though. Cracks always start on the surface. (assuming the basic forming isn't a train wreck...) Hollow bars adds a new surface for cracks to start from. You can't shot peen the inside so you are reducing the options for treatment to straight heat or immersion.



Spring Steel:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/5554800-post4.html

I tend to agree with most of the above comments concerning spring manufacture but as with all engineering problems the devil is always in the detail.

I would almost certainly want to manufacture a very highly stressed sway bar from a good grade of Spring steel.
As far as I know..Whiteline and H&R make SOLID SPRING STEEL bars.
Question is..who makes Hollow spring steel bars?
Hotchkis?? They don't say so. Neither do any other Hollow bar guys.. Eibach...Progress(was solid..now hollow)..Stillen..Tanabe (they say chomolly)...Cusco (Solid)

 

This has been covered before. Yes Solid bars are stronger, but stronger and stiffer won't always be better for handling.

A lot of guys get the Hotchkis sways because they are easily adjustable and not overly stiff to complement the rest of the suspension and not over power it with too much rigidity.

 

It's about SPRING STEEL...read the entire post.

 

ah. my bad.

 

Nah...no problem..

Thing is.... there's a lot of marketing hype on bars and it's very daunting to try and sift though marketing sh##T. As far as I can determine..they're all *OK*..but you have to take what they say with a grain of salt. I always go with premium quality and it looks like spring steal is it. So far..H&R and Whiteline are the only one's..and they happen to be SOLID BARS. It would be interesting to find a HOLLOW bar that's spring steel.

 

You're overanalyzing it. I have yet to see any indication that one swaybar is significantly better than the others. There is no scientific or anecdotal evidence that product "A" is better than "B, "C", "D", etc. If there is no clearcut favorite, what difference in bar material, spring rate, construction, does it matter?

If you look, virtually all of the discussion on swaybars seems to be based on settings, i.e. the trick is to find one that you can setup to work optimally in your situation. The swaybar is just part of a bigger picture in the suspension.

The only real difference in hollow vs solid is weight. Some people believe that there is an advantage to saving a few pounds. That's the reason for making choice "A" over "B".

 

That's why I said they're ALL probably *OK*
I'm just they type of person that has to..like you say... has to ****yze the crap out of things I purchase.

As far as clear cut *favorites*..I would say Hotchkis is BY FAR the most popular.

 

While this is good info, I really hope you don't make 5 threads about sways like you did for HFC's

 

Looks like I was right on the money.