I am looking at upgrading just the rear anti-roll bar on my Mustang GT. I have an otherwise stock setup with stock tires and stock springs/shocks/struts. I've never felt any positive gains from upgrading springs and shocks, they usually made the ride harsher and don't do much for reducing understeer.

I checked the stock front anti-roll bar and it is quite beefy as-is. What about changing just the rear bar? Will this make the initial turn-in more neutral, or will it be a dangerous amount of oversteer?

What brand of anti-roll bars are good?

Anyone have the diameters of aftermarket anti-roll bars?

It looks like Steeda, Stillen, and BMR rear bars are not that much larger than stock. My stock bar is about 0.8" in diameter.

 

I don't know the stock diameters but here's Eibach's:

ANTI-ROLL-KIT (Both Front and Rear Sway Bars)

# 35101.320


Front: 35mm
Rear: 22mm
Footnotes: Front Sway Bar Is Tubular And 3 Way-adjustable/ Rear Sway Bar Is Solid And Non-adjustable

Your guestimate of .8" is: .8 inches = 20.32 millimeters

 

I used a caliper to measure my rear bar. It seems most of the aftermarket bars are only slightly larger, not quite the 50% larger advertised figure. Maybe 8%-10% at the very max. Is there any perceived gain by going from 0.8" to 0.866" for the rear bar?

 

Get Strano's adjustable bar, then you can play with the stiffness settings:

http://www.stranoparts.com/partdetai...D=80&ModelID=5

 

I went ahead and ordered the BMR hollow front bar (1 3/8") and the Hellwig hollow rear bar (1"). The hollow bars seem to be the best way to go, and the BMR has the collars built-into the front bar. They all seem to be adjustable too.

 

That's a big rear bar. Let us know how it goes; I think it has two holes for adjustment?

 

I think there are 3 holes for both bars.

Do I need new end links and nuts for the front? The rear bars all seem to use a bunch of parts to build up new links (Steeda, Hellwig, Eibach, etc...)

 

If it's this one:



It comes with a new bushing that goes in the OEM bracket.

If you need different brackets, I took my Steeda stamped anodized ones off a while back, put on billet units, I could send them to you, they're the top left ones:

 

Do I need new bushing brackets for the front? Or will the stockers suffice?

 

I believe they'll fit (I think BMR would include them if they wouldn't), just have a larger hole for the larger bar. They don't have zerk fittings for greasing, though. I'd give em a try first and if not happy think about getting others, or Strano has billet ones that have zerks (unaware, I got the non-zerk Steeda ones).

 

I have greasable ENS swaybar bushings on my Crown Vic for the Addco anti-roll bars. After about 9-10 years, the zerk fittings are fubar but I haven't needed to grease them ever since I installed them. No squeaks, nothing. Best handling mod I ever did on the car!

Is it safe to use brake pad/caliper grease for the bushings? I found that the brake grease seems to stick better and not wash away as easily as most greases and lubes. Or is the included "teflon grease" all that is required?

 

All the little packets I've ever received were Energy Suspension grease, a bit of a white translucent stuff. Seems to work fine. I use Valvoline SynPower synthetic for lubing:
http://www.valvoline.com/products/br...ower/grease/63

 

I alway wondered how big of a difference upgraded bars would be on the stock suspension.