I see several different thicknesses of sway bars offered for the A chassis. Not sure which would be better or if any real differences. This will be a simple daily driver and see only a little "spirited" driving for hiway on ramps and passing. Believe my old 76 Century just had a rear sway and want to subdue some of the land yachts feel this one has. Any suggestions? Back or front only? Both? does size matter here? Thanks!
Front sway bar first. NEVER use just a rear bar, it will over steer like a bitch. Most cars come stock WITH at least a front bar.
I would put the biggest sway bar you could find up to and including 1.25" on the front and use polyurethane end links and frame bushings if it doesn't come with them. You can use the 1.25" bar off of a second gen Trans Am or Z/28. Most second gen Monte Carlos or Grand Prixs are good candidates for a donor bolt on rear sway bar. That will make a pretty nice daily driver. If you want bigger, you can go buy bigger after market. There are also different types for the rear that don't bolt to the rear control arm.
Also, some of the rear suspensions do not have provisions built into the arms to mount the rear sway bars. If I recall correctly, The 73-77 cars mount the sway bar horizontally to the bottom of the links, compared to vertically between the arms like the 64-72 A body cars and 78 through 88 A and G body cars.
On my 75 Malibu the arms didn’t have the mounting holes for the sway bar so I grabbed the arms off the Monte I pulled the rear bar from.
Yes, they have a U-shaped bracket that goes inside the control arm and the bar bolts from beneath to those. They do not box the arms on the 73-77 cars. When I was a poor high school kid, I took some angle iron and made brackets to put a 75 Monte Carlo bar on the rear of my 71 GS. Worked out fine.
It would be interesting to see what you have now. GM was on a "radial tuned suspension" kick in those days which meant stiffer springs and bigger sway bars.
Herb Adams spent a lot of time on handling, and he found that big sway bars along with moderately stiff springs were best for a road or road course car. He also was a proponent of stiffening the body. Different divisions had different approaches, but look into the bars that triangulate the core support to fenders, fenders to cowl, radiator cross bars, and lower frame rail to core support. I know there’s a lot of info out there for G bodies, but it’s factory stuff they learned in the ‘70s. Patrick
You know, I've spent so much time under the frame, with control arms, bushings, sway bars and tires that I've completely overlooked the possibility of stiffening things above the frame? It would be trivial to make some triangulation bracing under the hood ala early Camaro bracing though our bodies are isolated from the frame by rubber.
I will measure the one that is on there now. Guess question should have been worded if going larger than stock would help the floating. 60k on the clock and no rattles anywhere. My old one was 76 FS century and my memory just remembers the suspension being a lot tighter. I did have the rear end lifted 1.5in to fit some 295x50x15s under it and those are going back on this weekend. Maybe changing the geometry loaded the SB..IDK..just speculating. It could be I am just old now and spent the last decade or so driving only XJSs. I need to go search the Men's Malls, aka Salvage Yards, for a rear sway, door guts for PW & PLs. Will post my findings soon.
