At 06:35 pm 6/4/97 -0700, you wrote:
> I built a similiar system several years ago for the same reason,
>failure of the A-Arm slots. I immediately noticed a reduction in the
>effective stiffness...
. Still tough to beat the original stock design compromises.
>
> Tom Hall
Tom,
I had not considered that not using the inner slot position would
lower the effective stiffness. Good thought! The 1" bar I have,
mounted at the outer end and piviot in the middle is still much stiffer
than the original.
The original Tiger/Alpine mounting allowed the total arm to
swing up and down when the A arms moved. If you add the
center piviot to the center section there is additional front end
stiffness even with the original Tiger bar. The bar now has to twist
from a fixed position when the A arms are not at the same level.
One way we could prove our ideas is to put the Tiger on jack
stands with the front springs and shocks removed. Put a scale
under one tire ( at normal ride height). Put a threaded rod
in place of the shock on the other side. Adjust the threaded
rod for mazimum droop and then while measuring the A arm
position adjust the length of the rod while logging the scale reading
under the other tire. The force indicated on the scale
will give an indication of the stiffness of the sway bar. The range of
measurments could produce a plot that might be interesting.
Repeat the tests with different sway bar mountings and different
sway bars for comparitive tests.
If the maximum droop causes the other tire to lift above the
scale then raise the scale to read zero or some other convient
constant. This way as you "compress" the rod you should get
all postive readings on the scale.
Repeat the measurments with the rod and scale swapped
to the other side. I have yet to see a "square" Tiger. Also you
might have the sway bar off-set to one side or the other.
If you leave the springs in and then the Tiger may tilt and
that will mess up your readings.
(Error could be computed, but not worth the trouble)
In any case this sounds like too a lot of work.
Jim Barrett Tiger II 351C and others
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