Reason/Answer for bent rear sway bar brackets

[Xenonk]

remember, it's not just the bar design, but the ultimate goal to look at is the amount of leverage at the point.. so on a typical scale where people are using springs that allow a longer suspension travel, the more that you are bending the bar... it's like swinging action.. of course the size of the bar plays a part, but if you limit the movement of the bar-end, the less that things will bend (Tq = force x distance.. so if distance = 0, then you have no torque).

[TRS]

Finally got around to putting on my AVO rsb mount reinforcement brackets. Nice solid construction. Easy install.

[LibertyGT]

I snapped my left hand side mount today. I have Whitelines ajd RSB and heavy duty end links fitted.

 

Has anyone fitted the AVO unit after snapping the OEM bracket? Do you need the OEM unit in place to fit these reinforced units?

 

Thanks

Tim

[itsme]

I have my AVO installed and it is so much stonger then the stock mount maybe not. From the way it mounts the stock mount just holds the bolts for to mount the bar now. I would say give it a try. Just make sure it is lined up correctly and you should be OK.

[kaho8930]

So today I got the chance to work on Crazy_Ken's 05 GT. When I was working the car, and I have worked on it in the past, we came up to talking about the Perrin brackets and such. Long story short, here are the specs on the car:

 

50,000 miles

STi Pink Springs (close to 30,000+ miles logged on)

Stock Shocks

Cusco Vacanza Rear Sway 21mm bar (installed just 1000 miles after the springs) [set to full stiff]

Cusco Endlinks

Cusco Under Braces

Prodrive GC-6 18x7.5 wheels

Toyo T1-S 225/40/18 tires (for a good portion of 20,000 miles)

 

While we were working on the brakes, we noticed the brackets for the RSB didnt break off like ones that you see posted on other threads or whatever the previous cases you see here, but rather bent backwards on one side and the other side was helically twisted.. this lead me to believe that with the shocks being the weak point along with soft springs and a LONG suspension travel is the culprit of the issue.. So even a cusco bar would end up bending a bracket..

 

Subaru did have poor design when it came to the mounting points for the RSB compared to the Impreza body. I dont know why they would skimp out on such a design. I can understand when looking at the stock RSB bar that it wouldnt bend because the size of the stock USDM bar is thinner than a pencil. Im not sure how/what the effects are when mated to a 20mm JDM bar on a USDM car, but my guess is that due to the USDM Legacy with long-travel softer springs [than the JDM GT] and soft long travel shocks [compared to the JDM GT] puts a lot of torque and forces on the bar, causing the bracket to bend. With so much suspension travel, that's basically an easy way to ask a stiffer bar to end up tweaking/torquing the crap out of the brackets.. and the way they bent, I would think even the Perrin or Cobb reinforcement brackets would need to be way more intricate to make it to keep the bar from bending the brackets.. I would really think that a new support bracket needs to not only eliminate 2 axis, but really 3 to 5 axis forces to make sure that it keeps the location of the mounts really IN place when driven hard.

 

I havent checked up my own car to confirm my findings, but if I see that I dont have bent brackets, then I'll know why. I also run the same sway bar and on the same full stiff setting as Ken but I run on stock endlinks and I use stickier tires and stiffer shocks and springs. I have about the same amount of miles on the car, if not, more than Ken does. I also track my car and drive it way harder than Ken (since Ken hasnt autoxed or tracked his car and doesnt plan on that either). I run on Zeal coilovers that really have shorter suspension travel and not to mention way stiffer springs than a set of STi Pink springs, so my springs can take on the majority of the road handling and keeping the sway bar as only a supplemental portion of the suspension function. It's too bad that I didnt take pictures of the sway bar brackets on Ken's car so I can show you what it looks like, but in my opinion, it's not too bad, but I really do think it does affect the performance of the sway bar's function a significant amount if it was driven on the track, I doubt a normal daily street driver would even notice it.

 

Stay tuned, I will post up my own car's findings some time this week (as my car is in the shop for tranny work testing).

 

Edit: my car does NOT have bent brackets, therefore we need to narrow it down to the primary suspension components.. Im too scared right now to go back to stock shocks with springs to do a test

I have a tein flex coil-over on my car for around 10000km and stock rsb , and the rsb bracket was bent too....what's a cheap design.....imagine the car have 5-10 yrs on the road with winter and rust...so easy the break it ....the rsb bracket you can even bent with your hands

[LRegvall]

I snapped my left hand side mount today. I have Whitelines ajd RSB and heavy duty end links fitted.

 

Has anyone fitted the AVO unit after snapping the OEM bracket? Do you need the OEM unit in place to fit these reinforced units?

 

Thanks

Tim

I have the AVO RSB and bracket. My first thought to your question was no, you can't. But itsme made me think you might be able to. The AVO bracket uses the existing OEM bracket primarily to bolt the RSB bushing clamps in place. The primary "structural" support for the AVO bracket comes from a deep and hefty 17mm chassis bolt (at around 80lbs torque). This might be enough to support the new bracket. The existing OEM bracket would then just provide a backing for the bushing clamp bolts. It does look like the existing OEM bracket provides some leverage support and stability for the AVO bracket, but not sure how much. You might email (or call) the guys at Rallitek to get their thoughts on your situation.

 

By the way, do you know what the cause of the break was (e.g., a particular turn, a bump, a driveway, etc)? And how thick is your Whiteline RSB? 20mm?

[Gmachine]

The stock plate has the nuts welded on,they keep the bushing clamps from walking up or down (AVO plates holes are slotted) It's not an ideal set up,but if you don't want to deal with the broken stock plate. Use a stronger nut and bolt to secure the bushing clamp. Maybe you can get someone to tack weld the nuts to the AVO bracket.

[LibertyGT]

Thanks for the replies gentlemen. I emailed AVO in Austraia who referred me to Japan. A few emails have gone back and forth today and the recommendation is that the AVO bracket is supplementary to the OEM bracket. In other words I have to have the original unit welded back in place to locate the new bracket.

 

The AVO unit for Australian delivered Libertys (Legacys) is the same as the JDM unit and they will be three weeks before they are available in Japan to ship to Australia.

 

I am waiting on pricing and seeing who other of the forum members on my local site are interested.

 

The swaybar is 20MM solid Whiteline with their heavy duty spherical bearings links. Front now 22mm with the same end links, bars were set on hard.

 

This appears to be the issue, more tension on the flimsy bracket than they were designed for.

 

Here is a link to a few pictures.

 

http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i120/libertygt/Dead%20Alpaca/Mar07001.jpg

 

http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i120/libertygt/Dead%20Alpaca/Mar07002.jpg

 

http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i120/libertygt/Dead%20Alpaca/Mar07003.jpg

 

http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i120/libertygt/Dead%20Alpaca/Mar07004.jpg

 

For the record, I snapped a 22mm solid front swaybar some time back. I think I just have bad luck. I drive like a nanna compared to many of my Liberty owning mates. Maybe it's about the milage on my 3 year old car - 95,000kms

[Turninconcepts]

Thanks for the replies gentlemen. I emailed AVO in Austraia who referred me to Japan. A few emails have gone back and forth today and the recommendation is that the AVO bracket is supplementary to the OEM bracket. In other words I have to have the original unit welded back in place to locate the new bracket.

 

The AVO unit for Australian delivered Libertys (Legacys) is the same as the JDM unit and they will be three weeks before they are available in Japan to ship to Australia.

 

I am waiting on pricing and seeing who other of the forum members on my local site are interested.

 

The swaybar is 20MM solid Whiteline with their heavy duty spherical bearings links. Front now 22mm with the same end links, bars were set on hard.

 

This appears to be the issue, more tension on the flimsy bracket than they were designed for.

 

Here is a link to a few pictures.

 

http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i120/libertygt/Dead%20Alpaca/Mar07001.jpg

 

http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i120/libertygt/Dead%20Alpaca/Mar07002.jpg

 

http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i120/libertygt/Dead%20Alpaca/Mar07003.jpg

 

http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i120/libertygt/Dead%20Alpaca/Mar07004.jpg

 

For the record, I snapped a 22mm solid front swaybar some time back. I think I just have bad luck. I drive like a nanna compared to many of my Liberty owning mates. Maybe it's about the milage on my 3 year old car - 95,000kms

 

Is this typical of the failure of the stock mounts? Is anyone seeing a failure of the mounts up at the welds?

[LRegvall]

The swaybar is 20MM solid Whiteline with their heavy duty spherical bearings links. Front now 22mm with the same end links, bars were set on hard.

 

This appears to be the issue, more tension on the flimsy bracket than they were designed for.

 

Here is a link to a few pictures.

 

 

 

For the record, I snapped a 22mm solid front swaybar some time back. I think I just have bad luck. I drive like a nanna compared to many of my Liberty owning mates. Maybe it's about the milage on my 3 year old car - 95,000kms

 

The bar angle in the picture looks a little different than OEM. Also, were the hose clamps needed to keep the bar aligned. Both of these could have contributed to the bracket failure by changing the angles at which the torsional force was applied to the bracket.

[overl0ad]

I am waiting on pricing and seeing who other of the forum members on my local site are interested.

 

let me know, i'm in melb and getting worried....

[LibertyGT]

Sorry for the slow response on this. We organised a group buy of 10 units through AVO in Melbourne. The part number for Australian delivered Libertys is AVO-27M (not the part number they are now listing on their website).

 

Seven sets of these units were fitted at my place when they arrived in. My car was the second highest mileage car we fitted them too. I did have to get the oem bracket re welded and strengthened prior to the AVO bracket being installed.

 

The other car that had higher kms on it (114,000kms) his brackets had become quite flexible but the AVO unit certainly sorted all issues.

 

Highly recommended for anyone with upgraded bars either installed or being installed.

 

The brackets took about 30 minutes to fit per car and the 17mm bolt has a torque setting of 139ft/lbs to retention (as per Subarus tech notes - not 80ft/lbs as per AVO instructions).

 

A breaker bar was essential to get these bolts out.

 

AVO website lists the part as AU$132.00 plus frieght, the next shipment should have arrived by now, I have another friend coming to get his fitted on arrival.

 

Tim