I was zoned out the other day, and got to thinking about sway bar end links, how they work on our cars, and the design used on some other cars.

On our setups, rubber/poly bushings have to compress or expand before any real force is transmitted to the bar. It'* better with nice Energy Suspension links, but there'* still some isolation there, am I right? The body rolls in a corner slightly before the bar begins to do it'* thing.

I've noticed on some Fords and others, that they use more of a ball/socket design, with no isolation at all. As soon as suspension moves, the sway bar is moving with it. Given the space we have, and the design of our front ends, I don't think this would work for us...

But what if we were to take a set of Energy Suspension links (perhaps a size longer...), and trim like 1/4" off of the flat side of the poly bushings? In other words, make for less compressible material, more steel. Wouldn't that tighten up the handling even more than "regular" performance links?

I'm supposing that this has been thought of before, but I've never heard of it being tried or discussed even. I'm curious what everyone else thinks of this possibility?

The body roll you feel is in the rear, and has more to do with the flex of the bar than the endlinks.

Install full-coil spring rubbers like NASCAR uses to solve the problem. The endlink'* flex was certainly calculated into the springrate of the sway bar.

I hate to be slightly off topic, but do poly swar bar bushings make that much of a difference versus doing just energy suspension end links?

crazy.......Energy Suspension endlinks ARE Polyurethane.

Good point, on the endlink'* "give" being factored in by GM. That said, it doesn't seem that everyone here is satisfied with their stock GM engineering. I was just thinking that if one already has FE2/F41 sways, and wants even less roll, that perhaps removing the "squish factor" in the endlinks might assist in that.

And just an honest question: Why do you say that the felt body roll is in the rear? Maybe it'* just too late over here, but my mind is telling me that the car is a relatively solid unit, and that the rear can't roll without the front doing the same. Perhaps the rear isn't resisting the roll as strongly, but the body moves as one unit, no?

Front and rear will roll and sway at different rates. All cars are like this. Most cars are designed to roll a bit more in the rear. My personal belief is that this is intended to put the driver in a state other than 'at ease' to keep the driver from over-correcting. Depending on the setup and balance between front and rear, you either get neutral balance, understeer, or oversteer. My car has finally achieved neutral balance.

Throughout all my suspension modifications, the rear was always lacking in stifness and resistance to roll, even after the struts and endlinks. And this is with the thickest set of FE2 springs ever measured on this Forum.

If you want to get a feel for it, do what I did for boosty last year. I drove his car through a series of * curves under accelleration and braking while he sat shotgun with his eyes closed. You can 'feel' what the car is doing much better that way.

wren: I respectfully acknowledge you pointing that out, but I was going with "poly swar bar bushings" and "energy suspension end links" to show I was talking about two different items

No with the poly sway bar bushings you will not get as big a benefit or should I say noticeable feel versus doing the end links.
Much more stress (and compressible poly) at the end links than at the main bar bracket bushings.

When I installed the Poly centerlink bushings, I barely noticed a difference. Very subtle. I would assume new OEM bushings would have done the same. I was comparing old worn out centerlinks to new poly.

F14, you were misunderstood in your question because the topic was ENDLINKS.

Here'* the centerlinks:
http://www.bonnevilleclub.com/forum/...highlight=sway

In addition to the above, jrs3800 installed them on his 95, and have now formed significant stress cracks.

The red centerlink bushings have different overal measurements when compared to a stock rubber bushing. Don and myself noted several differences between the two, most notably the "nub" that willwren ground down on his install, but Don left intact on his.

Bill, when you get a chance, can you please post how your centerlink bushings are holding up? I'm wondering about that little nub modification and if it correlates to stress cracks.