Sway bars (Page 1/1)
pontiacfierokid1985 JAN 19, 12:37 AM
Ok so question I have the opportunity to get a front sway bar. I was going to mount this on the rear of the car is that possible or do I have to put a bigger front bar up front and a stock fiero one in the rear ??? This is for 84-87 suspension. Motor is a 3800sc with a 4 speed Muncie.
Dennis LaGrua JAN 19, 09:01 AM
Fiero front Sway bars have been mounted on the rear by some, but they hang just a bit too low for my liking. IMO, the Fiero Store Bar is aesthetically a better choice. On my Fieros adding a rear bar has made a HUGE difference in handling and eliminated the bump steer.

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olejoedad JAN 19, 09:29 AM
Spend the money and buy the Fiero Store front and rear heavy duty sway bar set.

Sway bars need to be matched to each other.

Many people have added a front bar to the rear, and have said that it helps - but the bars are not matched to each other, so not all of the gains they were after we're realized.

I had the matched set on my 86SE and they are well worth the money!

By far one of the best add-ons to a pre-88 Fiero.
Blacktree JAN 19, 12:21 PM
You can put a front sway bar on the rear. It's a pretty popular mod. However, if you keep the stock sway bar up front, you might get too much oversteer. But you can address that.

One way to address it is to install a stiffer sway bar up front. Another alternative is to use different bushing materials. For example, you could use stiff sway bar bushings up front (i.e. urethane, and maybe Rodney Dickman's "zero lash" endlinks), with soft bushings in the back (i.e. rubber). That will tone down the oversteer.

I did something similar in my first Fiero, and it worked well. It was an '86 Fiero with the 4-cyl and the Isuzu 5-speed. I used the stock sway bar up front, with urethane bushings (both the endlinks and the bar bushings). In the back, I used an Addco 3/4" sway bar with rubber bushings (endlinks and bar bushings). The understeer / oversteer balance was pretty good, with a slight bit of oversteer.
Kevin87FieroGT JAN 20, 09:18 PM
Fierofool did a great write up on pre-'88 sway bar choices, mostly focusing on using the front sway on the rear. Might try a search using his name.
fierofool JAN 21, 09:54 AM
Thank you for the compliment. I had some serious handling problems due to abuse by a previous owner. Replacing all the suspension bushings, ball joints, tie rods and ends, shocks and struts still left it short of stock handling. It once had a larger front swaybar and the stock front sway bar mounted on the rear. During an engine replacement, the sway bar on the rear was discarded by the engine installer. This put the car into Ralph Nader's class of Unsafe At Any Speed.

The rear sway bar was mounted at the rear of the cradle, just by drilling holes into the cradle and using self-tapping bolts. The cradle walls are very thin and I don't know how they ever held the stress of a sway bar. My solution was to move the sway bar mounts to the front of the cradle and I used the factory holes to the rear in the control arms.

Though this will improve handling, the downside is that you will need to replace the rear ball joints more often as the force on them is reversed from what they were designed for.

So that we don't overload our bandwidth, rather than provide a link to my writeup, you can visit www.gafiero.org and go to the Message Board, General Fiero Discussion and do a search for Rear Sway Bar Performance Upgrade. That will take you to what I found to resolve my problem.

A more lengthy thread is located here; http://www.fiero.nl/forum/F...2/HTML/137688-3.html

[This message has been edited by fierofool (edited 01-21-2021).]

fierofool JAN 21, 10:49 AM
By the way, if you're interested in pad mounts like Patrick and I used, rather than bolting mine through the cradle, I welded them to the cradle. I had pads fabricated at a machine shop and I still have an extra pair. My cost was $40. I'll let them go for that plus shipping of your choice.

The studs are welded into the pads and are spaced for stock front sway bar bushing saddles, so you can use your softer stock or aftermarket poly sway bar bushings.
Patrick JAN 21, 03:26 PM

quote
Originally posted by Blacktree:

One way to address it is to install a stiffer sway bar up front. Another alternative is to use different bushing materials. For example, you could use stiff sway bar bushings up front (i.e. urethane, and maybe Rodney Dickman's "zero lash" endlinks), with soft bushings in the back (i.e. rubber). That will tone down the oversteer.



This is the route I took (which was pretty well described in This thread). The factory front sway bar on my '84 was a little bit thicker than the other factory "front" sway bar that I installed in the back. To make the front sway bar even "stiffer" I used Rodney's zero lash endlinks, whereas in the back I retained the use of rubber endlink bushings. The car handled fantastic after these modifications. Except for the lack of power (due to limitations of the 2.5), I'd have to say that my modified '84 handled better at autocross than my 2.8 powered '88 Formula.