Hey guys
Just wanting to know if anyone has mounted a swaybar in the rear of a 1600 and did they notice anything worthwhile.If so what type of swaybar and any details/Pics would be much appreiciated

Cheers Craig

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THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS CANT , CANT MEANS CANT BE FU#@CKED

The general consensus is that a rear swaybar will tend towards more oversteer.
Do you have understeer issues ?
I haven't fitted one myself.

It really depends on the rest of the car's setup. I fitted one to my road car many years ago and it introduced quite a lot of oversteer.

I'm in the process of fitting one to my track 1600 now, as it has a slight understeer problem. It overheats and wears the outside front tyre. Also tends to lift the inside front when cornering hard. I feel that I have the front end set too stiff, not sure if its springs / shocks or sway bar, but I'm hoping the rear sway bar may help. I'm trying the rear bar as a "quick and easy" fix because I have one lying round .

I can report back after Easter as the Datsun Nationals at Morgan Park will be the next time it hits the track.

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1970 ex Group A Rally P510
1971 P510
1972 180B SSS
1965 SP310 Fairlady
1966 SP311 Fairlady

I've got the same understeer/lifting the inside front wheel problem. What spring rates are you running?

Mine is 275lb/in with an adjustable Whiteline swaybar on the medium setting at the front, ~770lb/in and no bar at the rear. I think part of the wheel lift problem is the roll centre height of the front relative to the rear. I'm going to do some measurements and calculations before I start playing around with bump steer spacers/swaybars/spring rates.

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Track car: 1970 1600 Sedan, L18
Gravel car: 1981 Bluebird Wagon, L20B

I looked at getting a rear bar for my 1600 sedan a while back and spoke with the winning Classic Adelaide datto 1600 driver (John Spencer?) and he said that on the road the car wouldnt turn in with a rear bar fitted.
Couldnt argue with a winning car/driver on local roads, so left my car as is...

Perhaps ask 'Datoracer' (Hayden) what he uses on his circuit car. It could be down to the setup of the car, the driver, or the track/terrain.

If the car has a stock front sway bar, adding a rear bar might end up in oversteer problems.
If the car has a bigger , performance front sway bar ( one inch ), adding a rear bar will add stability.
If adding a rear sway bar to a car that already has a performance front bar causes oversteer, then the solution, in my view, is not to take the rear bar away, but to get a slightly wider front sway bar .

I have a performance sway bar in my 160J ( front). I will add a rear one fairly soon. I will add my comments about the results.

Jaime.________________________________________________________

As the other guys have aluded to, more info is required. If you're reasonably happy with the handling, save your beans and don't worry about a rear bar. If the car has major handling defects look to spring rates before looking to sway bars - sway bars are generally used to tune the handling rather than make dramatic changes. The exception to this is when you can't afford to change the spring rate (maybe due to wheel travel or something similar), in which case you're generally left with only bars (or changing the roll centre, but that's a whole new ball game). Finally, just be aware that if you significantly alter your spring rates you should really have your shocks re-valved to suit.

I ran my 1600 race car for many years without a rear bar and it handled pretty well. It had a mild tendency to understeer, however this was perfectly manageable via tyre pressures and the car was very forgiving. When you nailed the pressures, the thing was on rails. However, as part of the rebuild we're going through, I've change some intrinsic parts of the suspension and we have added a rear bar. The bar has been made by Selby, though I think they may also be available through Whiteline. The design mounts brackets behind the rear axles (from the moustache bar pins) and has the bar running forward, over the half shafts and onto the trailing arms. Cost will probably be close to $500 for the kit I suppose (I'm fortunate that one of the guys in the category organised the bar for me through his employer at mates rates). I can take some shots and post them up if you what's above isn't clear.

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"I love the smell of Avgas in the morning......."

That is great advise, I forgot to mention that. The issue with your existing coils/struts/shocks. Your suspension in summary pre-sway bars.

If your front and rear suspension is not optimal, then the sway bars can only do so much.

Using a front performance bar on old or less than optimal front suspension components ( coils, struts, camber/caster and steering linkage ) will only produce so so results.

That is equivalent to using a stock bar on good components.

The result of adding a rear bar to this system ( good front perf bar with old susp components and front performance bar ) will be the same as adding a rear bar to a car with fine suspension but only a stock front bar. You create more stiffness at the rear, creating as consequence an oversteer condition.

The best way to find out and learn to cope with changes is to first improve the suspension, then add the front bar, ending with the rear bar as tip of the cake.

Jaime._____________________________________________________

Well, fitting a rear swaybar to my 1600 did seem to improve the handling, with noticeably less understeer (without going too far towards oversteer). I fitted a new set of new Toyo R888 tyres as well, so I can't give 100% back-to-back results with the sway bar being the only change though.

All-in-all, seems like a change for the better

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1970 ex Group A Rally P510
1971 P510
1972 180B SSS
1965 SP310 Fairlady
1966 SP311 Fairlady

That sounds great !

A few photos when posible to see the rear set up would be appreciated.

Jaime._________________________________________________________

No worries; here's a shot of mine:

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"I love the smell of Avgas in the morning......."

are there different ways of mounting a rear swaybar?when i got my dato i had one already in it which i took off as it looked to be mounted a bit dodgy but it was mounted off the slots in the crossmember then bolted to the bottom of the arms off the bolts of the bump stops??

Yep, that's how mine is bolted up. The one pictured above looks to be much better designed.

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1970 ex Group A Rally P510
1971 P510
1972 180B SSS
1965 SP310 Fairlady
1966 SP311 Fairlady

As Dave suggested, there are different ways of mounting them. For many years there were no kits and people had to come up with their own approaches and the most convenient place to locate the links was on the bottom of the arms, under the bump stops, so alot of bars were done that way (I've seen others which connected to the side of the a-arm as per the way kit ones now do, albeit further towards the axle). There's nothing wrong with that approach and it works fine, but it just leaves the sway bar hanging a little low. In Improved Production we have a requirement that the car must be 100mm or more off the deck (excluding exhaust), hence the over axle design works a little better for us as it gives you a bit more freedom in terms of ride height.

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"I love the smell of Avgas in the morning......."

In my old car (road car), the under-the-bumpstops type swaybar was fine.

In the race car I have now (lower ride height than the old car), the sway bar hits on the trailer when loading the car, hits on a tree root when getting it out of the shed, its just a bit too close to terra firma .

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1970 ex Group A Rally P510
1971 P510
1972 180B SSS
1965 SP310 Fairlady
1966 SP311 Fairlady