Check your whiteline 20mm 2-hole FSBs
 

Just a heads up/FYI for you all who run a whiteline swaybar.

I purchased a BSF45Z through a vendor (which really doesn't need to be named because they have no involvement with this specific issue), and upon installing it I noticed very quickly an issue with fitment.

Specifically, the right/passenger side of the lever arm contacts the lower control arm at full droop position for my specific suspension.

I took measurements, and quickly found out there happens to be a variance in the lever arm from left to right. I sent this off to whiteline.

Finally got a response, and it's not a good one.

I've had 2 other people report back to me with this same exact issue. And I'd want to pass this along. Longer right side lever arm will play havoc on any tuning of your suspension.

Not really, it's not like it's changing in between drives, it will always be the same once it's bolted together. A sway bar is just a spring, this is like buying a 400# spring and testing it to find out it's actually 392#

Weird thing would be if you swap out for the 'same' bar and it's of a different stiffness due to different lever arm lengths. Or if you don't have adjustable endlinks creating a preload on the bar, which if you cared this much about the dynamics you'd spring for the adjustable links, and at the end of the day the bar would be preloaded the same every time you got in, it wouldn't be unpredictable.

Any clearance issues should be solved by shortening the adjustable endlinks, wish whiteline spec'd shorter ones in their package for the front, but I bet those lengths work for a WRX and weren't changed for the 86.

I'll give it a measurement next time my wheels are off, bought mine approximately a year ago, but I don't plan on returning it or anything. But given I didn't have any problems getting clearance (although it's tight as fuck and I want more) mine might be ok.

This would totally explain the threads that have popped up once in awhile for people who couldn't get clearance when mounted to the 'soft' hole and half the responses were 'it's fine you must be wrong' and the other half were 'mine did that too'

:cheers:

Thanks for sharing!

Having a right side of the bar that 0.5" longer than the left side with regards to hole location is pretty significant. As you're changing the torsional rate of that swaybar on 1 side, which is a different rate on the other side.

Sure, you could argue that you can change the torsional rate of the bar by going to stiff on 1 side and soft on the other side...thus making a medium setting. However, my point being is...you can not achieve "full soft" as per designed by Whiteline.


I've had to essentially throw out my endlinks that came with the kit, as:

1 - They are too long
2 - They contact the inner fender wall.

Yes, before you say they're installed wrong they are paired with MCS 2-way Externals and mounting points are quite different than any OTS shock for FRS/BRZ, thus I've been forced to make my own to gain clearance and shorten the length to a more acceptable value.

Perrin FTW

still lurking lol.

Just an FYI, I have MCS singles and the Perrin front anti-roll bar endlinks are too long for our dampers.

No you're not, the sway bar is a spring connecting two points on your suspension. Left or right arm lengths don't matter, the spring rate that ties together your left and right suspension together is what matters.

Apologies if you fully understand this already (it seems like you do) but I want to step through it any way because undoubtedly there are people reading this who don't.

Imagine that you've removed the coilover springs from your front suspension, sway bar still in place, you hold your left front wheel completely still and move the right front wheel 1" you'll have XXX lbs of force from the swaybar counteracting that movement. If you now hold the right front still and move the left front wheel 1" you will get the exact same XXX lbs of resisting force, no matter how far mismatched the lever arms are left to right, the swaybar springrate is taken as a whole, not one arm vs. the other.

This is why many many many people will run their swaybars with the links in different positions as a setting between hard and soft. The individual lever arms are used to achieve the desired spring rate of the bar as a whole.

If one arm is longer then it should be then it would be softer than advertised and impossible to achieve full stiff.

But I totally agree with this sentiment and the rest of your post, there shouldn't be any excuses from Whiteline, it sounds like they dropped the ball and they're doing what they can to investigate.

I only took issue with the 'play havoc with suspension tuning' statement, the bar should still perform adequately and people with incorrect bars can still accomplish their goals, it just may not perfectly match up with their % stiffer chart, but odds are it never did anyway.

:cheers:

Actually having the bar set to different holes/lengths from left to right will make very little difference as far as stiffness in either direction goes. Why? Because twisting of the bar is resisted by the other side. The stiffness will be nearly the same regardless of the direction it is twisted.

However, hitting the control arm is definitely an issue, as is preload on the bar at rest. I would think a set of adjustable endlinks could fix those issues?

This, plus Whiteline's insistence that "sway bar rates are proprietary so we don't give those out" (translation: I have no f***ing idea what the bar does), is only solidifying my stance against ever purchasing a Whiteline product.

Good find OP. This is a pretty common issue with many sway bars on lowered twins that has largely been blamed on funky geometries - now I wonder how many are actually just QC issues.

For anyone looking for shorter endlinks, these look like they may fit the bill: https://raceland.com/scion-frs-end-links.html

Just keep in mind, the shorter the endlink, the more steering bind you get. The stock endlinks are long for a reason.

If you know the stock bar diameter and stiffness, the chart makes it pretty simple to figure out what the difference is going to be. Given they have about the same bends and shape it is not going to be off by much.

my 22mm whiteline FSB seems no problem, professional installed.

You're missing the point. The bar's spring rate is a simple matter of physics. Other competitors like Hotchkis will gladly quote you the bar's rate at each adjustment hole. Not only that, but bar rate testers exist and it's a relatively simple matter to hook it up and determine its rate.

"It's proprietary and we don't want to share it" either means they were lazy when they designed it and didn't bother to do any math, or their QC sucks and they don't want you testing bars and discovering the quoted rate isn't accurate. In the OP's case, his bar would not have matched whatever spring rate the bar *should* have been, and the same will apply to anyone who bought a bar made on the bad jig.

It's no different from someone offering you a set of shocks, but saying the damping plots are proprietary and they can't share a shock dyno with you - the only reason to do that is because they don't know what the shock is doing, or you won't like what the shock is doing.

If someone tries to sell you something but won't share its most fundamental physics parameters with you, you should run away.

I have the MCS shocks as well and bought the shorter version of the WL endlinks which aren't marketed for any specific car. Much happier with those.

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/WHL-KLC180-195