Rear sway bar

[conedodger]

I really liked the feel of soft stock springs and stiff bars front and rear for autocross. This combo allowed me to throttle steer the car and had a very controllable oversteer tendency. On the track, the rear bar made things, well... exciting. Different set-up for a track car I think. More spring, no rear bar possibly. Don't know, but I will soon be finding out as my friend Bill Madamba will be Z schooling me on the track.

Set up is often driver preference though... So take all this advice and consider your own preferences for handling.

[jmortensen]

Just to be clear for future searches, only the 240Z Tokicos are progressive and have the issue mentioned. The Tokicos are linear for 280Zs and don't have the stacked dead coil issue.

It's not the stacked dead coils that are the problem. Eibachs have that on their progressive springs and I have explained to people numerous times that it's normal and not to be concerned about it. On the Tokicos, it's the WHOLE spring that is nearly bound with just the weight of the car on them. Start going over bumps and you have to wonder what's going to hit first, the coils or the bumpstops. You're right though, the 280Z linear springs don't have the problem. I think that's because they're stiffer.

[d240zx2]

RE: #13, Rob.

Be sure to say a big HELLO for me to Bill. He's one fast Z driver!

If I remember correctly, he runs soft springs w/bars.

Frank

[gnosez]

Up here in New England, we tend to run large front bars and 3/4 rears with whatever shock/spring combo you like (can afford) for street Zs. Even Zs w/coil-overs and higher spring rates (over 250) use a rear sway bar.

Race cars here, unlike the West Coast version, seem to run no rear bar but the spring rates (almost always w/coil-overs) are in the 300-400lb range.

Shocks: Tokico HTS or Koni ($180 vs $1,200) - guess which ones we run?

Jeff G78 - love the tire stickers on your avatar...

[biggels_7]

is there a difference between a 260z rear bar and 240z rear bar ?

cheers

Rich

[Jeff G 78]

No US-bound 240Zs came with rear swaybars, but the '73, I believe, had the brackets to mount a 260/280 style bar. The factory bar mounts in front of the axle centerline with the arms pointing rearward. The earlier 240's require an aftermarket rear bar that mounts to the crossmember support brackets behind the diff. Those bars have the arms facing forward.

I have no idea what other markets had in '73. It's possible that they did start installing factory bars that year. We only got the real estate and brackets, but no bar.