I thought I would share a mod I performed on my car regarding the clearance issue resulting from utilizing straigh adjustable rear camber arms. This is normally remidied by purchasing adjustable sway bar links. However, increased clearance can be attained by relocating the links lower mounting positions. Cost of this mod: $0 plus your time!

 

Speechless. Inventive ..... interesting ...... provoking. I don't know what to think. It makes me wonder. It may be better to just remove the sway bar. Don't know. How does the car feel when pushing it? I'm sure it's fine for normal driving but I can't guess how it works under stress. Or if it matters. Humm.

Les

 

Well done. I have the adjustable rear camber arms, and didn't know there was a clearance issue. I'll have to look at it again. Could you hear it hitting? What driving conditions provoked it?

 

No noticeable difference. The interference occurs when the suspension bottoms. In my case I couldn't hear it.

 

After playing with multiple settings (spring pad sizes, sway link length) I have mine pretty good now but contact still happens in some cases. I was actually thinking more along the lines of an offset end to get the bar to sit lower. It's a game of mm down there so I feel like this route would work. Finding one that will work on mikes arms and our cars is another story though. Here is an example (won't work obviously but concept is the same)

 

If you are lowered there are a couple ways it can happen. The sway hits the body seam and then the camber arm hits the sway. This definatly makes a noise, the other case is that the sway kind of rides up the camber arm, this is not as noticeable. You will see marks on the camber bar or dings in the body / sway bar. I used some acrylic paint on mine when testing to see if there was any new contact as is scratches off easily.

Here is a video, hard to tell exactly what's going on but you can see some jerky movement of the bar when they bind up together.

 

Well done. I've been looking for an offset rodend for quite a while now. Nothing plug-n-play. I'm working on a 2-piece rodend. offset.

If you can't buy one, make one?

 

If you can make one ill get in line I feel like it doesn't even have to be much of an offset to make things right back there. I even thought of just an offset spacer for mikes to gain a few mm could do the trick.

 

Nice video clip Airscape. Is that a hero camera or something? I got to get me one of those, pretty cool. From what I see on your clip, you just have to extent your sway bar links 1/2" or so to solve the interference issue but you mention the sway bar hitting the body? Where exactly is it hitting?

 

I gotta go under it again, to do what?? Maybe when it gets warmer, 19 degrees aint cutting it. Woody

 

A lot of packing tape and an iPhone :P I have extended my links to the max mikeR recommended and I am in pretty good shape now. You can't see where it hits the body in the vid. Check mikes thread here I have a bunch of pics in there and my rumblings lol. Check the top of your sway and you will see some marks/paint chips if your banging hard, connect the dots to the body. You can see right above the red mark on the sway in one of my pics.

Basically if the link is too long you are going to hit the body first, too short and you get the grinding action. Les and a couple others ground the body seam down to give the bar some extra movement space. I may still do that but I am pretty close to satisfied at this point.

 

Found an older pic that shows it better

 

That video explained a lot to me about what is going on back there when you had posted it. Pretty cool trick with the i-phone. I like the idea of the offset rod ends and am interested. I still get a lot of noise and squeaking from the back. louder at lower speeds and the same issues others have posted with the aggressive lowering. I am still getting slight contact on the sway bar and hope the offset will quiet things down. Anyone know the specs on the QA1 rod ends that Mike used to retro fit? I looked at the install instr. and the only thing is the jam nut is 15/16" or 24mm.

 

I'd have to take them apart to be sure. I could not find anything QA1 that was offset in my search though. Most offset stuff I have found is for actual off road use (jeeps etc) and are nothing like our ends. I even looked at some curved bars for other cars but the bends are more extreme. After putting the sway links to full (per mike) things seem better but there is still some clanging.

I still need to switch back to the OG bushings to see how much that helps with the low speed squeaks. The poly ones are just not right as is, modifying them may help. Cold weather and switching back to the stock rims has put a hold on my playing around. Will post my ramblings as soon as I get back on the hunt. I'll see if I have pics of the arms taken apart somewhere.

 

Mike quote. Don't think he was talking specifically about camber in that quote but think he used the same sizes on all the different arms/links he made.

 

McMaster-Carr P/N 4475T151 (Right hand threads)

McMaster-Carr

 

I e-mailed a few off road companies in an attempt to source one out. I'll let everyone know if I hear anything and remain pessimistically optimistic.