Thx Manny ... Another Happy Customer !!

bgiles

bgiles

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A huge thanks to Manny and his buddy Rob, once again Manny has made a fellow vette owner extremely happy. Sent him a message rather late last night to see if he could install my new C6Z51 sway bar kit. As usual, Manny managed to find an opening to accomodate us guys who can hardly wait to see how our new mods will work out.

Just thrilled with the results of the beefier sway bars and new end links, pretty surprised to see how the oem plastic ones (end links) have twisted over the years (car is a 2001 coupe).

Equally exciting was the little "road trip" down the next exit to the new shop that Manny will be setting up. Had a tour of the building and all I can say is "Awesome". It will be the ultimate one stop shop for anything Vette !!

Thx again ... having the new sway bars installed made my entire weekend !!


Bruce
 
Thanks for the business Bruce .

It was a pleasure to meet you .
 
Awesome to hear! I like hearing your impressions of the new sway bars as that is a future Mod I would like to do. Is your car a Z51 from the factory so you moved up to C6Z51 bars from C5Z51 bars?
 
Hi Riley, the old sway bars were just the C5 base stock ones, in addition the car has the F45 select ride control system but as we know that controls the shock absorbers. I find the upgraded bars are really noticeble above 70 km per hour. Not sure what year you have, if you have the plastic end links or not but my old ones show signs of twisting for sure. As others have said, you can definetly feel the difference, especially over the C5 base bars. Here's some comparisons in bar size for the different kits. From what I read the C6 Z06 is overkill unless you are running really wide tires.

Corvette Sway Bar Specifications

Suspension Front (mm) Rear(mm)

C5 base 23.0 19.1
C5Z51 (97-99) 25.4 21.7
C5Z51 (00-04) 28.6 23.6
C5Z06 30.0 23.6
C6 base 25.5 17.5
C6Z51 31.0 25.4
C6Z06 31.0 28.0


Bruce
 
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I think you are dead on with your assessment. I've read the same results as you. I have a 2000 and never did look at the end links when the car was in the air. I'll have to do this some time. I would love to upgrade the sway bars in a year or two, maybe even move to coil overs while I'm at it....but doubt it.....but it's still on the list!
 
pics?

Here's another simple question. What is the main function of the sway bar? Anyone care to give a little suspension/steering 101?
 
The sway bar connects the lest side suspension to the right side suspension. The simplest explanation is that when you turn a corner, the outside of the car takes more weight which causes the suspension on that side to compress and the suspension on the other side, inside of the corner to extend. This is known as body roll. Since the sway bars connect the left and right suspension, when the outside suspension want to compress, it lifts up on the sway bar, the sway bar transfers this lifting motion to the other side and helps the suspension in the inside of the corner to resist extending keeping the car flat in a corner.

The sway bars are metal tubes that can twist so depending on the thickness of sway bar it increases or decreases the force applied to the other side. In theory, the thicker the sway bar the more it helps to keep the inside suspension from extending keeping the car flatter in a corner. There is a tradeoff though as if the bars are too thick, if you are going in a straight line and the left side goes over a bump, it will affect the suspension on the other side of the car disrupting the handling so you don't want to the bars to be too thick. It's a trade off between keeping the car flat in the corners yet allowing the suspension to act independently of each other in other situations. There is a lot more to it than that, but this is just the basics of what the bars do.
 
That's a sick upgrade! I've been looking at the Johnny O'Connell's from Pfadt for a while now, but the C6Z bars might be a cheaper option. For now I'm just running my factory C5Z bars with Prothane sway bar bushings and HD adjustable endlinks(no more wimpy plastic OEM ones for me).
 

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