Top mounted front anti-roll bar installation

[Mecky]

Hello fellow Europisti,

I would like to show you my latest upgrade (hopefully), which is intended for racing purpose, but may also be useful for road going Europas.

First things first: most of the ideas were stolen from our fellow member @Serge and his great video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfDneY0k_cE. It's only really the attachement to the shock screw, which I have done differently. I machined a sort of double-nut from a solid piece of hexagonally shaped steel. This piece was turned on a lathe, then drilled and thread cut-in from both sides. One thread is M12 (for the damper screw) and one is M8 (for the anti-roll bar linkage).

Serge's advantage is that he can work on the bare chassis, while I had to fit the bar with the body mounted. The most difficult part was to fit a the threaded counter plates for the brackets inside the T-section of the chassis. But this idea was flawed from the beginning. At the end, I fitted the brackets with the threaded plates as far outboard on the chassis as possible. This is advantageous from a functional point of view (torsion bar) and at the same time the threads can be installed outside the chassis, which is easily accessible. Nonetheless, you still need an angle-drill-machine. A normal drill is too long to fit in there.

The bar itself is a 20 mm solid steel bar, which I reckon should be around 3 - 6 time as stiff as the stock S2 bar and around 2 - 3 times as stiff as the TC anti-roll bar. The factors are depending on the adjustment of the slide clamps. These numbers are calculated with the web tool, which Serge is also using in his video. The overall length (straight) of my bar is slightly above 1.5 meters, but I'm quite sure that I will have to shorten it, in order to give enough space for full steering lock.

I made the required spacers between the brackets and chassis on a lathe from a solid round bar of Alumiunium. But I think, you could also make them using a hand saw and a file. An accuracy to a thenth of a millimeter is not absolutely necessary. Especially in my case, the chassis itself doesn't bear this kind of accuracy, as it is a sheet metal welded constuction, which already suffered a few crashs and repairs.

The installation of the bar itself is quite stressful, as I had to dismantle the brake master cylinders, as well as oil cooler piping and water hoses. Even the steering rack had to be loosened. But that should be a once-in-a-lifetime-job.

Now, I'm looking forward to testing this configuration on track. My car never had an anti-roll bar since the purchase. I hope this will reduce body-roll significantly. I will let you know, how it went after my roll-out next month.

Best regards
Stefan

[TurboFource]

Nice! Mine is similar, I just used the pivot bolt and some chunks of aluminum to hang it from.

[kram350kram]

You show me yours, I'll show you mine.

[berni29]

Hi Guys

Pardon my ignorance, but what is the limitation of the existing set up vs the advantages of this one?

Many thanks

Berni

[TurboFource]

The original setup on my car broke the studs off the shocks and dragged the links on the ground ….one of the lowest parts of the car

[Clifton]

Hi Guys

Pardon my ignorance, but what is the limitation of the existing set up vs the advantages of this one?

Many thanks

Berni

IMO, on a stock non adjustable bar nothing. If it's adjustable and mounted to the bottom, you run into clearance issues if the bar is set stiffer and the extra is hanging past the shock mount to the rear but it's only an issue when the wheel is turned.

[TurboFource]

Link end with road rash …

[kram350kram]

10-4 Turbo. I just don't like the low hanging shock mount ends. One shock mount badly bent when I first purchased the car along with the lower control arms.

[Mecky]

For me, the disadvantages of the original set-up are are mainly that it's the lowest point of the car and not adjustable.

But my car didn't come with an anti-roll bar, thus I was not even able to try the original one. Additionally, my Protech shocks don't have the mounting studs for the stock anti-roll bar.

The combination of all that made it a no-brainer forme to build a top mounted solution.

[Mecky]

I have now finished my set up. The ends of the anti-roll bar had to be shortened quite a bit. The original overall length of the bar, before I bent it, was 1470 mm. With this basis, you will always have enough excess material to cut after installation. At the end, I cut both ends of the bar so that they end round about 155 mm behind the center line of the front upright and damper. Longer ends could have touched my tires at full lock. But my tyres are 8" wide. With thinner wheels, you may be able to leave the ends longer.

Now, I have two limiting factors for adjustment: On the hard end of the adjustment scale it's the brake caliper, which could make contact with the link. On the soft end it is the angle of the link itself. As mentioned above, I manfufactured a special double-threaded nut to connect the link to the lower wishbone. In an ideal world the link would always be mounted exactly right-angled between wishbone and anti-roll bar. Clearly speaking, the link should have a perfectly upright position. But for that, the double-nut would need to be longer and ideally even have to be adjustable in length. Unfortunatey, this length is determined by the necessity to avoid contact with the wheel under full lock. Thus, my double-nut can't be longer than 35 mm. Again, thinner wheels could mean a bigger range. The softer I choose to adjust, the more will the angle of the link move away from being right-angled.

Something that causes me a small headache before the test drive is the tiny grub screw, which fixes the slide clamp. Maybe I'll put a bigger one in (bigger thread). But these clamps are sold like that by Merlin Motorsport. Thus, they should have thought about that, shouldn't they?

[kram350kram]

Nice job! On caliper clearance could you move the lower attachment link further inboard on the control arm?  As you state, the caliper is very close to hitting the vertical link at full lock, I just cannot remember how I resolved. Anyway would a wheel spacer help with clearance at lock, if you have body clearance at the wheel well lip? The increased track might be advantageous if rules allow.

[TurboFource]

I remember it being close to caliper also