Swaybar Disconnects - Ford Raptor

[Madcowranch]

Thanks for weighing in, Ming.

 

[KaiserM715]

Boy, this thread turned into a hornet's nest, and quickly. I have been involved with the off-road world for more than a decade. Usually the first mod done to any Jeep is sway-bar disconnects (there are a few who remove them completely). The first stop on the trail is to air down and disconnect sway bars. The last stop is to air up and reconnect them. I will also offer an addendum to Dan's comments about the rear sway bars on TJs / JKs. The rear sway bar is quite a bit smaller / more flexible than the front and therefore impedes articulation, etc. a lot less. Currie's AntiRock is also relatively small and therefore relatively easy to flex.

Do sway-bars help a vehicle corner better on the street? Absolutely. Do they prevent articulation and the wheels moving independently from each other? Absolutely. Would I run on the street without them? No. Would I be worried about running without them off-road? No. It is simply a trade. Which is more important at a given time: cornering stability or articulation / independent wheel travel? frogslinger did a good job summing things up in post #57.

Dodge chose to have the 18 mph re-engagement to prevent folks from driving on-road at highway speeds, towing, etc. with the sway bar disconnected to reduce their exposure to liability, which correct me if I am wrong, is the view Ming is coming from as well. From this point of view, it doesn't really matter if the sway bar being disconnected did or didn't contribute, it is whether or not a lawyer could make the issue stick in front of a jury from the general population (the vast majority of which know nothing of cars other then where to put gas in). Does it make sound business sense to reduce exposure to liability? Absolutely. MarkT also brings up a good point. If we are going to go down this road, then where is the line drawn? Don't change wheels / tires to reduce the remote possibility of liability? If that is the case, we had better stick to which car wash and wax works the best....

 

[MagicMtnDan]

Great post Will (Kaiser), thanks for weighing in with your experience and perspective.

My only comment, and it's a redundant one, is that Jeeps are very different than the Raptor. Rarely (if ever) do you see a Jeep flying across terrain at the rate of speed the Raptor is capable of going in stock form.

My question to the the readers is how much value does the Raptor's anti-sway bar have OFFroad? One response could be, "A lot more than a Jeep's anti-sway bar would have."

 

[MingTheMerciless]

Dodge chose to have the 18 mph re-engagement to prevent folks from driving on-road at highway speeds, towing, etc. with the sway bar disconnected to reduce their exposure to liability, which correct me if I am wrong, is the view Ming is coming from as well.

Thats exactly where I am coming from. Mod away but don't be a bonehead. When you talk about airing up and down, and disconecting and reconnecting, thats what I mean by modding smart. Its no fun to perform due diligence but it can save you from ...

... it doesn't really matter if the sway bar being disconnected did or didn't contribute, it is whether or not a lawyer could make the issue stick in front of a jury from the general population (the vast majority of which know nothing of cars other then where to put gas in).

...this exact thing. The #1 example I gave - the real one - resulted in a multimillion dollar judgment being handed out and a lot of it had to do with exactly this ignorance on the part of the jury.

If modding is a crime I would get life in prison. We all take risks when we do it. Doing it smart makes a *big* difference the one-time-in-a-million when things get ugly. Just don't be oblivious to this when you do stuff to your vehicle. CYA ... and go out and have fun.

 

[bstoner59]

Has anyone driven the Raptor with and without a swaybar? I'm not sure anyone but Bo and I have that have been responding?? I wouldn't drive a Jeep on the street without a swaybar due to the hieght, wheelbase and narrowness of the vehicle.

I understand Ford and Dodge etc install certain things in order to limit their liability....it's part of the world we live in. Ford also installs blocks on Nav screens, doesn't allow you to push the memory button on your seat while out of "Park" and has some stupid a$$ traction control device installed on our trucks because the lawyers want to limit liability.


It sounds like you guys wouldn't be comfortable with the swaybar off so maybe you shouldn't do it

 

[BigJ]

Hey Ming is here! That avatar is a bit out of date though buddy... there's some serious gray in that beard these days

Seriously though, thanks for posting. That kind of "sanity check" is exactly what I was looking for. And in my opinion few of us are more equipped to offer it than you.

Stick around will ya? This group is small, but passionate (as you can tell). Good folks here, eager to learn and discuss. IMHO you have something to offer us, with all your road course experience; we share lots of the same physics and forces, and techniques needed to work with and counter them.

******

Brian, to answer your question: yes, I am running without the sway. With it installed, I hit the hills yesterday at lunch, and drove a 10 mile stretch of highway. I then pulled it and hit those same hills and highway stretch before heading home. The bottom line? I'm putting the bar back on today.

I don't have near the experience many of you have, nor do I have the education needed to talk intelligently. So bear with me as I try and explain.

On road I felt the tendency to overstear. I can REALLY see where lifting the nose and adding those Deaver springs like B has would make a huge difference, with no bar up front. That rear felt to me to be far more lively once I removed the bar than it was with the bar, which was surprising to me. I hadn't heard that mentioned before.

I made a few "emergency" lane changes at 60, 65 and 75mph. At 65 and above, that nose REALLY dives in the opposite direction of the turn. It didn't feel "unsafe" but if I was just cruising, not 100% focused on staying safe, I think the movement would surprised me, to be honest. And of course when you go to correct in your new lane, the thing dives to the opposite corner and now you've got a back and fourth battle you need to fight. Again, I wouldn't exactly call it "unsafe", but I would call it a handful to stay safe, in an emergency situation.

Around town, there's not much of a difference. Yeah the dive in the opposite direction of the turn is there; I think someone earlier described it as "squishy". That's really a perfect word for it... the response seems just as quick as with the bar, but with the added squishy sensation. Unsafe? Not at all. Again, IMHO anything under 55 or maybe 60, and other than being different feeling from stock, you're going to react just as normal and just as safe as with the bar.

My only "safety" concern is on the freeway. I know myself, and I tend to multitask when driving (yeah yeah I don't want to hear it. its a fact of life). I don't feel comfortable being slightly distracted, and needing to make an emergency maneuver without the bar on the freeway at my normal speeds. The truck will do what you need it to do, I just don't trust myself to be on my A+ game 100% of the time, to control the truck doing what I ask it to do. Does that make sense?

Now... offroad... WOW! What a difference. The truck came alive. No exaggeration. I could feel everything going on, and see with my minds eye what each corner was doing. In that environment, IMHO, disconnecting the sway enhances the experience dramatically. I really really liked it, and I would have zero concerns running slow or fast and hard without the bar. Again, the truck is going to do what you're asking it to do, no question in my mind. But unlike on road freeway crusing, offroad at high speeds I'm 100% focused, ready to control and react to the thing.

(Experts please feel free to correct/critique the following; again I'm just not experienced/educated enough to speak intelligently... I'm just speaking based on 'feel')
If I was forced to give a comparison for those who want to get a sense of what its like without the bar, I would say "Air down your tires to around 25psi and go play". The effect, to me, was very similar to airing down with the bar as it was to full air pressure without the bar. If you want to get 85-90% of the feel of no sway without actually removing it, to help you make up your own mind next time you go out, air down.

So again, bottom line for me is this: I'm going to reinstall the bar today, and keep my eye out for an aftermarket disconnect to come along. In the mean time, I'm going to research onboard air compressors, and just air down when I go off road. The off road experience I described above, for me, was close enough between the two to not justify running without the bar full time (or to be crawling around under the truck, fiddling with 7 nuts, a couple of ball joints and a rock shield twice per trip).

Hope that helps.

 

[Xjrguy]

What if you hit your light switch on the road for the 8,000,000 candle power and the oncoming car runs off the road and the whole family dies...that's you the driver of the Raptor with 8,000,000 candle power that is liable.

This is fun can we start a new "what if" thread...

Difference is the lights have a switch and a manufacturer that emphatically states "FOR OFF ROAD USE ONLY"

Do disconnected sway bars in your raptor have an on and off switch?

And yes, if the lights were the cause of the accident (and that could be proven in a court of law) you bet your ass that person would be liable for running them on the street.

That is a factor in those HID drop in replacements for halogen headlight housings are illegal. Even more so because the headlight is a functional, required part of the vehicle where auxiliary lighting is not.

 

[bstoner59]

Very nice write up J and 100% in line with my thoughts. You have to know you limitations and what YOU are comfortable with.

I too took the swaybar off just to see how it fel and the 2nd night I had it off there was a chair the "jumped" out in front of me on the fwy... I first went to make an emergency lane change but the initial roll and not being sure if there was someone in the next lane had me quickly change my mind and HAMMER that chair to bits!!! I've seen and heard of way too many accidents due to things like that and I figured what's a dent in the bumper compared to a multicar pile-up. I'm almost positive the truck wasn't going to roll but why take the chance. I would like to say I have a pretty good feel for the truck when I'm driving and I will take the route of caution when at all possible. For instance I wouldn't tow a 6,000 trailer a long distance at speed with no swaybar...just takes the safe factor down a bit more for me and requires more attention to the road as J stated.


Like Tim said I don't drive like he and Dan do onrad...not because I don't want to I just don't feel like getting anymore points on my record I believe the truck handles better onroad with the swaybar...just common sense and experience. I didn't buy the Raptor to go fast offroad...I do/try things that make it handle better offroad. Again it's all about what you want to do with your truck and if you are comfortable with the handling characteristics.

All that being said adjusting the front end and putting the Deavers on make the truck more stable than stock setup

Thanks again for your write-up J and thanks to Ming for coming and giving a different perspective.

 

[bstoner59]

Difference is the lights have a switch and a manufacturer that emphatically states "FOR OFF ROAD USE ONLY"

Do disconnected sway bars in your raptor have an on and off switch?

And yes, if the lights were the cause of the accident (and that could be proven in a court of law) you bet your ass that person would be liable for running them on the street.

That is the same reason HID drop in replacements for halogen headlights are illegal. Even more so because the headlight is a functional, required part of the vehicle where auxiliary lighting is not.

That's the reason you would be at fault...not to mention it's illgal in the people's republic of CA.

I'm just being a jacka$$ trying to come up with anything that would cause one of us to be sued for an "at fault" accident.

I think we're all on the same page here...

 

[Xjrguy]

That's the reason you would be at fault...not to mention it's illgal in the people's republic of CA.

I'm just being a jacka$$ trying to come up with anything that would cause one of us to be sued for an "at fault" accident.

I think we're all on the same page here...

Did you recover from the golfing incident? hehehehe

We should set up an SVT OFFROAD legal fund for all of us hooligans!!

FYI, 1980's Flash Gordon is an AWESOME movie!!