I have some 82 Turbo sway bars I want to adapt to fit my 72 240z. Has anyone tried this before? I have some ideas on how to do it, just looking for some insight from someone that has tried. My idea is to heat the bar near the end and bend them slightly more so that they will fit the early Z.

For those of you that don't know, these bars are quite a lot larger than the stock front bar.

 

Hi Drax-----I have truly no idea on this conversion----So I will not try and make you an answer----------The only reason I am responding however is to your idea of heating and bending the sway bar............I can and will respond to this one.......Bad idea------------Heat is not a good idea on this type of application since what you are ultimately doing is weaking the metals composition......things like springs and sway bars are made of a tensil(i believe this is the correct terminology) steel which is formed and shaped--------heat weakens this metals ability to re-coil and perform its duty------talk with a suspension shop or possibly a metal fabrication shop to find if they know of any place capable of altering this for you-=-------I presume that the sway bar can be altered but probably requires a heavy duty press to do the modification-------Good luck

 

I've found out quite a lot more info, mostly from Terry Oxindale.

He's running with a surburban front bar, and I can't remember what rear right now on his HIGHLY modified Z. What eh's done to get things to fit is cut the bar ends, grind them flat and then drill them.

You are correct on the tempering. Any decent sway bar is made of spring steel, and you've got some serious problems if you overheat it. (even cutting, you have to be wary of heat) It is possible to get the steel "resprung" after heating, but apparently its a pricy process, and after that you'd have been better off buying aftermarket bars.

I am going to try this swap somehow, if sucessful I'll make sure its well documented.

 

Why not buy a bar that is made for the car? Sounds like alot of work for something that may or may not work the right way. What are you running for other suspension mods? What springs are you running?

 

The same reason I don't have coilovers, huge wheels, huge tires, new paint, body kits, custom interior, forged pistons, a bigger turbo, a spearco intercooler, and an RB26DETT. MONEY. (or lack of it) My labour is free, however.

 

Now thats an excuse that i fully understand!!
The reason that i ask, well, i am a suspension guy and in theory you always tune your suspension with springs and fine tune with swaybars.... I am running a big bar on the front of mine and will probably step down to stock real soon. I have really high spring rates on my car and have cured all of the reasons that i added the big bar in the first place. With the high spring rates i have i no longer have any of brake dive problems or the accel squat. The car is glued hard. I now have a slight push on corner entry only.. A smaller bar should fix my problem though. Anyways my point is if you really want to get the car to hook-up find a way to upgrade the springs.....

 

Sorry if I came off harsh there.

I plan on spending some time tweaking and playing with my suspension as well. I still have the stock bar, so I can always go back. I figured I'd compare the 2 setups and see what I liked more.

Also for springs I am running the stock ones, cut. Haven't tried them yet. I've only cut off a little bit, and I'm wanting to check it out in stanges. We'll see. I have a spare set if I mess up and go too far.

Hopefully somewhere between all these variables I can find a nice combonation with balance. Another thing that I am going to put effort into is making all 4 corners weigh the same.

 

my car is sporting a way stiff set of springs......around 600 in/pounds...stock sway bar, i have the same corner entry push problem, also i need to shorten the strut housings and run the v.w. front cartriges......the extremely low ride hieght makes the front bottom out quite often on the fine roads we have here in oregon, i think this is most of my front push problem......as for the rear.....i tried a grand national sway bar setup....and ended up removing it completely, the car need a lil bit of body roll to transfer wieght to the outside...with the rear swaybar........i had a major oversteer problem exiting the corners.........right now i have it tuned about the most comfortable for my driving style.......but i will have to start over as soon as im done with the v8 swap.....its never ending. hehehe