100,000 miles with the Webb rear Sawy bar

[meb]

The Webb bar has been a companion for quite some time and although it works well my inner voice - it actually screamed out loud a few times - persuaded me to remove the bar for good this past weekend.

Personally this is not a bar for the street...for the kind of streets I drive on. A portion of some of the highways I drive on have been under construction for 4 years. As such, the constant pounding caused the shaft collars to slide and this allows the torque tube to move around causing all sorts of unwanted motions. I've goine thru a few sets of shaft collars as well.

In the above I cannot really find fault with the bar but the fact that the splines on each side of the torque tube are not lined up is annoying and this just shouldn't be. Yes, we can over come this with adjustable endlinks - what if we don't use them??? My bar did not come with adjustable endlinks for example and this made initial setups impossible.

The bushings are also an area of frustration because the the mini's sub frame is not a perfect piece of engineering. As such the torque tube centerline axis never lines up with the centerline of the bushings causing a lot of bind in the torque tube. This places a lot of strain on the bushing material and the bolts holding the bushing retainer/carrier in place. And because these two components bind, the bushing carriers need to be removed if the torque tube is removed.

I think this is a great bar for the track...with a little refinement. I also understand that all mini sub frames are a wee bit different; some allow a perfect alignment of torque tube and bushing and some do not. The new bushing carrier design did not help in my case; the carriers need to posses a left right adjustment as well.

In terms of making adjustments to bar settings in the field...very easy...but the unequal splines pre twist the torque tube and this will make final adjustments tricky and inaccurate.

I am running bar less at the moment...I'll add a stock bar or something a little bigger.

[THE ITCH]

Meb
I can understand your frustration. I really do not understand why your splines do not line up. I have checked mine and they line up fine.
I did have some problems getting the bushing carriers to line up as you mentioned. I found that the area that the bushing carriers mounted to the subframe were not quite flat. When applying the correct torque to the carriers that is what created the binding. I cured that problem by using some shim material under the carrier. Once I got it right the torque tube has no binding. On my subframe the welded nuts seemed to have a slight depression so using some very thin shim washers brought the surface back to flat.
Thus far I have had no problems with the shaft collars moving.
Once you get the alignment right it is a great piece. Because their is almost no flex in the bushing material is one of the reasons that this bar works so well.
Steve

Originally Posted by meb

The Webb bar has been a companion for quite some time and although it works well my inner voice - it actually screamed out loud a few times - persuaded me to remove the bar for good this past weekend.

Personally this is not a bar for the street...for the kind of streets I drive on. A portion of some of the highways I drive on have been under construction for 4 years. As such, the constant pounding caused the shaft collars to slide and this allows the torque tube to move around causing all sorts of unwanted motions. I've goine thru a few sets of shaft collars as well.

In the above I cannot really find fault with the bar but the fact that the splines on each side of the torque tube are not lined up is annoying and this just shouldn't be. Yes, we can over come this with adjustable endlinks - what if we don't use them??? My bar did not come with adjustable endlinks for example and this made initial setups impossible.

The bushings are also an area of frustration because the the mini's sub frame is not a perfect piece of engineering. As such the torque tube centerline axis never lines up with the centerline of the bushings causing a lot of bind in the torque tube. This places a lot of strain on the bushing material and the bolts holding the bushing retainer/carrier in place. And because these two components bind, the bushing carriers need to be removed if the torque tube is removed.

I think this is a great bar for the track...with a little refinement. I also understand that all mini sub frames are a wee bit different; some allow a perfect alignment of torque tube and bushing and some do not. The new bushing carrier design did not help in my case; the carriers need to posses a left right adjustment as well.

In terms of making adjustments to bar settings in the field...very easy...but the unequal splines pre twist the torque tube and this will make final adjustments tricky and inaccurate.

I am running bar less at the moment...I'll add a stock bar or something a little bigger.

[meb]

I agree Steve, the bar worked very well. I really should have removed the sub-frame and installed the torque tube and brakets off the car...had this been a weekend warrior car that's the path I would have taken. This procedure facilitates clean access to all parts and the tinkering neccessary to over come the mini's sub-frame build quality would have been quite easy.

Again, the miss-aligned splines are my only real gripe. All else is on Mini/BMW.

And, removing the sub-frame isn't a big deal at all! A nice sunny day, a good cup of joe and it's over before you know it...kinda like my last procedure

My comments about using this bar on poor quality public roads was really meant to say, this bar is wasted on public roads at some level....and some are super bad!

[PenelopeG3]

That style sway bar is definitely more suited for track use