We cracked the the front beam in the last race and are replacing it. What type of torsions is most recommended?

For a link pin front end, I would put sway away 5 leaf bars. if 5 leaf are not available, put sway away 6 leaf. Ball joint front ends should use stock bars. Hope this helps--Dave-co

Thanks Dave its a king pin and we bought the 5 bar's today

DaveCo11 wrote:


Dave,

I'm curious, what one would expect if he were to run sway-away leafs on a ball joint, cut and turned front end.

Thanks,

Steve

Problem with ball joint leafs made by sway away is they brake, Sway away does not make a full set of leafs, you add them in place of some of the stock leefs. I have tried it severel times threw the years and broke the swayaway(STAYAWAY) leefs every time. I have found the stock ball joint leefs to be much better and last for years. That is why I only recommend stock VW ball joint torsion leefs with about 9/16 cut and turn top and bottom. With that rotation the leefs will give a great ride and hold the car up well. Link pin cars I recommend 5 leef bars top and bottom from Stayaway. Hope this helps and clears up why.

We ran the sway a way balljoint add in's and they were too stiff for us. We had a front mounted tank, cut and turned 9/16\" on top and bottom, and stock valving in fox class 11 shocks. Too stiff, the suspension rarely bottomed but it also didn't cycle well. I have kept them around for fine tuning, I may run the upper SAW with the lower stock at some point. Who knows, it's nice to have options when you don't have an adjuster in the front end. I'm also going to go to bilstein's this time around.

Thanks for the info Dave and Michael! I sure wish we had this type of resource when we were building ours 16 years ago. We pretty much started building it from the dune buggy book! However, we did meet an excellent fabricator once we got started and he offered us better direction as well as the professional safety cage. I’d say our cars’ strengths were the engine reliability and safety cage. Its weakness was a properly dialed in suspension.
Although I can’t remember how much our front beam was turned, we did set it up with some combo of sway-away. I suspect we had as many SW leafs as we could put in. Our front was rock solid, no bounce unless we hit hard. I think we could have run without front shocks!
Is there a method to measure how much it was turned after the fact?
Either way it looks like we should try a stock set of torsion leafs. Where is a good place to get a new set of stocks leafs?

Thanks again,

Steve

DON'T THINK NEW ARE AVAILABLE. I EXPERIENCED THE SAME AS OTHERS TRYING THE SWAY-AWAY BARS IN MY BALL JOINT FRONT END AND THEY DIDN'T LET THE SHOCKS WORK AND WAS REAL STIFF. I THINK YOUR BEST BET ON STOCK BARS FOR THE FRONT IS TO FIND A USED FRONT BEAM THAT DOESN'T APPEAR TO HAVE BEEN ABUSED AND WORKED VERY HARD (THE LATER THE BETTER) AND TRY THOSE IF THEY'RE NOT BROKE. THAT'S WHAT I DO.

I see a new stock set of front leafs listed for $32.50 per set on samba. Has anyone tried these in a race car or otherwise? Should I use them in the 11?

thanks,

Steve
TGFC

DO NOT PUT THOSE ON YOUR CAR!!!!!! Make sure your beam is rotated 9/16 top and bottom tube, and just get some old stock BJ leafs. They are found pretty much everywhere. Good luck