What does Sway Bar do?
An anti-roll bar (also called an anti-roll bar or anti-roll bar) is a suspension component on some vehicles. You might guess that "rocking" a car or truck is not a good thing, so an anti-roll bar would be useful, and in the broadest sense...
An anti-roll bar (also called an anti-roll bar or anti-roll bar) is a suspension component on some vehicles. You might guess that "rocking" a car or truck is not a good thing, so an anti-roll bar would be useful, and in the most general terms it is right. But it's also a bit more complicated than that.
To understand the function and purpose of an anti-roll bar, it is helpful to consider what other parts make up a vehicle's suspension and what they do. Each car suspension includes:
Wheels and tires. Tires provide traction ("traction") that allows a car to accelerate, decelerate (slow down), and turn. They also absorb shock from small bumps and other road bumps.
Springs. Springs protect passengers and cargo from large impacts.
Shock absorbers or struts. While the spring cushions the shock when the car hits a bump, shock absorber or strut, the thick oil filled cylinder absorbs the energy of the same bump, which causes the car to stop bouncing.
Steering system. The steering system converts the actions of the driver from the steering wheel into the reciprocating movement of the wheels.
Couplings, bushings and hinges. Each suspension includes many linkages (solid parts such as control arms and other linkages) that keep the wheels in the correct position when the vehicle is moving, as well as bushings and pivots to connect the linkages while still providing the right amount of movement.
Please note that this list does not include an anti-roll bar because some vehicles do not have one. But quite a few, so let's delve a little further. What does a stabilizer do that the parts listed above don't?
The purpose of the anti-roll bar
The answer goes back to the assumption above, that a rocking (or actually anti-rocking) bar keeps the car from rocking (or, more accurately, from tilting to one side or the other). That's what an anti-roll bar does: it prevents the body from tilting. The anti-roll bar does nothing at all unless the car is leaning to one side, but when it starts to lean (which usually means the car is turning - every car or truck tends to lean out of the corner), the anti-roll bar applies force to the suspension on each side , up on one side and down on the other, which tends to resist tilt.
How does an anti-roll bar work?
Each anti-roll bar is a torsion spring, a piece of metal that resists twisting force. The stabilizer is attached at each end, with one end to one wheel and the other end to the opposite wheel (both front or both rear) so that the wheel on one side is higher than the other, the stabilizer has to be twisted. The anti-roll bar counteracts this turn, trying to return the wheels to their original height and level the car. This is why the stabilizer does nothing unless the car body leans to one side: if both wheels rise at the same time (as in a bump) or fall (as in a dip), the stabilizer does not work. You don't need to turn it, so there is no effect.
Why use a stabilizer?
First, it can be uncomfortable, embarrassing, or even dangerous when the car leans too much in corners. More subtly, uncontrolled body roll tends to cause changes in wheel alignment and in particular their camber (leaning in or out), reducing their traction; limiting body roll also allows for camber control, which means more stable grip when braking and cornering.
But there are also disadvantages in installing rigid anti-roll bars. Firstly, when a car hits a bump on only one side, it has the same effect on the suspension as body roll: the wheel on one side (the side that hit the bump) moves up relative to the car body, but the other does not. The anti-roll bar resists this movement by exerting force to keep the wheels at the same height. So a car with a stiff anti-roll bar that hits such a bump will either feel stiffer (as if it had very stiff springs) on the side of the bump, lift the tire off the road on the other side, or both. , and other.
Vehicles that face high cornering forces and for which maximum tire grip is critical, but that tend to drive on level roads, tend to use large and strong anti-roll bars. Powerful vehicles such as the Ford Mustang are often equipped with thick front and rear anti-roll bars, and even thicker and stiffer anti-roll bars are available in the aftermarket. On the other hand, off-road vehicles such as the Jeep Wrangler, which must be able to negotiate large bumps, have less rigid anti-roll bars, and specialty off-road vehicles sometimes remove them entirely. The Mustang feels confident on the trail and the Jeep remains stable on rough terrain, but when they switch places, neither works quite as well: The Mustang feels a little too bumpy on rocky terrain, while the Jeep rolls easily in tight corners. .
