VS swaybar in upside-down

Remember that your suspension was unloaded when it was up on the rack.  Once the front suspension is loaded, the trailing arms rotate and push the sway bar down.  Check the location of the sway bar with the car on the ground,  the bar may be too close to the pavement and rub on bumps.   You may need to modify your bumper mounts.  Just a suggestion.  

@Will Hesch

Will,

If the curve points down (see Tom Murtaugh's post about being on JLG) then the bar is on upside down. The bar is put on this way because it is easier and the bumper brackets don't have to be modified. The downside is that the bar sits just a few inches above the ground. When your driving and a load is put on the front end the bar will rise up, but when that load is un-sprung and the car rises the bar will get closer to the ground potentially hitting the pavement. With the sway bar installed curve up and no bumper bracket modification it will hit or almost hit the bottom of the brackets. The bar will certainly hit with you put a load on the front end.

The correct way to install the sway bar is with the front of the bar curved upwards toward the top of the car. Any other way and you risk hitting the ground with it and causing a lot of damage.

See the other threads regarding this:

https://www.speedsterowners.com...ont-sway-bar-on-a-vs

https://www.speedsterowners.com...tion-was-wrong-maybe

Also, they make different bars for dropped spindled cars.

Well, aren't I a dipstick!

I checked the ground clearance and I have 5" which is the same as the bottom of the engine so I'd better watch out for 6" bumps...

It all seemed so good on paper...

Will, 

Remember as you hit bumps the sway bar actually turns down further. Put a couple hundred pounds in the bonnet and see how low it goes.  If you look in Tom's video, it doesn't look bad when it is sitting in Jay's garage, but when you have extra weight in the car, hit a bump or brake hard the nose dives and the bar lowers.

Just a thought.

Stephen

@Will Hesch

Your bar looks quite different than the one I posted above. It doesn't seem to have the abrupt bend in it like a lot of the sway bars. I would hate to "sway" you in the wrong direction. (Did you see what I did there?) Do you know the make/model of the sway bar? You don't by chance have a photo of how it was installed before do you? 

Robert, it's what Jonathon called a stock VW bar, I noticed that compared to yours, it's much thinner, remember, we're talking about sway bars here, don't let it go to your head.

And yes, I did see what you did there, you clever devil you!

I don't have any photos of before...sadly, only after....

Will, I have what I think is the 'standard' VS front swaybar installation. Here's how it was installed when I got the car. With stock (non-lowered) ride height, I too have about five inches of ground clearance, which seems to be enough - I don't think I've ever hit anything with the swaybar.

But, as has been pointed out, things don't stay the way they are in the photo once you're moving down the road. The sway bar swings up as you hit bumps. Way up.

When I first got the car, the front suspension seemed very rough and I got a lot of 'clunking' going over bumps. It turns out the sway bar was hitting the U-bolt that holds the bumper bracket. I had only about 3/4 inch travel before the bar hit the bolt.

So, we trimmed the bolt back and this made a huge difference. But, now I see that the bar (even though it's mounted in the inverted position) is still hitting the bracket itself on big bumps. This doesn't happen much, but it's something that needs fixing. And just when I thought I'd never have to do anything more to this car.

You can see from this why VS has the sterling reputation it does for thoroughly sorting every last detail before any car leaves the works. And why it's a good idea that any new car be inspected carefully by an experienced VW dude.

One last note about clearance. I too had clearance issues with the sump. Some of our brothers with A-1 exhausts have pipes that hang lower than the sump and that is in some ways a good thing. With the Vintage Speed exhaust, the sump is the first thing to hit. I know this to be true, but I'd rather not explain exactly how I know. I also know that the drain pan bolts are the first things to hit and that they're not nearly as durable as you might suspect. And finally, I know that banging the pipes causes less damage than banging the sump.

I eventually had the rear torsion bars adjusted to raise the ride height a little. I'm not crazy about how this affects stance, but I now have comfortable clearance under the sump. It's now at six inches, so I should, in theory, hit the front sway bar before the sump. And VS has proven over the years that the front swaybar can stand up to quite a lot of contact with things that go bump.

crhemi (Bill) poboiinhawaii posted:

Also, they make different bars for dropped spindled cars.

Just to clarify so no one goes looking for something they don't need-

the "dropped" sway bars are for front ends that have been majorly dropped by adjusting or modifying the torsion leaves (sway a way center units that you weld in to the center of the tubes, cutting and rotating the centers or pulling torsion leaves out). The trailing arms are no longer close to parallel with the ground, and now point downward and the front part of the bar has more bend in it so it doesn't catch on anything. A front end where most of the drop is achieved by offset spindles will use a stock or regularly shaped heavier anti-sway bar.