Rear sway bar

[twodko]

Hey Myk and Dino,

After giving this a lot of though the last few days and reading all of your comments (gawd I love this forum!)
I'm going to pass on installing this kit. This is the kit:

Hotchkis 2255R Performance Rear Sway Bar

Because I buy a good deal of stuff on Amazon I received some kinda good customer discount on this kit, read: spends a lot of money here.     Cost me $155.00

It's supposed to arrive Tuesday so if I have to send it back on my dime it would be pricey. My options are to refuse the delivery, sell it on CL or hope Amazon will give me a prepaid return shipping label.  

[myk]

Sounds to me like you may as well install it!   

[twodko]

Good morning Myk,

I'm trying not to vacillate on do or don't. What really put me off was when you mentioned getting
the heebie geebies drilling holes in the frame rails.  Yikes!
I'll probably wait to see how much the bill is for the brake kit install later this week. Maybe I can
swing another hour and a half labor cost to have it put on. 

Bummer discovery yesterday......I was driving over for my weekly P in L visit and heard
this sound like an unhappy wheel bearing on my 2009 2wd Dodge Ram 1500. Crap!
I'm taking it to the shop in a while to see whats up with that.

On another note in another thread you posted up a pix of your Charger at sunset yesterday.
Sweeeeeet!
Did you change out the passenger sided burned out TL bulb? 

[twodko]

Relieved......... pinion bearing nut on my 2009 Ram had backed off a bit.
All mo betta.

[bill440rt]

Tom, drilling the hole in the rail is not a big deal as you may think. IIRC it was a 3/8" hole or something?
There's a small bracket for the sway bar link that gets fished thru the rail. It's basically a flat piece of metal with a stud on each side. It gets fished up thru one hole, then one of the studs comes thru the second hole that is drilled.
Here is a pic of it installed, this was taken when I was putting my car together.

[myk]

It's a 1/2" hole, and like Bill said it's no big deal.  Just be sure to start out with a smaller sized bit, then keep enlarging it until you have a 1/2" hole. 

[twodko]

Thanks you guys. Bill, your car must be gorgeous!

I recently installed a pair of straight Westin oval step bars on my Ram.
The bracket fastener plates were these oblong thingys that had a welded nut
on one end and a threaded stud on the other.
You had to fish them through existing body holes and the brackets bolted to them.

Sounds like the Hotchkis thingy may be similar. It's getting harder to think about sending
this bar back. 

[Sublime/Sixpack]

twodko,
FWIW Recently I installed "Firm Feels" front 1 1/8" bar, and their rear 3/4" bar on my '68 Coronet (small block car) which I had earlier installed 440/Hemi spec. torsion bars and leaf springs on. These FF bars matched up very well on my Coronet, and it now handles really quite well!
I'm not familiar with the Hotchkis bars, but there is a big difference in stiffness between a 3/4" bar and a 1" bar! You've already received plenty of good advice from the other guys here, with that said I suggest if you do install the 1" bar on the rear you adjust it as soft as you can to start out with, test drive through some curves to see how the car handles. If the car understeers (front plows through the corners) then you'll know that you can go stiffer on the adjustment of the rear bar. If the car oversteers (rear end wants to swing out) in the curves that would indicate that the 1" bar is too stiff in relation to the 1 1/8" bar up front. That could make the car dangerous in the corners at moderate speeds, as well as on the straight away at high speed!

[twodko]

Thanks brother, initially most gentle setting for sure.

[Mike DC]

   
Yeah, larger diameter swaybars get MUCH stiffer as the diameter of the bar climbs.  0.75" is not 3/4ths as stiff as 1.00".

Same with the car's torsion bars holding up the front end.