Thinking about adding a rear sway bar...your thoughts

Hello Ken,

I installed the Hellwig bar on my car in 2000. It was the BEST upgrade I did regarding handling. With the factory front bar, poly suspension, KYB shocks and 255x50x16's on all four corners, my '70 GTX lifts the inside rear wheel on an autocross course. I STRONGLY recommend the Hellwig bar.


Good luck,

I also installed a Hellwig on the back of my 69 B'cuda. Nice piece(adjustable,dogbone links,etc) Great customer service!!!! Will be putting their front one on this spring

From a previous post I made...

****The 70-72 B-body, E-body, and 73-76 A-body front sway bars are very similar and share the same issues with aftermarket sway bars.

These later cars have a sway bar that passes through the K-frame that is unique. The inner bushings are bolted to a U-channeled bar on each side of the K-member

The Addco front sway bars have a poor K-frame attachment hardware. They replace the U-channeled bars with flat stock. They also have a lower control arm bracket that goes off the shock bolt with a skimpy simple piece of angle iron. A very weak setup.

The Firm Feel, Hotchkis and Hellwig front sway bars have nice thick adapter brackets to mount the sway bar to the frame. Hotchkis has a super beefy cast aluminum poly bushing housing. Hotchkis and Hellwig sway bars are hollow which save at least 5 pounds over a solid 1 1/8" sway bar from what I have weighed. I think you can order the Firm Feel front sway bars in hollow design.

On the lower control arm end, Frim Feel and Hellwig have nice sturdy hardware that bolts to the lower control arm and you drill a properly placed and supported hole to mount the study end link bracket. Hotchkis actually repros the factory lower control arm bracket in a little thicker metal. It would pass for stock for 90% of the people looking at it. You have to stare and focus on it, to notice. But, you do have to weld it on. If you have factory sway bar lower control arms, all brands will bolt in.


****The rear sway bar is different also....

The new Hellwig and Hotchkis rear bars have dog bone style end links. The traditional donut washer style bushings are very sensitive to where you place the frame bracket. If the bracket is of just a little the sway bar will have preload in it while the car is at rest.

The dog bone style end links have freedom of fore and aft movement and will not bind in those directions. Also that design allows for adjustable rear sway bar stiffness. The three holes in the Helwig and Hotchkis rear sway bars offer three stiffness settings.

The only bummer on those two rear bar designs is that they are axle mounted and bolt under the axle housing. That has addition unsprung weight and sometimes makes it a pain to use jackstands under you axle tubes. But weight is reduced on those rear bars because they are hollow design.

The Firm Feel rear sway bar is frame mounted like the original E-body rear sway bars were. The install is a little more involved but the finished result is very clean. They don't have the unsprung weight, but they don't offer an adjustment feature.

The Addco rear bar is axle mounts and has old style end donut end links. It's tricky to get the frame mount drilled in the right location so as not to bind up the end links. This is tough to do because the frame is at a 45 degree angle to the ground at that place.

I think that covers the major difference in the major sway bar offerings on the market now.