Firm Feel or Hotchkis Front Sway Bar?

[JR_Charger]

So I ordered a Helwig 5904 and it is bent nearly identical to the QA1 bar.

After studying the matter further, it looks like either sway bar might just clear the strut rods if very carefully mounted through the QA1 Kmember -

I'll have to modify the splash shields, but these are old and brittle so who cares? I'm already repairing cracks in them. Anyway, this is as low as the strut member should ever be, in fact it should never be this low unless the car is jumping or cornering so hard that it's on two wheels. If the bar and strut rod have clearance with the suspension pushed down as low as it can go (car is on jack stands with no weight on the front suspension) there shouldn't be any other situation that could cause them to bang together, right?

 

[Dennis H]

Hotchkis. NO detectable improvement or change in any aspect. It has similar Zirc fittings as this. They were knocked off on the very first outing while parking at the Carson Valley Lodge. Waste of time, and money. No one could figure out if it is on upside down. It still on minus the Zircs if that’s how it is spelled.

 

[dbc105]

View attachment 1784158

Well, I'm not sure. It is still in the box, slide under the car buried in the garage waiting for me to get my SVO out of the basement. If you email Addco they may can tell you, they were helpful when I had talked to them before. In looking at it, it looks like a factory bar just a little larger diameter. My car didn't have one at all so I got front and rear bars.

 

[68 Sport Satellite]

Stay away from firm feel. Great stuff, but the owner has either retired or passed on and whoever is running the business is not customer friendly. You will get your credit card charged and never see your stuff. Sad because they had good products.

I recently had another good experience with Firm Feel 2 weeks ago. Gordon took my call and was super upbeat and professional with an easy going attitude. I ordered some torsion bars and they arrived 2 days later. I mentioned to him about long lead times and he said they have plenty of torsion bars in stock, but the sway bars require bending and heat treat which take longer. He also said that in recent years since Covid they've had a bit of turnover for their machinists going for higher paying jobs for the pipleline. He reports current sway bar lead times are 2mo. I ordered from Firm Feel several times in the past between 2010 - 2017, recently in 2025 and they will continue to get my recommendation for business. They've always been stand up. I recommend calling on the phone. Don't just order online and hope. By the way, the founder (Dick) was away for a while due to a major health issue, but is reportedly trying to come back.

 

[j-c-c-62]

One other thing to consider is front vs rear bar size balancing and how it affects oversteer/understeer. Typically rear bars are smaller diameter than front bars. Then you have hollow front bars generally running larger OD than solid front bars. So if you mix and match brands for the front and rear it will probably work ok, but might not be dialed in as well as you might like? I may be splitting hairs here.

No, you are not, for those that are serious.
I would add in our applications a rear bar is mostly a tuning device to supplement or counteract what the front is or is not doing to achieve one's desired handling balance.
So what ever shortcoming your chosen front sway bar is leaving on the table, a rear bar can help you dial in your handling better. Now if front bar is spot on, in most regards a rear bar will add little and very possibly worsen the handling. This is why I have always questioned how a rear bar can be properly sized until one is certain by real road testing the front bar is inadequate or oversized for the desired package. Race cars can utilize rear bars for fine tuning as weights, tires, air pressures, speeds, aero, tracks, etc change in order to reach a competitive 10/10's setup. Nobody here is chasing 10/10's. Vendors love to take your money and sell you a rear bar on a car that has dozens of different variables then the car before it, and making a fine tune selection on an untested car with a rear bar is basically a fool's errand, unless one knows their front bar is wrong to begin with, and then the question becomes, why is that?

Also, a splitting hair thought, but should be mentioned, a sway bar is mechanically most efficient when perfectly straight, meaning a curved/bent solid sway bar must be slightly larger in diameter to equal a straight sway bar. There are of course many other factors at play determining a sway bars true effectiveness at the tire road contact patch.
It should also be noted our beloved rear leaf springs are themselves a low-grade but effective all by themselves sway bar, that coils, etc do not offer. But that is another subject.