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Thread: Front Sway bar Cortina MK4

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    Spanner Monkey Arieke's Avatar
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    Front Sway bar Cortina MK4

    Hello everybody,

    I drive with a MK4 cortina trackdays. The Car does only trackdays, nothing else. So everything is already changed on the car.

    My cortina has alot of body rol. What the car always will have with its kind of suspension. I have stiffer springs in front and rear. But car does still have body rol but less then it used to have with the HD V6 springs.

    Now I been looking up about roll bars or sway bar. My car has 16mm in front and 16mm at the rear (from factory never changed this), I found some shop that had a 24mm sway bar, but whiteline doesn't make them anymore so stuck.

    I was hoping a bigger bar would make the car do less body roll.

    Got 2 options, the 24mm isn't an option because they don't make it.
    1st - Found somebody that has a 18mm roll bar.
    2nd - buy a brand new 20mm oem roll bar.

    I normally try trial and error. But maybe somebody has a little bit advise.

    The 24mm roll bar cost about 120£ so was willing to take the risk of trial and error, the 18mm is second hand so oke. The 20mm cost 240£.

    It will always be trial and error because nobody drives a Cortina MK4 on track.

    But has anybody experience of putting bigger anti roll bars on their track cars? Or is it just a waste. its a cortina leave it like it is :-)


    Click image for larger version Name:	bodyroll.jpg Views:	69 Size:	121.3 KB ID:	85105

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    Re: Front Sway bar Cortina MK4

    Some ideas...from me.

    Is there room to fit another 16 mm bar, and just clamp it to the one you have? Not an un-common solution.

    You could also look at other anti-roll bars that could be adapted - you only need roughly the right shape. Volvo 240, 740/940, Sierra/Granada/Scorpio...

    As for the roll itself - what kind of problems do you get? Understeer?

    Looking at the picture above it seems like you load the outside of the tyre a bit. You could also work with the camber gain curve and poissbly caster settings. Lowering the inner mount for the top wishbone would increase negative camber in roll, increasing caster would increase negative camber when turning the outside wheel.

    Stiffer springs is of course another option...

    Gustaf

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    Re: Front Sway bar Cortina MK4

    Thank you for the Replay


    Yep tried an extra 16mm bar. and the car understeers alot. I got rid of it.

    I have a 24mm rollbar from a granada but doesn't fit, its to wide. like 10 cm I think and de arms are to long. I tried to get in touch with a blacksmith but went to dead end.


    For the roll, The car handles actually verry good. I can't complain. Other that it has alot of body roll. I have a standard spec cortina mk5 2.0 doesn't handle as good as my track car.

    I made the lower wishbone 4mm longer to create camber. I didn't make it adjustable, when i made it 4mm longer it looked good. So maybe more camber could help out.


    Stiffer springs, I had stiffer springs made. When i drove on zandvoort, their are little bumps in the road and when i drive over them it feels like the springs are to stiff. Can't explain in good english. The front feels lighter then.


    Thats why I was looking in something else to change

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    Re: Front Sway bar Cortina MK4

    As avery general rule of thumb, the grip will decrease when you add a anti-roll bar and that rhimes with what you experienced with them doubled up.

    That sort of tells me that you might not want to add front roll stiffness to make the car faster. Or, that you would need to make other changes to compensate (more static negative camber, more caster, more grippy front tires...).

    It might be interesting to look at the roll centre and center of gravity (to give you roll couple). Maybe the roll center is very low giving a large roll couple that induces a lot of roll? Usually that comes from excessive lowering but with all other errors Ford put into the Cortina/Taunus double wishbone suspension I wouldn't be surprised if they messed that up as well ;-)

    Gustaf

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    Re: Front Sway bar Cortina MK4

    Have you checked out the Ozzy market, what about https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/K-MAC-Fo...-/132672011157

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    Re: Front Sway bar Cortina MK4

    Good if the OP moves his car to Aust - they don't post to UK!

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    Re: Front Sway bar Cortina MK4

    Quote Originally Posted by katana View Post
    Good if the OP moves his car to Aust - they don't post to UK!
    Maybe it could be purchased in Aus by a member on here and shipped to Europe. But I'm not saying it would be cheap.

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    Re: Front Sway bar Cortina MK4

    Quote Originally Posted by therealpinto View Post
    As avery general rule of thumb, the grip will decrease when you add a anti-roll bar and that rhimes with what you experienced with them doubled up.

    That sort of tells me that you might not want to add front roll stiffness to make the car faster. Or, that you would need to make other changes to compensate (more static negative camber, more caster, more grippy front tires...).

    It might be interesting to look at the roll centre and center of gravity (to give you roll couple). Maybe the roll center is very low giving a large roll couple that induces a lot of roll? Usually that comes from excessive lowering but with all other errors Ford put into the Cortina/Taunus double wishbone suspension I wouldn't be surprised if they messed that up as well ;-)

    Gustaf

    A nice bit of advice. I also read that some where, a bigger the anti-roll bar will decrease grip. Then I better leave the anti-roll bar for what it is, and like you said, more negative camber, caster and tires. Tires was hoping to be oke. Got some Nankang AR1, didn't try them but will see.

    the car isn't lowered atlot. I had HD V6 springs and they were -3 inch (65mm) because these cars sit rather high. But with the springs I currently have under the car, it sits higher. If you sit the HD V6 beside my current springs, the current are not as tal as the HD ones.

    The Cortina/Taunus wasn't meant to be a track car. other then bangers it was never



    about the aussi parts, I got a 5 point harnes from aussi. Couple years ago, to test customs here in belgium. I can say terrible. the shop send it the belgium was verry friendly and did everything right. I think i had to pay 50% on the price i payed. afterwarts I better bought it here or in eu.
    Last edited by Arieke; 15-02-2020 at 00:00.

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    Re: Front Sway bar Cortina MK4

    I know lots of people who say the AR1 is a great tyre for the money.

    I think it would be nice to trace out the front geometry and see where the roll centre is.

    How do you feel about the rear axle? It might be interesting to try twin anti roll bars there.

    Gustaf

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    Re: Front Sway bar Cortina MK4

    For finding out the roll centre looks like a bit of work. Not that is a problem.

    I actually had a twin setup for the rear. I used it when i did rallycross and got rid of when i started doing track days with the car. But then it also had front double anti roll bars.

    I can always intall the double rear anti roll bars back and see how that goes.

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    Re: Front Sway bar Cortina MK4

    I would say you need to stiffen the front springs more, tarmac track use wants way stiffer then road use. your double front roll bar probably took all the load off the inside wheel and overloaded the outer, hense the understeer. anti roll bars help control the roll, but ultimately its the springs which should be taking teh main load

    all doubling up on the rear anti roll bar is likely to do is make the back end loose, E30 bmws are better without a rear arb at all, most escorts dont use a rear bar either

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    Re: Front Sway bar Cortina MK4

    Have a look to America they have plenty of big heavy cars etc. This is just one i found really quickly, it cant be that hard to make to make something similar to suit the cortina.

    http://www.knight-stalker-ent.com/swaybars.html
    Last edited by wildo105e; 15-02-2020 at 11:41.

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    Re: Front Sway bar Cortina MK4

    Quote Originally Posted by Graham View Post
    I would say you need to stiffen the front springs more, tarmac track use wants way stiffer then road use. your double front roll bar probably took all the load off the inside wheel and overloaded the outer, hense the understeer. anti roll bars help control the roll, but ultimately its the springs which should be taking teh main load

    all doubling up on the rear anti roll bar is likely to do is make the back end loose, E30 bmws are better without a rear arb at all, most escorts dont use a rear bar either

    The problem I did had with stiffer springs. with the double wishbone suspension. I think now it has 5 winds in the spring, the shop that made the customs springs were first to long. Or the hight. So it lifted the car till dampers maxed out. So they made an other set that weren't as high. It is easyer to make mcpherson springs... I'll have a re think about stiffer springs :-)


    therealpinto said. Double roll bar in the rear, I can install this and try it out see what it does. And then just remove the rear double setup. its just 4 bolts if have somebody along its easy and quick. I assume not to floor it at start and see what it does and keep building it up.

    @wildo105e actually that could be make to fit with some adjustments. Gonne try de double and no sway bar first.
    Last edited by Arieke; 15-02-2020 at 21:39.

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    Re: Front Sway bar Cortina MK4

    If you plan on playing with springs I would really advise modifying the front for "coilovers" - it's much easier to get 2,25" or 60 mm springs in different rates and lengths.

    The way the Taunus/Cortina front suspension is made it should be pretty easy to use generic coilovers.

    Gustaf

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    Re: Front Sway bar Cortina MK4

    Alot of kit cars were build with cortina/taunus front axles and they don't use ford springs. All like you said coilovers. I actually know the owner of the kitcar company DAX.

    At the moment, sort of stay away of front sway bar.

    First will be testing the double rear sway bar or no rear sway bar. After that I will put some time in making more camber on the front axle. Because its true the front tires get worn out on the outside.
    After that I will look for coilovers. but it could be that I start after first trackday on everything :-)

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    Re: Front Sway bar Cortina MK4

    Another thing with the kitcars is that they usually change the control arm designs as well, meaning that the roll centre is different. Combine that with a (probably) much lower centre of gravity (and lower weight), and the kitcar front suspension will behave very differently than in a Taunus/Cortina.

    It would be very interesting to look at the camber curve. I suspect that lowering the inner mounting for the upper arm would give good results. That would mean that when the car rolls, the negative camber on the outer wheel increases. I have tried that in another car and it really transforms it - that one also used to eat outside of the tyres.

    If there is no room to lower the inner mount, sometimes you can find a taller upper balljoint to give the same effect.

    Gustaf

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    Re: Front Sway bar Cortina MK4

    Quote Originally Posted by therealpinto View Post
    It would be very interesting to look at the camber curve. I suspect that lowering the inner mounting for the upper arm would give good results. That would mean that when the car rolls, the negative camber on the outer wheel increases. I have tried that in another car and it really transforms it - that one also used to eat outside of the tyres.

    If there is no room to lower the inner mount, sometimes you can find a taller upper balljoint to give the same effect.

    Gustaf

    I think this is possible. I didn't get to test the setup yet. When we are allowed to go out, I'll pop over to my garage, got a spare front axle unused. I'll take a look then.

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