Hotchkis rear swaybar quick-review

[vtluu]

Installed a 24mm hollow rear swaybar from Hotchkis on Saturday:



The instructions included with the swaybar were detailed, thorough and easy to follow. Fitment was excellent with all pieces going into place precisely and without any hassle. Build quality seemed excellent as well.

Holding the OEM swaybar in one hand and the Hotchkis in the other, they feel like they weigh about the same. But the Hotchkis will be stiffer by virtue of its diameter.

I've only had limited opportunities to test it since but the car feels good so far. The real test will come at my next autocross event...

For as low as $165 OTD from some vendors, the swaybar is a great bargain and a fine performer as well.

[go2evo]

i'm getting that bar too, did you installed all the way to the stiffest?

[vtluu]

I've had it on the middle setting so far. Interestingly enough when I had new tires installed yesterday the technicians noticed the right bracket--specifically the part that's attached to the frame with 2 bolts--was broken, snapped cleanly along the part where there's a hole in the middle of the bracket. I'm not sure how or when this happened--maybe it happened before Sunday's autocross because I thought the car a lot less tail happy than I thought it would be. Or maybe it happened when I took a small jump later that day--I heard something snap or impact when I landed but didn't see anything broken when I inspected the car. ops:

To their credit, I called up Hotchkis's customer service yesterday, and when I told them what had happened, the first question they asked was "Where should we ship the replacement?"

[BluEvo]

when i looked under there, i saw that it was set to the middle setting. i too, was thinking of getting that sway bar a couple months ago, but i didn't have much feed back from anyone that had one or installed on. so i will wait for Mr Tam for some feed and review.....

[go2evo]

there's alot of feedback in evolutionm.net. they are all good feedbacks

[EvoVIII]

I don't feel a thing when I install my Cusco rear sway......

[vtluu]

I don't feel a thing when I install my Cusco rear sway......

How did you try it out? Track? Autocross? For the most part you're not going to notice a difference in day-to-day driving.

[GokuSSJ4]

unless you set it to the stiffest settings( driving on the street you have to be careful) and get the correct alignment for it. the ass should come loose easily making the car turn alot faster.

[vtluu]

Got the replacement brackets from Hotchkis on Thursday and installed them tonight. The unbroken bracket had cracks in it as well and I believe it was only because the right one broke that stress on the left one was reduced and it hadn't broken--yet. I believe there is a fundamental design flaw in the Hotchkis bracket.

Here's the broken bracket you can see there's a square hole in the bracket that's an obvious weakness:



You can also see how soft the metal is from it deforming around the bolt as it was stressed. I torqued the bolt to the factory spec for the bolt that holds the two factory bracket pieces together (19 lb-ft) since Hotchkis didn't give a torque spec. In other words I don't believe the bolt was overtorqued.

Here's a newly-mounted bracket:



Now here's the same (side) bracket with a couple weeks of driving and one autocross on it; see how it bent:



Here 's a close-up of the bent bracket; see the cracks forming around the square hole:



I believe it's only a matter of (short) time before the new brackets break again. I'll be forwarding these images to Hotchkis to see what they have to say. Until/unless they can provide correctly-designed one, I see a few possible courses of action: (a) get a swaybar bracket from WORKS (whose rear swaybar is also 24mm), (b) replace the weak part with a "Home Depot" brand bracket (mending bar), (c) get someone to make me a stronger replacement for the replacement piece.

[EvoVIII]

(D) ask for money back, BTW why didn't u go with Cusco Rear Sway bar?? they are 24mm too