Quick disconnect front sway bar bracket

[Ebag333]

At 2" drop I am protecting the OME L shocks and provide up to 5" up travel (4" gap + 1" bump compression) . This I already know. I also know I don't have to protect the OME 2.5" shocks as they have enough up travel.

The L shocks are only a bit over 15" long when compressed (I haven't actually measured it myself, so I'm only going off what others have reported which is slightly conflicting). With 315's, there's no need to drop the bump stops because the tires will hit the wheel well at about 16" of compression. That's almost a full inch, so even if you jumped the rig and landed hard, the tires and follow spring would have to deflect by almost an inch in order to bottom out the shock.

The OME shocks were designed more in a time when running 33's were more popular. Since 33's are 2" smaller all around, that means you gain an extra inch of compression. Hence OME's recommendation to drop the bump stops, with 33's you could easily over compress the shocks due to the smaller tires. OME's recommendation to drop the bump stops carried over from the 33's to 35's (and higher), even though it's not really necessary, and just results in lost up travel.

My feelings are that it will be better at full flex for the axle to be resting on the bump stop not twisting all the suspension components.

I'm not sure what would be "twisting." If the axle is stopped by the follow spring instead of the bump stop, it's still stopped. (After all, the follow spring is a bump stop in it's own right.)

Wouldn't it be nice to find the exact gap needed for the bump stops?

And that's exactly my point. Someone running a short lift with 33's will need a different gap than someone running a lift with 35's who will need a different gap than someone running 14" travel shocks.

The lift, to me, is less of a factor than the tire size and compressed shock length. But regardless the combination of the three will mean that no two trucks will have the same requirements.

I think ideally the bracket would be designed and built for the minimum, which would be no bump stops at all. So the bracket would need to be short enough to stay well clear of the axle. It's then simple to provide different spacers for different requirements. There's no twisting or side loading on the bump stops, so there's no fear of snapping the bolts even if you have a large spacer in there.


Think of it this way....lots of people are moving to longer shocks than the OME's. Taking the Pro Comp's as an example, you're looking at 16"-18" of compression that needs to be accounted for. Some people will adjust their shock mounts to fit the shock, some will just bolt in adapters. Regardless of how they do it, you're looking at dozens of different requirements (at least) for how far they need to drop their bump stops down.

If you want to build it to fit some "common" lifts, that's fine, but a big portion of your market (the folks who will want to unbolt their front swaybar) will be running non-"standard" shocks. Pro Comp, Bilstien, Rancho....there's a ton of different shocks out there, and they'll all have different requirements. I don't see any way that you can reasonably setup a package and say "this is for a 4" lift" as it won't be the same. The best solution is to have the bracket there, and then provide different amounts of drop in the form of spacers/shims, so that people can easily tailor it to their specific (and probably unique) needs.

Just my two centavos.

 

[jdlsantos]

Nice item, I want a full kit when the ultimate bracket are in production.

lift 4"

keep going

 

[rhyary]

Ebag,
As I wrote before, the L shock can compress 7". To be safe that can be compressed 5".
The 2" bracket plus the bump stop has 4" gap plus one 1" bump stop compression gives you 5" safety for the L shock.
If you have a bit less then 4" it is fine too since you can't flex more than 2" and I don't think you can compressed the L shock more then 3 or 3.5".

My bracket will have shims to go with it so you can fine tune it to exactly the drop you want.

The question I was posing was what the base should be.

My feelings as I tried to express them was a 2" bracket may always use shims, so why not make it a 3" bracket that only few trucks will need shims?

It does not make sense to me to design a bracket that everyone will have to buy shims. And shims cost more money, not a lot but still it cost money to produce them. And more shims, longer bolt. Longer bolts are more expensive that short bolts and are not as strong. etc etc.

Trust me, one little bracket is already more complicated that my two day jobs, and i have fairly complicated day jobs.

lastly On a 3" to 4" lift, it does not matter if you have 33 or 35.
But if you have 2.5" lift it DOES matter if you have 33 or 35 if you don't want to rub when the car's front comes down. A 2.5" lift will have choice, a stock bracket if they will never go to 35, or a 2" bracket if they have 35, or plan to go to 35. I am still working all the details out. But at this point it is just matter of the right combination of hight, the design has proven itself nicely this past weekend.

Thanks again for your questions. They are good and I hope I have good answers.



Rami

 

[Ebag333]

As I wrote before, the L shock can compress 7". To be safe that can be compressed 5".

I'm confused by this. From another post:

For comparison here is the OME information:

Model			Min	Max	Range		Upper	Lower

N73			13.57	23.40	09.83		Stud	Stud
N74E			14.57	24.40	09.83		Stud	Eye
N73L			15.23	26.26	11.03		Stud	Stud
N74L			15.23	26.26	11.03		Stud	Eye

The L shock has 11" of travel, but the amount of travel isn't the issue, it's how long it is when compressed.

When you say it "can compress 7"" that's rather vague as it's a relative number (relative to what? Total compression? How much you can compress from ride height? How much you compress from full droop?). It's better to say "at full stuff the top shock mount is 16" away from the bottom shock mount." That way you know exactly how long of a shock you can fit, and if you need to drop the bump stops or not.

The OME L's are only a bit over 15" long when compressed, they're a fairly short body shock. There's been more than one test of people here on the forums removing/shorting their front bump stops and having no problems with over compressing the L's.

Additionally saying that you need 2" of room is simply overkill. There's no way that once the axle has hit the tire, follow spring, or axle bump stop that it will continue to compress 2". 1" of room is plenty IMHO.

The 2" bracket plus the bump stop has 4" gap plus one 1" bump stop compression gives you 5" safety for the L shock.
If you have a bit less then 4" it is fine too since you can't flex more than 2" and I don't think you can compressed the L shock more then 3 or 3.5".

Again these numbers don't make sense to me. I assume that you're talking about the distance between the axle and bump stop, but the numbers that make more sense is the amount of compression on the shock itself. What does 2" and 3.5" translate to for actual travel of the shock?

lastly On a 3" to 4" lift, it does not matter if you have 33 or 35.
But if you have 2.5" lift it DOES matter if you have 33 or 35 if you don't want to rub when the car's front comes down. A 2.5" lift will have choice, a stock bracket if they will never go to 35, or a 2" bracket if they have 35, or plan to go to 35. I am still working all the details out. But at this point it is just matter of the right combination of hight, the design has proven itself nicely this past weekend.

It absolutely does matter if you have 33's or 35's.

I've had the standard OME 2.5" lift, and now am sitting closer to around 4". I've seen several local club members run both 33's and 35's on their truck, and seen the difference. If you look at the thread I started on the Pro Comp shocks, there's a few posts in there that talk about how much room you have for compression on both 33" and 35" tires.

From everything that I've seen (both IRL and as reported by others on the forum), the size of the tire is one of the biggest differences in how much compression you have, which makes sense because that's typically whats going to interfere first. A 33" tire will give you about 15" of room for compression, while a 35" tire will give you 16". (33" -> 35" is 2" larger diameter, or 1" larger radius, hence the 1" difference in room for compression.)

Now that may not make a large difference at the axle bump stop, but it does make a difference. Even if you only are dropping the axle bump stop just a bit further than it needs to go, and it only makes a 1" difference of travel, that's a full tenth of your travel that's wasted. It doesn't sound like much, but anyone who's seen the difference between the travel of an OME L shock (11") and one of the 14" travel shocks can attest to the difference that a couple inches can make (one can drop a 6" spring off the perch, the other doesn't come close).

Thanks again for your questions. They are good and I hope I have good answers.

Thanks for your answers, even the ones I don't agree with.

I'm really not trying to pick on you, I think it's a great idea and a great implementation. I just don't think you're giving enough attention to the rather large differences that tires and shocks make (in addition to lift height). And regardless I'll be buying a bracket from you if you make it available (and at a fairly reasonable price), even if I end up cutting off the bump stop mount.

 

[maxafterburn]

Ebag, maybe I'm not following this right, how can a 35" tire give more room for compression than a 33"? Shock length being the same won't the 35" hit the wheelwell first?

 

[Ebag333]

Ebag, maybe I'm not following this right, how can a 35" tire give more room for compression than a 33"?

You answer your own question.

Shock length being the same won't the 35" hit the wheelwell first?

Since the 35" tire hits the wheel well first, the 33" tire can travel further (tuck better) before it hits. Because it can travel further, the shock compresses more.

So, roughly speaking, a 37" tire has 17" of room for compression, a 35" tire has 16", and a 33" tire has 15", and a 3" tire will let the bottom shock mount touch the upper shock mount.

(In theory at least. In reality lots of other stuff would stop the compression first.)

 

[maxafterburn]

Sorry, didn't read close enough. I thought your measurements regarded how many inches the shock actually compresses, rather than the wheel to fender travel you must be refering to.

 

[rhyary]

My measurements are from under the truck
On a 4" lift, if I unbolt the L shock from the bottom, I can push it up 7" until the stop. If I want to give it 2" margin of error, that is I can push it up disconnected 5".

To protect the shock, this is what I care about. I want the bump stop to limit at 5". But at 5" the bump stop does not do anything. I have this lousy tendency to put a part to use if it is there. Having a bump stop that does not do anything irritates me.

As I said before, I am not sure my axle can travel up 5". So far at 4" gap I have not touched/used the bump stop. So I am going to try at 3" gap, and then at 2" gap. Until I can find when the axle touches that bump stops. It will get complicated from there, because that will be good from my particular setup. Then I will have to calculate according to other variations what someone will need. I am working on understanding what the base bracket will be. The fine tunning will have to be done with a shim.

My hope real hope is that at maximum articulation the bump stop will be holding the axle, not the spring or the suspension or the wheel well . From there I hope that the it will be enough not to hit the bump stops when I go straight and the front go up and down.

Not sure how more clearly I can say it. All my work is from under the truck, not from the theoretical calculation. I am under there seeing what all this stuff doing and I am attempting to design something that practically works, not theoretically. It is yet to be seeing if I am successful.

Here is another example from the field. For the rear bump stop we don't have to worry about up travel of the shock. But oberving the rear at full articulation we noticed that the 2" bracket does not do anything. When the 315 MTR was rubbing the cluding, there was another 1" left bump stop to axle. So I think a 3" bracket in the back is better if you have 35 tires on 4" lift.

Keep the faith....


Rami

 

[rhyary]

Front Ultimate Bracket in action (pictures)

Full front articulation. Passenger side. The bump stop is still 2" in the air

 

[rhyary]

Rear Ultimate Bracket - establishing the need

First picture - 2" drop, bumps stop touching, tire is rubbing.

Second picture - where you want to bump stop to be to eliminate rubbing.

 

[rhyary]

A reason to control travel regardless of tires and shocks

See picture at full articulation

 

[rhyary]

The Ultimate Bracket is now available for sale:

Purchase Ultimate Bracket

For the first batch I can produce the bracket any drop you want. Please talked to me before deciding on drop length.

 

[rhyary]

Links in my signature fixed. thanks for pointing it out to me.

 

[rhyary]

I wanted to say thanks for the people who pre-order the bracket.
I have noticed that the option without the bump stop is being the more popular one.

** You must read this warning **
You must use the bracket with a bump stop, you can use the one in-the-spring, Toyota OEM one, are anything you desired to limit the down travel appropriately!!

The reason is that the bracket sits above the brake line on the passenger side. The bracket is carefully designed so that there would be NO interference with the brake line if a bump stop of your choice is being used. However, if NO bump top is used, theoretically the the axle can be compressed in such a way that the bracket may reach the brake line, we can't have that, do we?.

The red line indicates distance from inverted U to the brake line. The bracket does not reach the bracket but is above the brake line which is lower then the brake bracket and provide more clearance then it looks in the pictures.

The blue line is the distance between the bumps stop and the axle. The Blue distance must be less then the the red distance.

The green line denote the in-spring bump stop that some of you have. Again the red line has to be less then the green line if this is your method of bump stop.

 

[hawaiicruz]

Thanks for taking the time to do this. I'm lucky enough to already have the frame mounted bumpstops. I already have 2" drop brackets on them, but as I was tying my swaybar up with bungies the other day, I said there has got to be a better way. you're solution is simple and functional. hopefully we get enough takers

 

[rhyary]

We have 4. 6 to go.

 

[rhyary]

Testing 4" drop, or 2" gap.

Well, I couldn't let my theory go and I had to test it somehow.

To recap: my theory is that if the axle flex only 2" then the bump stop should drop so that the rubber end should be 2" from the axle. That means at maximum articulation the axle will be resting on the bump stop, not on other components. From that point, you can shim the bracket to provide less articulation if you have other issues (lower control arm contact, big tires etc)

The problem with this is that I did not know how much travel I will be limiting the front from going down when it is straight. Theoretically the front can go down all the way to the shocks stops. Not good.

A 2" drop on a 4" lift gives you 4" gap and protection to the L shocks. But this does not "activate" the bump stops at full articulation because the axle never get to the bump stop

I couldn't let it go, so today I added another 1 and 3/4" spacer. This gives me the 2" gap I was looking for. I am now testing the two issues, going straight thru a bump, that will test my down travel result, and i will articulate my front to see the effect of the bump stop touching during articulation.

Here is a picture at rest of the new arrangement:

 

[96r50]

Why do you hate up-travel?

Seriously speaking, I think the only way you're really going to figure this out is to remove your springs, determine at what point the shocks bottom out, and adjust the bumpstops to that length.

 

[rhyary]

I know when my shock are going to bottom out and a 2" drop will take care of that.
I am on to solve another issue. Plz read my previous post more carefully.

I don't hate up travel. In my mind there is a conflict between flexing and up travel, if you want the bump stop to do their job. My theory says that the bump stops, not any other components should be the limiting factor on up travel. Alas, there are two up travel to content with.

Rami

 

[96r50]

So you're saying that the 2" drop is enough to protect the shocks from bottoming out, but not enough to be the limiting factor during flex?