What's new

Dust Buggy

8" arms ?

Shit, I thought my 10" ones were short.

I ran into the issue of not being able to find the right rate. My .750 x 36" still feels too stiff.


Other option for your tab would be to turn it 90 degrees and run the stud parallel to the trailing arm. That's what BKOR is doing on their cars.
 
8" arms ?

Shit, I thought my 10" ones were short.

I ran into the issue of not being able to find the right rate. My .750 x 36" still feels too stiff.


Other option for your tab would be to turn it 90 degrees and run the stud parallel to the trailing arm. That's what BKOR is doing on their cars.
With one shock at bump the other is hanging out at 8” on a 10” travel shock so with limit straps at 9” there is 1” of sway bar flex left.
The sway bar is a TK1 Racing KOH/Ultra4 bar 1.25" x 29 Spline at ends turned down to 1" across mid section.
The arms are 8" by name but the actual length rod end to bar center is 8.375"
The DustBuggy is tall and heavy. Full four seater with heavy lower tubes and it will be loaded with all the trail goodies.
How does yours flex? Full bump one side and full droop other?
 
Last edited:
Talked to Tony from TK1 Racing for a little bit. Found out that the Ultra4 bar is 1.25” at the splines and turned down to 1” across the length. So it is a lighter rate similar to what others are running.
Also found out there is more magic than the visual bar length, OD, ID, and arm length. Heat treat is specific for off road bars due to the amount of flex they have vs an on road bar. The heat treat for a long thin on road bar stiff enough to work with minimal wheel travel would snap in off road use. The heat treat for a much thicker off road bar would still flex or rotate too much for on road use. So heat treat can effect the performance of two physically identical bars. Most off road bars should all have the same range of heat treat for max flex rotation. If you get a bar from someone who also does other motor sports, make sure you get the correct heat treat.
This info bothers me each time I read it. I thought heat treating didn't change the modulus, just the elastic limit and fatigue strength. So heat treat shouldn't change the spring rate unless you've exceeded the elastic limit. I agree that an off road bar will likely see higher stress levels than a street bar, so maybe that was the point he was making. Still, it reminds me of the grade 5 vs grade 8 bolt discussions...
 
With one shock at bump the other is hanging out at 8” on a 10” travel shock so with limit straps at 9” there is 1” of sway bar flex left.
The sway bar is a TK1 Racing KOH/Ultra4 bar 1.25" x 29 Spline at ends turned down to 1" across mid section.
The arms are 8" by name but the actual length rod end to bar center is 8.375"
The DustBuggy is tall and heavy. Full four seater with heavy lower tubes and it will be loaded with all the trail goodies.
How does yours flex? Full bump one side and full droop other?

My arms are 10" from center to rod end. Bar is way smaller than your and still feels too stiff from time to time. Buggy weighs 4500lbs.
Flexes real well although flexes more without the bar connected, obv.
 
This info bothers me each time I read it. I thought heat treating didn't change the modulus, just the elastic limit and fatigue strength. So heat treat shouldn't change the spring rate unless you've exceeded the elastic limit. I agree that an off road bar will likely see higher stress levels than a street bar, so maybe that was the point he was making. Still, it reminds me of the grade 5 vs grade 8 bolt discussions...
I was regurgitating what I understood TK1 Racing was trying to explain.
My best guess is for street use they want a light bar as possible for weight saving and since it has minimal twist rotation they can reduce the elasticity of the bar and make it stiffer without the issue of breaking the bar.
For off-road there is more weight, more rotation, and the bars get beefier so more material can do the work.
 
This info bothers me each time I read it. I thought heat treating didn't change the modulus, just the elastic limit and fatigue strength. So heat treat shouldn't change the spring rate unless you've exceeded the elastic limit. I agree that an off road bar will likely see higher stress levels than a street bar, so maybe that was the point he was making. Still, it reminds me of the grade 5 vs grade 8 bolt discussions...
Wouldn't heat treat have to change the modulus to increase strength? Otherwise there wouldn't be much point to heat treating. Maybe not so much change it, but move it further up the graph. The statement "heat treat" is tricky because it can mean so many different things.
 
Wouldn't heat treat have to change the modulus to increase strength? Otherwise there wouldn't be much point to heat treating. Maybe not so much change it, but move it further up the graph. The statement "heat treat" is tricky because it can mean so many different things.
No the modulus doesn't change. Modulus is not equal to the spring rate. The HT changes the yield and failure points. It can move it up in the Y direction and right in the X direction of your stress strain curve. The area under the curve is your toughness. Some HT just raise the yield in the y direction, strong but not very tough. Others move it in the Y and X direction strong and tough.
 
No the modulus doesn't change. Modulus is not equal to the spring rate. The HT changes the yield and failure points. It can move it up in the Y direction and right in the X direction of your stress strain curve. The area under the curve is your toughness. Some HT just raise the yield in the y direction, strong but not very tough. Others move it in the Y and X direction strong and tough.

Eggsactly. So for those following along that don't have engineering degrees pretty much all steel alloys have the same torsional modulus of elasticity. You can think of this as the material's stiffness. Heat treating does not change this property AFAIK. So if you made a bunch of identically shaped steel rods of different alloys and different heat treats it would take exactly the same torque to twist them a certain number of degrees. That is until the brittle ones broke and the soft ones permanently deformed.

So all steels regardless of heat treatment have the same torsional stiffness but not all make good springs because they fail before delivering a useful amount of travel.

What I'm trying to get my head around is how a road car's sway bar is stressed harder than a buggy's. In my limited experience the road cars are lighter, have larger diameter bars and shorter arms which to me says less stress and an easier job on the heat treat...

Anyway, sorry to derail an otherwise outstanding build thread!
 
So all steels regardless of heat treatment have the same torsional stiffness but not all make good springs because they yield before delivering a useful amount of travel.
Note the edit.

Also don't think of it in terms of travel, think of it in terms of twist per length of steel (for a fixed diameter bar).
 
Road car have higher 'input' loads. Ie they are hooked to a pretty consistent sticky surface and travel is more limited. Hence the load might be larger but the bar doesn't have to react through the same amount of travel that a off-road bar would. The load on a off-road bar maybe be less but the range of motion is much larger.

And the edit, while technical correct, a spring that has failed has also yielded.
 
And the edit, while technical correct, a spring that has failed has also yielded.
What I was getting at is that a spring can yield without failing. I think we've all done that to a leaf spring or two. :laughing:
 
So all steels regardless of heat treatment have the same torsional stiffness but not all make good springs because they fail before delivering a useful amount of travel.
No degree here, so I'm having a hard time getting my head around this.

So you're saying that a 1" high-carbon bar through-hardened to 70rc vs the same bar annealed with take the same amount of force to twist 2*? Never mind the inevitable shatter/pretzel...

And that high-carbon hard bar vs a dimensionally identical low-carbon bar?

:confused:
 
No degree here, so I'm having a hard time getting my head around this.

So you're saying that a 1" high-carbon bar through-hardened to 70rc vs the same bar annealed with take the same amount of force to twist 2*? Never mind the inevitable shatter/pretzel...

And that high-carbon hard bar vs a dimensionally identical low-carbon bar?

:confused:
No he's saying modulus of elasticity doesn't change. The relationship between stress and strain is the same for all steel regardless of HT up to the yield point. That's how the modulus is defined. The modulus is the slope of the line on a stress strain curve up to the yield point. The yield point is what moves.
 
No degree here, so I'm having a hard time getting my head around this.

So you're saying that a 1" high-carbon bar through-hardened to 70rc vs the same bar annealed with take the same amount of force to twist 2*? Never mind the inevitable shatter/pretzel...

And that high-carbon hard bar vs a dimensionally identical low-carbon bar?

:confused:

Yes, that is exactly what the math says as long as the stress is within the elastic limit. But what I don't know is the exact point when they exceed that limit and fail by breaking or permanently deforming. So maybe they're the same for 15* or maybe it's only to 1/2*.

What I was getting at is that a spring can yield without failing. I think we've all done that to a leaf spring or two. :laughing:

I get your point because both other failure modes (brittle fracture and fatigue) result in a bar broken in half. But I personally feel like if a sway bar yields it is done. Who wants to drive around leaning arse sideways??? :flipoff2::flipoff2:
 
Last edited:
But I personally feel like if a sway bar yields it is done. Who wants to drive around leaning arse sideways??? :flipoff2::flipoff2:
I was thinking more along the lines of bent=fix later and broken=stop and fix now.
 
I get your point because both other failure modes (brittle fracture and fatigue) result in a bar broken in half. But I personally feel like if a sway bar yields it is done. Who wants to drive around leaning arse sideways??? :flipoff2::flipoff2:
I have twisted mine permanently and it makes for weird reactions, that's for sure...
 
Back to where I should have been. Double shear tabs on the sway bar links. Teflon lined FK alloy rod ends. Total flex on the bar to lift a tire off the ground is 19°. The bar will flex some more if I push down on the tire. When the bumped tire is fully loaded and pivoting on the air bump, I expect the bar to flex more probably to the point the limit straps engage.

5DAE222A-EE1D-4B86-BB17-39C319E8A433.jpeg


F7B77A75-BE01-4FC0-870A-25A15CA22E5C.jpeg

DA7E47AC-0E8F-4325-9BAE-69C927CAD4B9.jpeg

B264872E-4EF2-4620-A4CD-F3414448D61E.jpeg
 
Limit straps are mounted in the rear.
24” quad wrap Kartek branded. I think all these come from the same factory with different brand patches. I had them left over so I will stay with Kartek brand but I really like the Elrods Prostrap brand.
These 24” stretch to 24.25” static. My research says that they will stretch to 26” single and 25” dual. I set them up for 16” of travel plus 1.25” of dynamic stretch travel. So 17.25” of travel is my best guess.

9926B9BE-9B24-4542-B192-DE6B4FD27445.jpeg


57E6B9F4-2601-43B4-8F35-DDFEFA16FA3E.jpeg


8B7D5AA5-EB75-4AAF-8CE6-F540952EB4A0.jpeg
 
Last edited:
I would have thought one strap each corner is plenty. Do serious crawlers/wheelers break them much? Looks good though. The pilot in me likes redundant.
 
I've always thought the stretch calculations were approximate at best.

Especially with duals.
 
Limit straps are mounted in the rear.
24” quad wrap Kartek branded. I think all these come from the same factory with different brand patches. I had them left over so I will stay with Kartek brand but I really like the Elrods Prostrap brand.
These 24” stretch to 24.25” static. My research says that they will stretch to 26” single and 25” dual. I set them up at 25.5” which gives me 16” of travel plus 1.25” of dynamic stretch travel. So 17.25” of travel is my best guess.



57E6B9F4-2601-43B4-8F35-DDFEFA16FA3E.jpeg


8B7D5AA5-EB75-4AAF-8CE6-F540952EB4A0.jpeg
takes double shear to the next level. :beer: i like it alot and actually given me an idea
:beer:
 
Thats still single sheer Chappy. Love this build hope to steal a bunch of ideas for the new buggy build.
 
Most of the buggies in tech at KOH had single per corner quad wrap straps.
Campbells and Scherer have dual straps per corner on the rear axle. They also have large and heavy trussed axles cycling the straps infinitely more than I will.
On trailing arms the rear axle has leverage on the shock so the axle can hammer away at the shock much harder if the strap is not working compared to an axle mounted shock.
Another thing to keep in mind is the stretch rate. Most vendors say 1” per foot and half that for duals.
That’s 2” for 24” straps. Thats 16” of travel instead of 18” that you will not see in the rocks as the dynamic loading will not be enough to stretch the strap. With duals the stretch is cut in half so you can get another inch of travel and have the same stopping point to protect the shocks.
Some might like the stretch as it will reduce the shock load when the straps limit out.
One would probably have been enough, but I did like the idea of more travel with less stretch. I also like that it creates spares if a strap got loose and cut up by driveline, tire, chassis, or WTF, there are spares.
I would really prefer that vendors would give out rate of stretch per lbs. similar to springs so you can calculate instead of rule of thumb.
 
Top Back Refresh