Swaybar/Endlink angle on tow vehicle?

So it's not exactly my tow vehicle but I picked up a "new" RV for the girlfriend to use at her summer job. It's a 4x4 converted e350. The guy put an aftermarket front swaybar on it and it has some crazy endlink length and swaybar angle. Is there any detriment to this? If I can, should I shorten the endlink length to get the bar parallel or does it even matter? I have to imagine there were clearance issues but I couldn't see any on a cursory glance.

For a performance vehicle you generally want the end of the bar to be as close to horizontal as possible when the car is sitting at normal ride height in order to minimize the amount that the geometry changes (and thus effective spring rate change) as the suspension compresses.

I dunno how much this really matters on an RV, since I assume you're not out dodging cones with it? :)

This thing is tall enough that I could do a barrel roll if I turn too sharply. Maybe I'll just look into shortening them if I need to replace them down the road.

That seems a little excessive but usually 4x4 stuff is set up differently - the bar is parallel at 50% travel. And often modified off road stuff has a lot more down travel than it does up travel, as in if you were to flex the suspension out, the compressed side will compress and the extended side will drop way, way out. 

Still seems extreme, but shouldn't hurt anything. That's probably a front bar from a Jeep or something, repurposed for that rig, hence imperfect fitment. 

I have one on my XJ cherokee. That angle is about correct, you want about 15 degrees upwards at static ride height. Currie has instructions on their website on how to set them up properly. Basically under full droop you have to avoid the end link "flipping over" because there is nothing stopping the whole sway bar from rotating 180 degrees and ending up really messing some stuff up. If you want a different rate for the bar you can drill holes at various distances from the rotation point to put different amounts of leverage on the bar. 

Draw a line that is perpendicular to the link and intersects the sway bar pivot point:

This is the effective lever arm. If you shorten the link in this case, the lever arm gets longer, and the sway bar gets softer. For a sports car, your range of motion is much, much smaller than an offroad truck, so trucks can get into some really wild instances (like the link flipping completely if you have enough travel). You also get an increased stiffening as that lever arm shrinks with heavy compression. 

if the linkage is that long it's probably because the truck has a lot of downward droop travel in the suspension. You typically want the sway bar arm to be horizontal at roughly 50% of the suspension travel (up and down). 

In the position it's currently in, the bar will effectively be less stiff than if it were horizontal. All in all, not a big deal on a 'not race car.'

nlzmo400r said:

if the linkage is that long it's probably because the truck has a lot of downward droop travel in the suspension. You typically want the sway bar arm to be horizontal at roughly 50% of the suspension travel (up and down). 

In the position it's currently in, the bar will effectively be less stiff than if it were horizontal. All in all, not a big deal on a 'not race car.'

Wouldnt it be more stiff in the position it is currently in vs horizontal?  Less movement of the control arm would be twisting the bar and instead would be trying to bend it. 

In reply to jfryjfry :

Yeah, look at an extreme case - if the link was vertical then it would be ridiculously stiff. Horizontal gives the tire the most leverage against the bar, so the bar loses. It all comes down to that projected length I sketched above 

In reply to cyow5 :

Right. Just trying to be gentle! 
 

I wonder if the reason they did that is because when horizontal the end of the arm is too far back and interferes with something?   You'd need to redrill the mounting hole and cut the end off.  This would also make the bar more stiff.