Aftermarket Sway Bars

[daveysew]

Hi all, looking at adding a set of aftermarket sway bars to go along with my KW V3's (thanks **********s.com) & was wondering who's done what to their Z's. Mine specifically is an '05 3.0 with sport package. Right now I'm looking at the Hotchkis ones, with H&R, and DINAN as other options. I don't know too much about Hotchkis (I think North American muscle cars with this brand), but my mechanic doesn't speak very highly of H&R and am having a hard time justifying the price of the DINAN's (~$800 for a set versus ~$400 for a set of the other brands). I don't want to bash DINAN about their pricing as I do think they make very good, reliable, user friendly parts for street and track use, but it's a one piece steel bar... is it really that much better to justify double the price of the other 2 brands? Let me know what you got, why you got it, and what you think about it now you got it.

Thanks,
dave

[RussRamz]

Ground Control.

[F360C]

Originally Posted by RussRamz

Ground Control.

+1.... amazing quality!

[vachss]

I have an H&R bar on the front of my 07 coupe and just picked a matching rear, but haven't got around to installing it yet. I think that H&R doesn't make bars for the Z4M, which is why you'll see the M folks mostly with Ground Controls.

I wouldn't overthink the brand of bar too much. They're all high quality, but differ a bit in stiffness. In particular the Hotchkis bars are 1-2 mm thicker than the HR bars and consequently somewhat stiffer. All these bars are adjustable though, so unless you're maxing out the adjustment on the H&Rs I don't see where the Hotchkis buys you much more.

[zeroselect]

I would recommend the swaybar from a M Coupe. The M swaybar is more than enough and if it feels it isn't you might wanna look for stiffer springs.

[vachss]

Originally Posted by zeroselect

I would recommend the swaybar from a M Coupe. The M swaybar is more than enough and if it feels it isn't you might wanna look for stiffer springs.

The front sway bar from a Z4M ought to fit the non-M (perhaps with minor modification), but I don't know anyone who's made a rear Z4M bar fit on a non-M.

FWIW the diameter of the front Z4M bar and the H&R front bar are the same (27mm) and they ought to provide similar stiffness, though the H&R is adjustable. The Hotchkis front bar, at 28mm, is the only stiffer one I know for the Z4. These are all quite a bit bigger than the stock front bar for the non-M: 24mm standard and 25mm sport.

The rear bars vary a bit more. If I recall correctly, the Z4M rear bar is 22mm while the H&R is 21 and the Hotchkis a whopping 24mm. The stock diameters on the non-M are 18mm standard and 19mm sport. Interestingly, TC Kline actually uses a smaller 17mm rear bar in their set up for the Z4. So there's an awfully broad range of set up options one can play with here.

[Zed4M26]

I have the H&R front sway (same as the e46 M3) for the front only. There are three adjustments. I have it on medium now and the car feels good. I also have the tck d/a kit so I cant speak for an equal comparison to stock.