Hollow Sway Bar Design Philosophy Race Car Technology for the ...

a cheap way to make them, and there areseveral drawbacks to this method. Thefirst such detriment is that each bend isdone separately. With each bend thetolerance increases, i.e. inaccuracy, inmaking the part. This allows for increasedhuman error in production. As carsbecome more complex, the packaging ofthe sway bar tightens. There is less roomfor error, and thus, the part needs to bemore accurate to fit in the car. Thesecond drawback is that all of theadditional handling adds extra time to themanufacturing process. This can lead toextended production times and higher costs. One final disadvantage is that thepress bends can add several extreme tooling dents or ‘marks’ to the product.Dents such as these are acceptable on a solid bar, but they make the part lesseye pleasing to look at. Tubular material cannot be bent in this traditional way.The press will either kink or crack the tubing when bending the material.Hotchkis Performance uses a “state of the art” high tech CNC (ComputerNumerically Controlled) bending machine. This machine does essentially all ofthe bends in one handling process. Raw material is loaded into the machine,which then goes through a series of motions to produce a smoothly bent part. Acomputer keeps track of each bend in relation to all ofthe other bends. This produces a very high tolerancepart, typically in the 0.050” range or tighter, and withconsistent reliability. During the manufacturing run, aLaser Vector inspection system isemployed to measure the partsbeing bent by the machine. Thismeasures the shape of the bar,and compares it to a computer fileof the part print. The laser’scomputer sends any necessarycorrections directly to the bendingcomputer. This is done because each batch of raw materialvaries and bends slightly different than another.Tubular Anti-Roll Bar Design PhilosophyMany people are confused by the modern use of a ‘hollow’ ARB.Technological advancements in racing designs are finally being used by manysuspension designers throughout the world. Companies, such as, Porsche,Daimler-Chrysler, Ford and others have started to include hollow anti-roll bars onHotchkis Sport Suspension12035 Burke Street Ste 13Santa Fe Springs, Ca 90670www.hotchkis.net