GregPac

I'm looking for some advice on swaybars. It boils down to the question: should I upgrade from my non-sport stock bars to Mr. D's sport bars, or should I wait until I can afford something bigger? I'm running the same spring/shock setup you had in your A4, and the car is a daily driver which I expect to track a few times a year.

Your thoughts on the subject are appreciated.

Ghostfire

for the streets an adjustable would be perfect.

VAP

And please bear with me as I'm going from memory on the front bar but I believe the archives will back me up.

Front sway bars are same diameter regardless of if they're sport or standard (non-sport). Rear bars are different and I have a two here I just measured. The archive will tell of these in several different diameters but this is one I can speak with authority on as I measured these two myself. Stock rear bar is 13mm and "sport" rear bar is 15mm. I dont have a clue where all those 16mm numbers come from in the archives as I have several of these around and my measuring instruments are nowhere near that out-of-whack that they cant tell 15mm from 16mm. I also have a rear 00 and 01 S4 rear bars and they are the same as well, ie; 15mm. Given that I would say the A4 sport and 00/01 S4 rear bars are the same and that likely is the sole difference between the A4 sport/non-sport swaybars and that the 00/01 S4 is identical to the A4 sport set-up. Audi is not known for aggressive swaybar set-ups... never has been with the exception of the 4000.

Given this info you need to decide if a single 2mm larger rear bar will satisfy your current and/or future front/rear swaybar needs.

I wouldn't personally opt for a same-size front bar unless I was ecstatic with it's performance, never wished for better or more aggressive handling and could find it in a hollow, rather than solid configuration. And even then only because of a slightly reduced weight. And there are hollow front bars scattered about on a few models tho they are primarily 1.8T A4 cars tho they are plug-n-play on a 2.8 tho no stiffer they are no softer either. Rather just a lighter weight option.

The one thing I do know and this is a HUGE consideration is that anything larger than the 15mm rear bar will crack your rear sub-frame if you dont' use some "triangulated" mounting brakets that reinfoce the sub-frame and anchor it to a more solid transverse link pivot housing. If you bolt a 19mm or larger bar to the rear of a B5 chassis without that feature it's not a matter of "if" but simply "when" you will crack the sub-frame on your car. Read the archives on this as it's well documented and Neuspeed bought a TON of B5 subrames for AW members paid for their installations due to that lil faux pas.

I love the larger sway bars. I'm running 28mm RS2 front sway bar that I've modified with additional end link holes for fine-tuning and adjustment. I'm running a Neuspeed 22mm adjustable rear bar with triangulated sub-frame mounting braces. But I would not envourage this setup for cars with less than 8" wide wheels and the advice to be very very careful in snow or on ice. This setup works fine in summer but makes the car behave like an F1 car on ice when snow blankets the streets, ie; the car will spin faster than you can believe when you touch the brakes with the front wheels turned and you transfer weight to the front axles. I suspect we have a few of these stories coming up this winter due to some people going this way where very few have done such dramatic swaybar modifications at this forum in the past winters. I could easily be one of those.

People often think that with an adjustable swaybar arm with two end link adjustment holes that they only have a soft/firm setting adjustment. Truth is with 2 arm holes they have soft/medium and firm setting as the bar can use one soft hole mount and one firm hole mount that gives a "medium" setting provision.

However in order to use this setting or even left-to-right same-hole hook-ups one still requires adjustable end-links in order to unload the bar for any/all settings and to be balanced.

I'm not sure I've answered your question or even helped do anything more than confuse/befuddle. Maybe my old stand-by can be more helpful:

"If you're gonna be a dog, why be a chihuahua!?!"

B2119

subframe mounting points? Is this a must when running the Neuspeed 22mm rear bar? TIA

JWG

Neuspeed even discontinued its 22mm bar for the A4 due to subframe cracks. It also spent a lot of $$$ on designing and re-designing its subframe support for the sway bar mounting points.

Neuspeed uses the OEM holes in the subframe that Audi intended for its heavy-duty "alpine" or "off-road" suspension that it makes available in Europe, as that suspension also requires additional subframe support.

As quite a few people had problems on the A4 and as the A4 has almost an identical rear suspension (as I heard it) to the 90, it would behoove you to get the latest revision of the subframe supports. If you buy the bar new, it will have the latest revision of the supports.

An added benefit of the new supports, the 19mm bar now performs as aggressively as the 22mm bar with them due to the additional stiffness that the new supports add.

Mr.D-'97 A4q 12v

My stock A4 non-sport is 29mm hollow. The solid 29mm bar I have is from a S4 (you already knew that).

The rear non-sport bar is 12.5mm (and I just double checked this recently with my multimeter) and the A4 sport bar I had is indeed 15mm (I've seen so many mistakes in the archives, too, when it comes to the size of both the front and rear bars.)

Question: so you're saying the front non-sport 29mm hollow bar and the S4/sport 29mm solid bar should be about the same stiffness?

Mr.D-'97 A4q 12v

By the way, I called Neuspeed the other day and they sell the rear support brackets for $50. I have a part # at work if anyone wants it.

JWG

most people say that the solid bar has greater stiffness. Perhaps, this occurs because it requires more torsion force to twist the solid bar than the hollow bar. Honestly, I do not know how or why--maybe fact, maybe fiction?!

VAP

so much so that they were also standard on the 1.8T A4 as well as the 00/01 S4 and maybe others as well. You can read about hollow vs solid bars and their likenesses/differences at a zillion places with a Google search or even here at AW.

But I gotta ask. How does your new multimeter test swaybar thicknesses? I use a digital vernier caliper and wouldnt have a clue how to measure bar diamters with my Fluke automotive multimeter or Fluke automotive oscilliscope.

VAP

asking if I could buy just the rear mounts and was told they dont sell the mounts separately. I also knew this as we (Champagne) had tried doing this for our race cars that we have several diameter sway bars in varying thicknesses from sources other than Neuspeed. So Larry at Champagne called them and he was told the same thing, ie: we dont not sell our rear swaybar mounting brackets separately. And Champagne was the Neuspeed repair facility that replaced sub-frames for Neuspeed when this whole rear sub-frame and 19/22mm rear bar fiasco started. And it wasn't the owners of the 22mm rear bar that had issues tho that bar did crack rear sub frames quicker than the 19mm rear bar did. I personally know 2 1.8T A4 drivers here in town that cracked their sub-frames with 19mm rear bars and Neuspeed bought them new rear sub frames and paid Champagne to install them.

If you have the chance to pick up the Neuspeed rear sub frame triangulated mounting brackets and are yourself using a 20mm rear bar I'd encourage you to pull the trigger on that purchase before you take another breath as you are on incredibly short, borrowed time. When they were selling the triangulated mounting brackets separately for upgrading their rear bars they were selling them separately for $100 per pair. If you can get them for $50 a pair thats an incredible hot smoking deal and I would jump all over it. QUICKLY!!! before they change their minds... AGAIN!!