Sway Bars and Offroad Performance
If you’ve been looking for a cheap and easy way to increase your off-road performance, you may have seen a lot of people advising to take off your vehicles sway bar. While it may give you some off-road benefits by removing it, sway bars are a vital part of your vehicle and how it performs. If you’re debating about taking off your sway bar and throwing it in the trash, here is everything to take into consideration before you do.
What Do Sway Bars Do?
Sway bars are a safety part on vehicles that link the left and right side of the suspension together to reduce body roll and overall reduce roll over chances if you were to make a sharp turn or have to do any evasive maneuvers.
Basically sway bars, also called anti-roll bars, react when they receive a twisting motion (for example cornering) and levels out both sides of the vehicle to reduce the rolling feeling.
Benefits of Removing Your Sway Bar
When off-road, sway bars can actually hurt your vehicles performance and ride comfort, especially at slower speeds. You may notice with a sway bar connected on uneven terrain, that you vehicle will rock back and forth going over obstacles. This is because your sway bar is fighting to keep both sides level and reduce that swaying feeling, which actually just makes it worse.
Removing your sway bar will allow each wheel more articulation over bumps and obstacles to gain the maximum amount of travel which increases traction (tires can stay touching the ground) and ride comfort.
Downsides of Removing Sway Bar
While removing your sway bar provides a lot of off-road benefits, you’re also removing an important safety aspect on your vehicle. After removing your sway bar you’ll start to notice when taking corners or on the highway that your vehicle feels more like a boat and you will feel the roll. It also increases rollover risks and it can play a part in insurance if you were to get into a serious accident.
While some people do run no sway bar with a softer suspension, it’s recommended to get springs with a higher spring rate to offset a little bit of the body roll. This can be kind of expensive if you’ve already upgrading your vehicles suspension. It’s recommended to not remove your sway bar if you’re still on factory suspension with almost every vehicle.
Alternatives to Sway Bar Removal
If you off-road frequently, but don’t want to run the risks of driving without a sway bar all the time, then there are some options that are great alternatives.
The first alternative is buying a sway bar quick disconnect. These are awesome modifications that allow you to quickly disconnect your sway bar when you really need to. There are also some options like electronic disconnects that allow you to disconnect your sway bar with just the press of a button. Some jeeps have this option from the factory. Unfortunately, if you drive a Tacoma like me, there aren’t currently any options for a sway bar disconnect just yet so the other option may be better for you.
The second option is to bring the tools with you to disconnect your sway bar when you reach the trails. Sway bars are usually really easy to take off and put back on, so just taking a little time to prep once you reach your trail destination and remove the sway bar and put it back on before you leave gives you the best of both worlds with just a little extra work.
Important: Keep in mind, it is always recommended to use your vehicle’s sway bar and to not modify your vehicles safety components. Perform all modifications at your own risk.
Do you still have your sway bar on your overland rig? Leave a comment about your setup below!