Solid 4 link bars.....

DOM here is way 2 expensive and its now cost more than just solid bars, sooooo I was wondering what others thought of that. I know of someone doing that at their shop and I could not think of a reason not to. Would there be more unsprung weight?

ThanksPhil

Solid will flex more than tube.

Originally posted by TwistedMinis



Solid will flex more than tube.

That is like the whole saying that a feather and bowling ball fall at the same speed. They will but only in a perfect vacuum that doesn't exist. A solid bar is not as strong as tubing, but only when you consider the strength to weight ratio. If you take a piece of 3/8 solid round bar and try to bend it, you can do so fairly easily. But if you take that same amount of material and make into a tube (let's say about 1 5/8" x .065 wall) it will be a whole lot harder to bend by hand. So obviously the most efficient use of material would be thinner yet larger od. (This is only part of the picture, so don't go trying to build some crazy thin 6" x 6" lower bars...)

The issue with solid bar is that it will be harder to work with and add considerably to the unsprung weight. Can you do it... Yes. Do you want to... No.

Check out Aircraft Spruce. They sell 4130 tubing at a fair price and they ship.

I don't know where you live but if your anywhere near the inland empire in california hit me up, I work at IMS and we've got alot of surplus and regular DOM and also any size 4130 you can think of.

Oh yeah, I forgot about IMS...

as far as unsprung weight, if I was adding up unsprung weight, you would take 1/2 the weight of the bar itself, right?

So a 1" solid bar would be easier to bend tubing say 1" with a 1/4" wall?

BTW, i'm not planning on doing this, just curious about it.
Thanks
Phil

discountsteel.com

A solid bar of the same dia will not bend easier.

Hey max, what about comparing a piece of 1" solid bar 30" in length to a piece of 1" .125 wall tubing 30" in length. Which one would be stronger.

Edited: 10/24/2007 10:35:18 AM by BioMax

Ima add something here... When you measure a materials strengths, you have to take several things into consideration. A solid bar is quite strong, but it isn't by any stretch a properly engineered part. To an engineer, tubing is stronger than a solid bar of the same diameter...

The solid bar will obviously be stronger (to us) but the thing is that the solid bar will be say... twice as strong (I'm not exactly sure on this) yet it weighs 10 times as much (1 1/2" bar vs. 1 1/2x.120 tube) so, yes it's stronger, but it is a HUGE waste of weight.

As for unspring weight, the simple measurement would be to assume the bar is 1/2 unsprung.