Solid 4 link bars.....

Is there such a huge difference between seamed tubing and dom tubing that it make seamed tubing inferior to use on vehicles, in my opinion no. Is dom tubing superior to seamed tubing, yes. I have made several 4-links, panhard bars, and control arms out of seamed tubing with no adverse effects, in fact some have been on the road for several years. You can take a simple piece of 1"/.250" wall, run a 21/32" drill in it, and tap it .750"/10 and you have a 4-link bar or panhard bar. Now if I were building a high performance street vehicle (pro-street) I would look torward dom tubing and for a strip vehicle chromemoly. I think that certain companies like SD.com use thick wall dom tubing on several things and everybody thinks that they need to use it too. Am I trying to discourage people from using dom tubing, no. I do think that seamed tubing is overlooked because "everybodys using dom tubing".

Generally DOM is a higher grade material, but to say that seamed tubing is inferior is not quite right. This can get into a really long discussion about metalurgy and proper engineering practice, but in general Chris is right, there isn't anything wrong with seamed tubing for an already over engineered industry as minitrucks.

metalurgy? you mean that effects minitruckers. haha Engineered to win book has a good topics on it. (i know max allredy knows this, figured i'd point it out)

Soooooo the worse part is going to be the unsprung weight from what I understand. How much would u feel on a bagged truck? I kinda wanna just build 2 set of links to see how much different there is.

If you know what you were looking for, you should be able to tell the difference. It would be mostly felt on chatter bumps, speed bumps and other harsh obstacles, not smooth stuff.

Ima build my Four link from 2x4...wood..but I will get the good stuff for sure.

the problem you can run into with seamed tubing trying to tap it is splitting at the seam....

your so smart chris ;x




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Originally posted by bdroppeddak



the problem you can run into with seamed tubing trying to tap it is splitting at the seam....

I have never seen this before. As long as you use the correct tap drill and a sharp tap it should not happen. I'm not saying that it couldn't happen just that I have never seen it happen. If it did happen, I would suspect a faulty tap or the wrong tap drill was used causing the steel to push away from the tap instead of cutting the threads. I tap several pieces that are different types of material everyday and typically the tap breaks before the steel does.

Would the unsprung weight of a solid 1" bar be similar to a 1.5" bar with a .25" wall?

The one inch solid would actually be about 20% lighter than the 1.5 x .250, but the 1.5 would be considerably stiffer.