I am having an issue with the Hotchkis TVS sway bar mating up with the SpeedTech tubular lower control arms. Car is jacked up with the weight off both wheels. The geometry seems to be off, not sure if I should shorten the spacer or what to do here. If the link is tightened up to the bar then it won't line up with the LCA heim joint



If I loosen the link from the bar and screw it into the heim joint then the geometry is off on the top.



When I get the passenger side installed then there is no way to get the drivers side installed unless I pry up on the bar, but won't this put the suspension travel into a bind?



This is the spacing when the weight is on both wheels.......



Can I just leave the spacer out and use a shorter bolt??

What did you have first the arms or the bar ? Did your supplier know what parts you were working with and said it would work ?
I think it’s a bad match, doesn’t look like it will work and you’re going to need pony up for the speed tech bar now.
Craigslist the Hotchkis one or sell it here.

It is common to have to adjust spacer lengths with sway bars. It won’t affect performance if you do.

Hard to tell in pics but make sure the bar isn’t upside down. Seen it done before.....

Don

I would not be too concerned about this misalignment here as it appears to be about 1/4" off. I think that could be compression in the rubber upper links causing that.

Jeff

Neither, this is all new stuff. I stripped all the stock suspension out of the car. I purchased everything from Camaro Central, the Speed Tech Pro Touring front suspension package (tubular control arms and coil overs) and the Hotchkis TVS system (leaf springs and sway bars). There was no statement on the website that the LCA would not work with anything but their own sway bar. I never thought there would be an issue, but obviously there is.

Bar is definitely installed correctly, there is a dip in the center to clear the crank pulley. I'm going to remove it and measure the link mounting holes center to center and compare to the stock one.

Problem is that to get it to move that 1/4 inch I have to pry the thing into position, something is going to be in a bind.....its not right.

"mixing" aftermarket suspension components can lead to this kind of conflict

Did you reach out to Speed Tech and or Hotchkis to see if their parts play well together?

If not than you will need to use Hotchkis lower arms with their bar or get a Speed Tech bar

If shortening the spacers works you are good to go.

I can pretty much guarantee you that Hotchkis and Speedtech do not do compatibility testing with each other’s parts. That is unrealistic to say the least....

Don

yeah...IDK if in any of the 411 that either comes with or is noted on their sites per their respective front end kits if they say "must use our sway bar with X or "some modification to..." type of note but very likely, as OP is noticing, that some "modification" needs to be done using stock or other brand sway bar with their control arms or vice versa

Trimming the spacers may resolve his issue....but won't know until he tries and if not then it would be difficult to return or sell the "cut down" say bar.....

You can buy tube stock at some hardware store to cut up for mock up to see if that works and if so then cut the ones that came in the kit to that size if you want to preserve the ones until you know if the cut down idea works

I think you are "over-thinking" this.

The rubber biscuits almost never seat perfectly in the sway bar ends. There is always a slight misalignment.

Just tighten it up and road test it. There doesn't appear to be any slack in the connections to me. It should work fine.

Too busy traveling for work, just now getting around to following up. I needed to take the time for a closer look at this. Just to satisfy my own curiosity, I dropped the sway bar down to get a good measurement of the link holes center to center. They were 1/4" wider than the stock bar. Called Hotchkis and they confirmed that extra distance is by design to allow for correct link geometry on lowered front ends....makes sense.

Then I compared the set of links that came with the Hotchkis bar (which are the same dimension as the stock ones) to the SpeedTech ones. Since the mount for the heim joint is .75 inches higher than where the stock link would mount to the stock LCA, the SpeedTech links were too tall



Removed the link spacers, used a shorter bolt and now the geometry is good.

Are your photos taken with the car weight on it's wheels?

Yes