Swaybars / anti-roll bars running front-back to control acceleration squat and dive?

Question

Have swaybars ever been tested that run front to back to control dive under braking and squat under acceleration? Can you point to any examples? Any drawbacks or reasons they aren't more widely adopted?

Answer 1

The anti roll bar would have to be excessively large in diameter because of the length required. That would make it very heavy. I have never seen this system used but I am sure it has been because almost everything possible has been tried at one time or another.

Answer 2

You can control squat and dive by the angles and geometry of the front a arms and spindles. It gets complicated fast, but you don't need a bar going front to back. If you really want to strain your brain and learn more, find, purchase, and read the book Engineer to Win by Carrol Smith.

Answer 3

I'm not aware of anyone that has run any setup like this, and I as I sit here and think about what you could accomplish with it, I can not think of any reason to do it.

Simply stiffening the suspension will control dive and squat... and doing this with an ARB would not gain any advantage over simply having stiffer springs.

In terms of drawback, the size of such a bar would add quite alot of unsprung weight to the car, and unless the chasis was modified, it would likely have to sit so low as to require the car to be raised (making side to side transition worse to achieve a very very marginal gain that could easily be gained elsewhere in setup).  I would also be concerned with how such a setup would affect grip in a corner, having the front and back linked like that seems like a recipe for understeer - though this is more of a gut feeling from just starting to think about it, after more thought I might not feel this to be a real concern... though still see no reason why you would want to do it.