Rear Stabilizer Bar (from AE86 onto KE70)

27th June 2003

KE70R-EEMNS (Toyota Corolla GL 1.3L 4-doors Sedan 1982) did not come with rear stabilizer bar. 

However many things are interchangeable between KE70, AE86, TE7x, AE7x etc, for example rear axles, complete front suspension assembly, rear coils & absorbers, gearbox, cross_member, etc. Therefore a AE86 rear stabilizer bar was obtained for Ringgit Malaysia (RM) 50, sheer luck to be honest.

There are 2 holes which fits the rear sway bar's bracket, but it is unknown at this point how a real AE86 fits the rear sway bar.

Upon trial fitting, it was found that the KE70 chassis lack the official rear sway bar's bracket mounting readiness. 

Never seen a real AE86 rear sway bar installation before :(

The Solution

Only the reference holes / points are available, which is shown by the red arrows and circle on the next picture.

A proper and completely reversible installation would be to drill 2 holes pointed by the green arrows. Drive a long bolt through the main skeleton beam as shown by the yellow arrows. Finally attached the rear sway bar's bracket onto the main skeleton beam and lock it using the long bolt and nut.

But the installer was lazy to drill the holes and look for the nuts and bolts, therefore welded the bracket dead :(

Trial fitting the bracket

Welding on the bracket :(

Done :( cannot be removed incase ......whatever...... :( next time don't rush.

And the rest is history, as seen of the complete outcome from above.

Aftermath

After driving around 1km from the workshop, it is immediately felt that the rear is not as bumpy as before.

i.e. the rear sway bar is applying LOAD to the rear coil and reduces it's rebound??? or bounce up strength. Something like, before, the rear coil only needs to bounce the weight of the car without the heavy rear axle. Now it's like it has to carry the rear axle's weight as well, therefore can't bounce as high / much.

This is extremely good as the rear 6.5 kg/mm coil is not too stiff anymore. Pure luck for my part, dam smart for the car's engineers, modifiers and racers. 

Due to less bump, it leads to more grip at the rear, cause it is not floating around the road anymore. The car feels much safer, which leads to one not noticing the speed through a corner, hence faster by nature.

Previously corners above 100 km/h are pushed by sheer bravery and squeezing the balls and normally max at 120 km/h, which is just noticeable on the limits. But now, 110 km/h and didn't feel anything. hehehehehe 

Conclusion

It ain't a proper car without rear sway bar. Well, this is definitely true for my case. Perhaps applicable to most RWD and 4WD, cause they have rear axles too. Except for MR and not sure about FF.

Charges

The mech.s are friends so only Ringgit Malaysia (RM) 10 for installation. Don't complain.

See also

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