Torsion Bar Adjustment

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ShortyNavros

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Thought I would make a Maintenance and Tech guide for torsion bar adjustment as it is a common question on here:

DISCLAIMER: I am no certified mechanic, do this at your own risk. All work on vehicle suspension should be done with no load on it and the car securely raised up on jack stands with wheel chocks used.

When asking to wind up your torsion bars from a stock height it is important to remember, yes it is possible but you may need to re-spline your torsion bars, because they are likely splined to a stock height as the D22 was never designed to ride at a height that we all like on a 2 inch lift (can only get about 30-40mm to maintain decent down travel).

So as I was saying, it all depends how much adjustment you have left in your torsion bars, you can only wind so far as the bolt is only so long. If you run out of adjustment (ie the torsion bar adjusting bolt is fully tightened and you still need to go higher), you need loosen the bolt all the way off and remove it entirely, once its off, use a hammer with a blunt punch to hit the end of the torsion bar off (this is the torsion bar adjuster bracket, make sure you take note of where it sits once no pressure is on it from the bolt, in relation to the cross member, there is also usually an annoying circlip thing which you need to remove before you can get the adjuster bracket off, it is a PITA to remove and to put on, but with two screw drivers and a hammer it isn't impossible). Once the adjuster bracket is off you can reposition it so the bracket's arms which, attach to the adjuster bolt, sits outside the cross member more so than it did before, this is what is called re-splining of the torsion bar. When re-installing the adjuster bracket there are groves on each end that line up with the crossmember so it sits evenly in the right spot.

Remember getting the adjuster bracket placement right is crucial, if it doesn't stick out far enough from the cross member to begin with before you put the bolt in to start tightening, you will run into the same problem of running out of adjustment before you reach the desired height. If you have it sticking out from he cross member too far to begin with then you may reach the height and the bolt+bracket arms will be exposed beneath the cross member and when off road they can be damaged easily, hence why you want it tucked inside the cross member safely.

Also ideally you want both the left and right adjuster brackets to sit in similar start positions, so they will end up in similar end positions, this ensures each torsion bar has a relatively equal amount of torsion (circular tension) applied to it. Last time I put my car into a mechanic for work it came out with the torsion bar adjuster brackets set at different places (splined differently) this meant one side was wound up inside the cross member almost to the point of no more adjustment and the other side had hardly and torsion on it and the adjuster bracket was sticking out the cross member, this means it can be damaged easily and the torsional force applied to each side was wildly different.

To get the height right it is a guessing game. Once you think each side looks equal with regards to the adjuster bolt remove you vehicle stands and let your front wheels back down to take the weight. Ideally go for a drive and bounce it round abit to get them to settle. Re-measure your centre of wheel to guard heights and adjust your adjuster bolt as necessary

Remember all this must be done with no load on the wheel (ie vehicle jacked up and supported by jack stands). And once you are done adjusting your torsion bars you will need a wheel alignment. Also you need to allow a gap between the upper control arm and it's bump stop (people say 10-15mm minimal as a guideline). This will allow the front suspension some down travel so it doesnt become harsh when driving. In qld (for your car to be legal, this is where I am from) you need to maintain at least 2/3 of the original travel in the both directions to be maintained (down-travel is our problem here not up-travel). So as an example the right height for my stock 2004 D22 is 495mm from centre of wheel to guard, at full droop my suspension sits at 585mm from centre of wheel to guard. So in the example I have a 90mm suspension travel (shit I know right!?), so for my car to be road legal I must maintain 2/3 x 90mm = 60mm, hence I can only wind my front end up by 30mm legally (so my centre of wheel to guard height can be 525mm maximum legally). This is hard to pin point and I generally run my torsion bars at 40mm higher than standard (535-540mm).

Cheers,
Shorty
 
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