1972 LT-1 Front and Rear Spring Option

[Ron G.]

Re: 1972 LT-1 Front and Rear Spring Option

Joe,

Maybe so, but I have seen under a handful of 71 Corvettes that had small blocks with a rear sway bar. I agree that it is unusual, but for whatever reason a few of them left St. Louis that way. Perhaps Terry M., Paul O., or Gary B. can offer some insight to this subject matter. - Ron

[Joe L.]

Re: 1972 LT-1 Front and Rear Spring Option

Joe,

Maybe so, but I have seen under a handful of 71 Corvettes that had small blocks with a rear sway bar. I agree that it is unusual, but for whatever reason a few of them left St. Louis that way. Perhaps Terry M., Paul O., or Gary B. can offer some insight to this subject matter. - Ron

Ron------


Actually, a 9/16" rear sway bar with a small block with standard suspension and 3/4" front bar would be a DETRIMENT to handling. That's one of the reasons I don't think GM would have specified it. Of course, as I say, factory mistakes could have occurred. Or, the bars could actually have been added by someone who THOUGHT that a rear sway bar was advantageous. Using all GM parts, once easy to obtain, I don't see how it would be possible to discern if the installation was original, or not.

[Duke W.]

Re: 1972 LT-1 Front and Rear Spring Option

I highly doubt that a LT-1 could have left St. Louis with the 9/16" rear anti-roll bar that was installed on all Big Blocks including F-41. If installed with the standard small block front bar it would have resulted in severe oversteer and would be unstable and unsafe if driven in a sporting manner.

Duke

[Joe L.]

Re: 1972 LT-1 Front and Rear Spring Option

I highly doubt that a LT-1 could have left St. Louis with the 9/16" rear anti-roll bar that was installed on all Big Blocks including F-41. If installed with the standard small block front bar it would have resulted in severe oversteer and would be unstable and unsafe if driven in a sporting manner.

Duke

Duke-----


Yup; exactly. For some reason over the years many folks think that the rear sway bar used on big blocks was installed "to give big blocks some handling advantage over small blocks". Actually, it was done to make big block handling more-or-less equivalent to small block handling. In other words, to compensate for the handling disadvantage resulting from the increased front weight of the big block installations.

However, some neophytes over the years probably felt "deprived" that their small block cars (probably especially LT-1's) lacked a rear sway bar. Of course, there's also the "cache" imparted by the rear sway bar (sort of like that imparted by 3 carburetors and side exhaust). So, they foolishly added the rear sway bar. They also failed to recognize that suspension is a carefully engineered SYSTEM and "field re-engineering" by neophytes is problematic, at best.