Skid Plates and Sway Bar Relocate

Hello everyone,

I’m going to be adding an aftermarket engine skid plate soon. I was looking at Talon’s Garage, but I saw their disclaimer about it not working with sway bar relocation.

I don’t have a lift right now, but I’m planning on having that done in the future (most likely Bilstein 6112’s in the front).

I’d rather buy a skid plate that I won’t need to replace in the future, but what options work with sway bar relocating lifts?

I was looking at RCI and LFD as well.

Or

Is there some way of getting around the sway bar issue? I know removing sway bars is an option too, but I’m not sure I want to do that.

This is for a TRD ORP with no KDSS.

 

You could simply not relocate your sway bar. I ran my swaybar in the stock location with a 2.5 in lift for about 60k miles. No problems at all.

 

Thanks, I was under the impression that having to relocate the sway bar was pretty much certain when installing coil over shocks.

 

It’s not really “required”, but leaving it stock means the angles aren’t ideal. If I’m visualizing it correctly, the sway bar ends will be turned down slightly, meaning the bottom of the link won’t be directly below the top of the link. It also makes the “lever arms” of the sway bar shorter, effectively increasing the spring rate of the sway bar. Theoretically this can add up to accelerated wear, the links will probably be carrying more load. And the sway bar bushings will probably wear quicker since they’ll experience more thrust load anytime the sway bar is torqued.

But the problem with trying to solve this problem with after-market parts is that are rarely going to be be more durable than OE parts, for one reason or another. They also bring their own drawbacks (like interference with things that require stock positioning).

One thing is for certain, avoid all aftermarket adjustable links!!! They are worse than bad. They don’t last more a few years in the salt belt, and not much more in ideal conditions. And when one fails, the sway bar end contacts and destroy your CV axle.

For what it’s worth, I’ve been running without a swaybar or a little while now, and when I removed it I saw that the OE bushings looked fine, and the links also appeared and worked as normal.

 

same here, 2” lift and never touched the sway bar.

 

nope. I have 6112’s and no issues in factory location

 

With inverted coilovers (2.5" dia King/Icon/Fox etc.) sway bar relocation is necessary. The purpose of relocation is to move the sway bar forward to avoid hitting the spring perch. The 6112 is an OEM-style non-inverted shock (shaft on top, body on bottom), so the spring sits a bit higher on the shock body. You can usually get away with not using relocation blocks. The non-circlip version of 6112 was the OEM TRD Pro shock circa 2015, so Bilstein worked out the clearances back then.

 

I see. I was looking at Fox 2.5’s and Radflo for shocks originally, but over time started considering 6112’s. I think all the researching threads on shocks made me assume the sway bar would be an issue with all of them.