THSCC Forums

As you know, the Short Bus (especially the 4x4 with its higher center of gravity) tends to wallow - a tendency that only worsens when towing. Per the advice of several THSCC members, I recently purchased and installed a Helwig rear sway bar. (Ordered from Tom's 4x4 in the Triad - they had it direct shipped to me from Helwig.) Haven't towed with it yet - can speak to that after this weekend with the BMW guys at VIR, but it makes a huge difference just driving around town. I never would have thought a rear sway bar on a live axle vehicle would have such a pronounced impact.

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Marvin McBride
Spec Miata #62

Marvin,

Ditto for a Helwig rear bar on our camper van (Dodge 1 ton chassis). My feelings were the same as yours . . . until I tried the big rear bar. Apparently the actual rear roll resistance from the springs, even with high static weight on the springs, is still relatively soft compared to the weight and cg "acting" on the springs in roll from either cornering or wind. Also, there may be some roll "steer" of the rear axle of trucks/vans.

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Dick Rasmussen

FS 50 2018 Mustang GT

"Roll steer" sounds so much more precise than "wallow," but I think we're talking about the same thing. What was most disconcerting about the Excursion was that when the angle of the road (crown) changed, you needed to significantly adjust steering input - even while trying to go straight down the middle of the lane. That's much improved now.

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Marvin McBride
Spec Miata #62

Karl installed the helwig bar and some Bilstein heavy duty shocks on his 2wd Diesel Excursion, and it rides much better than my (stock 80k mile suspension).

I ordered a set of the bilstein shocks, and a set of cutsom Excursion radius rods from Ken Evanson up in Va somewhere. The Radius Rods came in yesterday, and I'm going to try to install them and the new shocks before my Thanksgiving trek to Canada. According to everything I've read, the radius rods cure all of the roll steer, and keep the axel from twisting the springs (and causing roll steer) under acceleration and braking. The new shocks should stiffen up the ride and help body roll some. If I'm still left wanting after all of that, I'll order the Helwig rear bar. The radius rods already have allowances built in for the bar.

-Matt

Marvin, I agree, the Hellwig does make a big difference (while being a pretty hateful install job IMO, especially with a giant exhaust). But it's still not as straight-as-an-arrow as my 2500 burb was, especially in road crown changes like you've described. I still have to correct for that a bit.

The radius rods Graham bought should fix the remaining roll steer. If he has as good of luck with these things as I expect he will, I'll be buying a set for my own X.

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Karl S.
2014 Baby, 2014 House, 2013 Ford Focus ST, 2013 BMW 328i, 1994 Mercedes E320
(Insert passive aggressive signature line here)

Link for the Radius Rods? Good place to get the Bilsteins?


--Donnie

Donnie,

The Radius Rods are made by Ken Evanson hoowasat -AT- cox.net

He doesn't advertise, have a website, nothing. All of his sales are via word of mouth. Check out this thread:
http://www.fordexcursions.com/forums/po ... e=1&rpp=10

He's super professionoal. Basically you e-mail him saying you're interested, then he sends you a 15 page WORD file, including the install instructions, how the things work, and the ordering procedure.

If you decide you want a set, you send him a $25 check which gives you a spot "in line" for when he makes another batch. He's some sort of fabricator at a big shipyard somewhere in VA, and does these rods in his spare time. When your set of radius rods are done, he sends you another WORD file with the final cost. You send him a money order, he sends the radius rods.

He is, quite possibly, the most professional car parts source I've ever dealt with. After my initial e-mail, I had no doubts about doing business with him. Not only that, he sent me several e-mails asking the application, what the symptoms I wanted to fix were, and how handy I was (i.e. could I install the parts, and would I be happy with them). Finally today he sent me an e-mail asking me to please post the my impressions, good or bad, on the forum I linked above. Very stand up guy.

As for the Bilsteins, Karl found a good place to get them.

-Matt

Donnie, I bought mine from shox.com. Final price delivered to my door was under 300 bucks shipped.

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Karl S.
2014 Baby, 2014 House, 2013 Ford Focus ST, 2013 BMW 328i, 1994 Mercedes E320
(Insert passive aggressive signature line here)

Thanks guys. I ordered the swaybars and shocks from shox.com and have email out to the radius rod dude.

I'm guessing this combination of upgrades will solve another problem I've seen, too...when on the beach at the outer banks I'd get a *lot* of violent rear axle hop quite easily. The simple fix was to air down the tires, but it's quite annoying to air down from the 70+ psi I used to tow the Jeep down there (I know, why was I out on the beach in an Excursion when I had a Jeep...bear with me) and then air back up with a tiny compressor. I think if it weren't for that violent axle hop I wouldn't have really needed to air down at all.

I just got my Excursion back from the shop, too. Why was it there? Well, I had a *really* hard pull to the left under braking at speed. It seemed to go away (even under *hard* braking) under 20MPH, but anything over that caused a significant left pull. I noticed it was worse if I was in the left lane of a four lane road, which I attributed to the crown. Of course, it sounds like that was all exacerbated by this rear suspension issue, too.

Anyway, it was bad enough that I took it in. They didn't really identify the culprit, but after changing front rotors and pads and doing an alignment the problem doesn't seem to exist any more. I'm betting I have the pull due to the crown a *little* still (I haven't actually driven it myself yet), but hopefully we'll have that fixed soon, too... Oh, they did all that under warranty, so I can't complain about my free rotors and pads after putting 10k hard miles on the first set. I'm guessing at least 4k of those miles were towing.


--Donnie

Dammit. While shox.com shows Bilsteins for 2004 Excursions, apparently something is different and they actually *don't* have shocks for the truck (at least not yet). The guy said *nobody* has aftermarket shocks for it, in fact. Ugh. So the swaybars are on the way, anyway. *sigh*

Hopefully the radius rods still work.


--Donnie

Donnie,

If the pull isn't solved and if it isn't only when towing a trailer with brakes, there is a good chance the pull is due to the wear pattern on the left side tires . . . especially assuming you do drive relatively hard (for the vehicle) around on ramps and/or spend a lot of time in the left lanes which are sloped to the left enough to need a little counter steering. Another possible cause is brake pads that are temp sensitive and for some reason the left side pads stay a little warmer than the right side pads and grip better until the right side pads heat enough to be equal (I've actually had this problem). For a heavy vehicle it is conceivable that even OEM pads might grip better when they warm up.

Of course, for all I know, it could be inherent in these vehicles

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Dick Rasmussen

FS 50 2018 Mustang GT

Wow, 89,000 on the Silverado's orginal pads and rotors and still going strong. Probably 45,000 miles towing.

I had problems with shox.com stating shocks existed for an application and they do not exist. That is why I deal with Stranoparts.

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Jim Pastorius
2008 Silverado VortecMax
1992 Camaro CMC#92
2002 BMW R1150R

2009 3rd Place CMC Mid-Atlantic Championship
2009 CMC Hyperfest Winner

Hey Donnie - slightly off topic but I'm going to ask anyway. As last we talked (Rockingham Autocross), you were planning on putting some Banks stuff on yours. Have you done that yet, and if so, did the dealer give you any crap about the mods and your warranty? That's what has kept me away from chips and such.

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Karl S.
2014 Baby, 2014 House, 2013 Ford Focus ST, 2013 BMW 328i, 1994 Mercedes E320
(Insert passive aggressive signature line here)

Dick, the problem was just driving around town with no trailer. Doubtful it's the tires as they are still just under 10k miles, too. And I don't hang it out on cloverleafs, really, either. I'm not easy on my vehicles, but not terribly hard, either.

Jim, as for Stranoparts, well, I'm glad you're happy with them. I'd fairly friendly with Sam, but I've seen enough of him to not want to spend my money with him (watching him curse and almost come to blows with Mike Johnson for driving Rod's ESP STi at Oscoda this past year was enough for me...all because he "might blow Sam's chance at the ProSolo NC").

Karl, no, I haven't done any Banks stuff. I was about to and then Rod McGeorge was telling me how much the new SuperChip did in his truck so I was going to do that. Rod's a dealer for them and was going to get me one at cost, but then he put me on hold for now as the chip is having some issues and they're promsing an update for it. So I'm waiting still.

The warranty issue was what bothered me, too, but I'm not scared of the chip since there's case law that they can't void your warranty for *just* that (and I'd take it out if I had anything serious go wrong before I took it in anyway). YMMV.


--Donnie

one step farther off topic...

I'm looking to put a rear sway bar on the Tundra, and there are two options. 1 1/8" Hellwig or a 3/4" addco.

Obviously there is a huge difference between those options. Anyone want to weigh in on things, considering we primarily drive the truck empty, as a daily driver?

Oh yeah, the Addco is gold, the Hellwig is black... No sure who has a bigger sticker.

In my mind the 3/4" rear and a bigger front would be better, but no one makes a front bar.

Scott