Contemplating pulling off my sway bars...

[Bumbo]

After I installed the 2-2.5" lift on the 4Runner (1-2 years ago) I had a short duration of time (like a week) where I did some road and freeway driving / testing without the sway bar and got to feel what that was like.

It absolutely took away from higher speed stability, so much so that my lady really hated it so we decided to finalize the install by putting it back on. At the time it was still a daily driver...

Since we added another truck to the stable the 4Runner gets to be a dedicated toy / off-road / project truck... we don't really use it for anything other than 4 Wheeling, desert trips, trails, light crawling, but primarily just cruising around our local desert and smaller dunes type areas.

I know I get more independent flex in the front off-road, but I dont do a lot of technical trail as much as I just like to have a spirited drive and treat it a bit more like a sports car than a rock crawler.

My question is... for what I described, do you think its better to leave those sway bars on, or take them off?

I dont think I ever tried driving the rear without a sway bar... what could I expect disconnecting that one as well?

I know I could just take them off and try it myself, but I wanted to start a discussion first before going down that road.

Thanks

 

[Ralphman]

Remove both of them and dont think twice about it, the ride is so much smoother in my opinion. Yeah you get a bit more body roll but its not that bad. My only regret about pulling off my rear sway bar is I didn't remove it when I installed the lift because it would of been alot easier, gotta take a tire off after you get everything unbolted and snake it out the side.

 

[Inv4drZm]

It seemed that once I removed mine, and later removed my brother's front sway bar, it really affected the "response time" of the handling, with an increase in body roll of course. This was after we had lifted our trucks and armored them out. I've always thought if I was driving down the highway, there would literally be no reason I would need to make a 'high speed manuever' especially in my truck with it's lift and taller tires even with the sway bar on. I don't follow closely behind other drivers and if a deer runs out in front of me, it would be way more dangerous to swerve into another lane or the ditch and roll my truck rather than just braking and hitting it with a steel bumper.

With that said, the handling is surprisingly good from I would expect from a lifted and heavy truck. It's all in the supporting mods. Stiff shocks and coils, offset wheels probably help too. Then again, most of the weight I have added is below the frame in the form of skid plates, sliders, and tires which would probably lower the center of gravity vs a stock vehicle.