Reducing Body Roll

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VeitzJeep

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My '06 Liberty Sport is mostly a daily driver with me only doing light off-roading and sometimes driving through snow covered roads. I'm looking to improve the handling of it, on the cheap side (for now). An obvious way is to upgrade the sway bar... but I'm finding it impossible to find any aftermarket sway bars! Does anyone know where I could find some decent ones? I've been finding a large selection of sway bar links; will upgrading them make much of a difference for on-road performance?

Also, for a future project, any recommendations for strut assemblies? I'm not looking for a lift.

Thanks.
 

tommudd

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New springs and shocks would do a world of good over stock Go with the OME 926 fronts and 947 rear with better shocks front and rear like OME or Bilstein. It will give you maybe an inch or so over stock height but will handle way better than anything else
 

LibertyTC

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Real suspension is a dream.
OME, 927-948-JBA 4.5 A-Arms Bilstien shocks!
Less body roll = kick the tires out with a wider stance by new backspaced rims or Spidertrax Wheel spacers..what a difference.
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retmil46

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If everything is still stock, including the shocks and tires, lots of things you can do (and should look at) before contemplating stuff like trick sway bars.

Like you, mine is presently a on-highway daily driver (an 05 CRD Sport).

If you still have the skinny 225/75/16 tires (minivan tires on a Jeep, what was DC thinking?), you can swap them out for something along the line of 235/70/16 (stock on the Limiteds I believe), or 245/70/16's which will fit without a lift and are the same diameter so the speedo won't be thrown off - did that four years ago on mine and made a noticeable difference without any other changes.

Stock Chrysler shocks are indeed crap. Agree with those on here who say if you've got anything past 40K miles on the stock shocks, they're worn out and you're riding on the springs. If you're primarily worried about highway handling, want to minimize expense and save your pennies for something like a OME setup down the road, you can try a set of Monroe quickstrut assemblies on the front (replaces factory strut and spring) and Monroe rear shock absorbers. That's what I replaced the factory junk with on my CRD about a month ago - I shopped around and managed to get the entire set for $360.

I realize many on here are going to consider that recommendation to be heresy, that the recommended setup on this forum is mainly OME springs and shocks - but if you're on a budget and doing highway driving, ANYTHING is better than the factory junk that Chrysler put on. Even with just the Monroes, I gained roughly an inch in ride height on the front, and driver/passenger front ride height are sitting equal now - it had been low on the drivers side since bought new - and the highway ride and handling, especially around curves, is a quantum improvement over the worn-out factory shocks.

Check out the balljoint and bushings on your upper and lower rear suspension arms. On mine at 60K miles, the balljoint on the upper arm was shot - you could swivel it with just one finger - and the bushings weren't too healthy either. You can buy the balljoint and bushings separate, or entire new arms themselves.

Same for the bushings on the front suspension. When I replaced the shocks and struts, I had to replace several of the front bushings as well - particularly the ones for the strut clevis arms on the lower control arms. The rubber was already dry rotted and cracking and getting beaten out of the housings. Instead of a whole new sway bar, might be a new set of bushings, for the existing one and the link arms, would improve it's on-road manners.

NOTE - what I suggested above would be a MINIMUM COST-CONSCIOUS upgrade just for DAILY HIGHWAY DRIVING. For any kind of serious off-road activity, I'll quite readily defer to those with far more experience in that venue.
 

WesChapman

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I commute 96 miles a day and a big part of that is a twisty narrow mountain road. Most of the turns are posted 15 or 20 mph and I routinely fly though them at 40+. I have never felt like the Jeep was going to roll. I've had the back end come loose and slide a bit and once the front end broke loose. That was a few seconds of intense pucker factor.
I upgraded to the OME springs and Bilstein shocks earlier this year and found the handling to be even better.
I'm still running a rather crappy tire which is also slightly smaller than stock for a Renegade, but they were free and I was broke at the time.
This is counter intuitive, but I also removed the rear sway bar and the handling in the turns is better. Not sure how to verbally describe it, but the body roll feels more predictable and smooth with the rear sway bar removed. I feel more in control when I dive into the turns way to fast. For a short narrow high center of gravity vehicle, the Libby handles surprisingly well.
 

VeitzJeep

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Everything is still stock. I have the 225/75R16's. I really need new tires anyway before my next state inspection, so I'll check out the 245/70R16's, or at least the 235/70R16's. I'm looking at Firestone Destination A/T's. My current tires have 60k on them and my Jeep is almost at the 90k mark!

I think I might go with wheel spacers and new sway bar links and bushings to start with then save up for the upgraded shocks and springs. The front control arms got replaced about 20k ago under extended warrenty (so manufacturer's parts) and will wait for another day with more money.

Thanks for the help!
 

VeitzJeep

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Can I put 245/70R16 tires on my stock rims that currently have 225/75R16's? I have an '06 Sport with alloy wheels.

This may be a bit of a dumb question, but I've never changed tire sizes on any of my vehicles before.
 
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Ry' N Jen

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Awesome. Thanks for the help. I'm an obvious noob when it comes to this sort of thing.

I thought I added this...
I would go with 1.25 inch spacers. More than wide enough!
You may still get some minimal rubbing.
1. At full lock in reverse. Usually at the sway bar.
2. Fog light access door on the inner plastic fender liner.
 
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