Shim the sway bar down or the motor up, either better?

[madsedan]

My OBD1 s50 manifold is intermittently hitting the sway bar on left hand turns, and doing searches I found threads where people were shimming the sway bar down and others where people just put fender washers on the motor mounts.

I just dropped my car with Bilstein/H&R race and I'm on 14" weaves so my oil pan is pretty low. I was thinking shimming the motor up would help with manifold rub AND a little more pan clearance, is this a good idea r a bad one?

I will shim the motor up the same amount on both sides but would like some input before deciding which way to go.

Also, how much is enough or too much, is 1/2" ok?

[frankie591]

Anytime you move the motor up, you are putting more angle on your driveshaft u-joints. If it were me, I'd move the sway bar down

[M3PO]

Agreed. I wouldn't play with the drivetrain alignment.

[SkiFree]

Howabout a potentially better option.

running u-locks next to the pivot bushings to keep the bar from sliding back and forth.

[bmw325csi]

My engine has been raised for 2 years now with no issues what so ever

[madsedan]

Is there an aftermarket sway bar option that would take care of the clearance, maybe one that uses a different mounting point?

[greyis89]

Fix it before it's too late. Had the same problem and the pipe tore off the sway bar mount on the subframe. Instead off replacing the whole subframe to actually have a mount tab for the sway bar, I had the exaust all customed for clearence and had a tab welded for a mount. I needed a good exaust setup anyway so it was a good time to fix it all at once. No problems since. Hope you get it sorted out.

[Northern]

My engine has been raised up more than an inch for a year now and my guibo and CSB still look fine. They weren't new when I bought the car either.

Saved my oilpan a number of times.

[thisizaremix]

The u-joints are supposed to operate at a slight angle. Raising your engine does absolutely nothing to affect anything.

[Northern]

Well, CofG I guess.