Sway Bars ,Roadmaster vs Hellwig

[86 Cavalcade]

I took my 2001 Diplomat out for a test drive today for the first time after I had installed a set of Hellwig Sway Bars. As soon as we drove out of the storage lot onto the side street that goes to the 4 lane divided hi-way my wife asked me why I had not done this sooner. It used to feel as if you were going to be thrown out of the seats going out of the storage lot. When I got up to speed after a few miles I made a quick lane change after making sure there were no other cars in sight. It is hard to believe what a difference these sway bars have made in how this coach drives. I used to have to constantly be correcting to keep in my lane. The next thing is replacing the old Monroe shocks. I am very happy with what I have done with the sway bars for now. If you do 2 things at the same time you don't know what helped the most. George R. 2001 Diplomat

[DC Cruiser]

The RoadMaster kit comes with the urethane bushings in the kit. Their mounting hardware is very heavy duty and the construction is top notch. Not sure if the Hellwig website's picture of there kit is the actual kit or not but some of the mounting hardware and the links look on the light side compared to the RoadMaster linkage. Could be that its just a picture of a kit for a different application.

CHEERS

[rorr1821]

Originally Posted by Robert T

Been considering sway bars front and rear for my 2004 Endeavor, RR8R. Roadmaster bars seem to be the bar of choice as I have not read anything on the Hellwig bars. Both bars are 1 5/8 inch BUT the price of each there is a big difference. The Hellwig bars are more than half the price!

Has anyone had any experience with the Hellwig bars? Even if the Hellwigs perform to 85% of the Roadmaster are the Roadmaster worth the price? Or will they both perform equally?

I do not mine spending more but there has to be a point,,, price vs performance.

I presently have a Safe-T-Plus and the Henderson Motion Controls. Just ordered 8 new Koni's FSD.

I have had the same question about Hellwig sway bars. According to Hellwig their parts number 7233 and 7232 will fit RR8R Roadmaster chassis and they are only around $800 total for both front and rear. Also I would like to know what improvement you saw with the Henderson motion control valves. According to Henderson I would not need sway bars on my RR8R chassis with the motion control valves. Not sure if this was sales talk or fact! Thanks.

[NW Knight]

Front: http://www.mediafire.com/file/okzkeyrziidyy2d/7232.pdf
Rear: http://www.mediafire.com/file/an2nwoyqj4zwzox/7233.pdf

parts lists indicates updated w/ "poly" bushings not sure how that relates to urethane.

[86 Cavalcade]

I bought the Hellwig bars for my 2001 Diplomat because Roadmaster said their bars would only fit back to 2002. I paid $766.78 including shipping from SD Truck Springs. I have only driven mine on short test drives since I installed them but I am really happy with the improvement they made in how much better it drives. I have old leaking shocks and they are the next things I am going to replace. I installed these sway bars myself and the front one was a bear to do for some reason. I had to do a lot of mods to the front frame bracket on each side. I have read a comment that the Source products look beefier but all of the plates from Hellwig are 1/2" thick steel and all of the u-bolts & nuts are grade 5. The other bolts & nuts I got were grade 8. I talked to one of the engineers at Hellwig when I was having problems with the front sway bar and he said these were well engineered for the intended purpose as long as you followed the install instructions and used the hardware that comes with the kits. Each of the mounting kits weigh about 35 lbs, and I am not sure what each sway bar weighs but when you are holding it up trying to mount them they are pretty heavy. Once I got these installed though my wife was even happy with how much better the ride is and my coach does not sway back and forth the way it did. I would not have believed just sway bars would make such a dramatic improvement by themselves. George R. 2001 Diplomat

[rorr1821]

I went to Hellwig Web page and found a sway bar application for 99-2005 Roadmaster RR8R chassis. This chassis uses part number's 7233 and 7232. I also downloaded the installation guide from the same web site. I believe the Roadmaster sway bars are great! However, after Source Engineering became the only distributor of the Roadmaster sway bars the price went up by about $300. I confirmed this by trying to get these sway bar from other Roadmaster distributors and they are not available. How can Hellwig make their front and rear sway bars and sell for less than $800 total for both front and rear? They both have 1 5/8" dia bar. Both products have got to have some quality or they would be failing. I have not heard of any. The bottom line, in my opinion, Source Engineering is taking full advantage of us RV'ers and charging 2 times the fair market price for their product. But we all have choices!

[YC1]

Unfortunately those don't fit my 08 Endeavor. I too found out there is only one source for the Roadmasters and I refuse to put that much money out. Mine handles well enough. I did change the engine fan from Source Engineering at a cost of $600 and love the improvement and how quite it is. Until the price comes down 2-300 on the sway bars I'm going to avoind them. I'm surprised Hellwig is not producing a current model.

[DC Cruiser]

I can not speak for RoadMaster or Source Engineering so the following is just my opinion based on what I observed for 4 days while at the RoadMaster factory while they design built a set of sway bars for my Windsor.
From the beginning of my project it was always the goal of Wayne (RoadMaster) & Jim (Source) to have a true bolt on kit for the Windsor & like models without (quote) a lot of modifcations to make it fit. RoadMasters # 1 priority is to make it FIT properly & simply so that a DIY or the dealer doing the installation has as hassle free and as quick an installation as possible. This translates into saving the customer time & money if you are having to pay for the installation because a shop doing the installation is not going to do a lot of modifications to the kit to make it fit for free!!!!!!
86 Cavalcade you had the time & the capability of doing those mods that were necesary to make the Helllwigs fit but the next customer may not be quite as capable and probably wont be as understanding as you were. And if he had to pay extra for someone else to install them then the original savings may rapidly disappear. Sometimes its not all about the $$$$$ up front but the $$$$ in the long run. Hellwig should be very happy that they got lucky to have a customer like you who is on this forum defending them because they could have very easily got someone who after much frustration or money spent trying to make their kit fit they might be on this forum with not quite as nice a product review as yours.
I am sure that RoadMaster & Source could have made a one kit fits all Dips including the pre 02 models (with alot of mods and calls to the factory etc.)and sold it cheaper but that is not their policy. They considered lots of options for the rear of my Windsor because of the tight spaces that they had to work with due to the side radiator and the position of the air drier. Some of the options included installing another cross member or possibly moving the air drier but these all would have made a kit that would have been very difficult to install in the field so they were not an option in their opinion. The R&D that goes into each individual kit that fits the specific models is not cheap and takes time because they can only develop kits for specific models & years as the motorhomes become available to them and the demand is there for that model.
As for the exclusive rights to sell that Source has I believe that RoadMaster wants to concentrate on their strengths which is R&D and manufacture of their products and let someone else use their strengths to market and distribute the products. Lots of manufactures do this which allows them to streamline their operations.
The bottom line is that RoadMaster & Source have chosen to make their kits more model & year specific rather than a one kit fits all approach which may be more costly but in the long run will be less costly for most of their customers. It is not a matter of trying to rip off the RV'r as someone else said but in my opinion rather a company that cares about their customers and wants to give them a really great product that works and fits as well and in the long run may even cost the customer less. As I observed there is a lot more than 1 5/8" bar and nuts and bolts that goes into their products.

CHEERS

[DC Cruiser]

PS not sure where Hellwig uses the ubolts but if they use them to mount the mounting plates to the frame I for one would be very leary of that. RoadMaster uses a large plate above the frame to distribute the load over a section of the frame rather than one point like a ubolt will. There is a lot of load that the sway bars can put on the frame and the last thing one would need is your frame failing at the mounting point. Just a thought.

CHEERS

[86 Cavalcade]

In my original post on these sway bars I contacted Roadmaster and asked if they had a kit to fit my coach and I was told no by 3 different people at Roadmaster. If I wanted sway bars it was going to be Hellwig or no one. DC Cruiser is right that if I was paying to have a shop do this install it would have been expensive. Most shops would have probably welded these plates to the bottom of the frame rails and if I were doing this again that is what I would do. Hellwig offered to send me any type of plate I wanted at no cost to me. I chose to do it the way I did it. The install pictures show the plates going on the back side of the generator support frame but on my coach there was not enough room. Like I said after the fact I am very happy with the way they perform. George R. 2001 Diplomat

[Mr_D]

Originally Posted by NW Knight

Front: http://www.mediafire.com/file/okzkeyrziidyy2d/7232.pdf
Rear: http://www.mediafire.com/file/an2nwoyqj4zwzox/7233.pdf

parts lists indicates updated w/ "poly" bushings not sure how that relates to urethane.

"poly" as in "polyurethane"?