[rlc]

Last Feb. & March we stayed in the Yuma area.  When we went riding into the Sonoran desert with our 800 Trail the wheel ruts were, of course, wider than our wheel width and a lot of times we were all over the place trying to stay close to track.  When we came back to Montana I removed the stabilizer bar to get a nicer ride here in the mountains, so here is my question.  For those of you who have Z8 Trail machines and ride in the desert and I better off putting my stabilizer back on or leave it off?  Btw, we do get into the hills where the trails are hard, rutty and washed out.  Thanks

[NMKawierider]

Here's the thing. It's there for body-roll control. That only comes into play at road speeds (and a little less) during cornering. You will miss it then. The rest of the time without it, it allows for greater articulation and independence which makes for a much smoother ride as well as increased tire contact on some conditions like rocks and ruts. As I ride mountains, Forest roads and deserts, with people that like to move at a faster pace sometimes, I elected to split the difference and changed my mount points to alter the forces on my sway bar, making it flex more as well as allowing the suspension more free movement. I gave up only a little body roll control but almost doubled my free articulation. The price will be a broken sway bar in my future...but I have a place here that can make me a solid sway bar that will last forever and flex much better....better enough that I may be able to put it back to the original mount points. 

[glenlivet]

About a month ago I broke my sway bar and new one's not yet here. I find that there are a few pros and cons, bar or no bar. With the bar in place the machine rides flatter on corners and feels more confidence inspiring but on highly uneven surfaces one or another wheel can be well off the surface and can ride very rough as wheels suspended come down hard and a long way. With the bar removed (or broken) articulation is much improved and tires contact the ground longer.
In mountanous trails however it's a mixed blessing because with the sway bar no longer locking one rear wheel to the other, one side can compress independently of the other and this creates more tilt to the low side on an off camber trail, increasing the nausea and concern factor.
When one stands end on to the machine and observes the center of gravity it is clear that the increased degree of tilt-over is not such a great factor in the machines stability as the impression gives, still it takes a bit of getting used to.
* It should be appreciated that the tubing thickness chosen for that sway bar does not permit the straight part of the bar to actually act as a torsional spring. If a great enough force were applied to make something give, it would be the bent corners that would distort (kink) before the straight part did any twisting. Solid bar would twist if it were light enough to be affected by the force generated by a SXS but if enough torsional force were applied to that tubing to make something give, it would give at the weakest point, the bend.

So the bar-less SXS seems to lean to the off side a certain amount and then sort of 'sets up' and appears to give way little more. Once you become accustomed to what to expect, it's not so bad. 

[NMKawierider]

Yep. And in addition the OE rubber bushing provide the most amount of give in the movement as tubular materials, no matter how it's tempered, resist torsional actions. And for those that think replacing the OE rubber bushings with the polyurethane bushings will make it ride smoother...think again. The polyurethane materials don't "smush", they transfer energy down the bar more like a bearing, forcing that tube steel to twist. They make it stay flatter in corners only because that rubber flex is gone. After I did this to mine I almost wished I hadn't as it rode even rougher. The fix was to either put the rubber bushing back in or do to the Moto what I had done to my Brute Force...after also installing the polyurethane bushings, relocate the sway bar mount inward just a little. Wish I had done a video on it before but I didn't, only after. I bit long but you can see it works pretty well. Those brackets in the video had to be upgraded to some better steel later but I still have them on and...the bar hasn't broke...yet.