There’s an interesting thread in the “Yamaha” section discussing the removal of the Grizzly sway bar. Some owners in this area removes the sway bar (on the Sportsman) when traveling continuously over rough terrain, then re-installs it when driving on smoother trails. Unlike the Grizzly, the rear wheels seem to have fair independent travel without removing the sway bar. It certainly saves the rubber bushings from frequent replacement and reduces the damage to the mounting holes, but I haven't decided if the improvement in rear wheel travel is worth the loss of stability. Has anyone experienced this?

Interestingly, Artic Cat decided not to put one on their i machines.

 

I pulled the sway bar off the HO a couple of weeks ago. It is a big improvement in the local boulder pile and when crossing large frozen ruts at an angle. Before I removed it I put 8" blocks under opposite front and rear tires. It wouldn't allow the other two tires to touch the ground. They were about 4-5 inches off unless I was forcing them down by bouncing on the quad. I do have the heavy duty front springs and the rears are on the firm setting. After I took the sway bar off the front tire was only about an 1" or 2" off the ground. It easily put the tires down when I was on the quad. The downside is that it does lean more this way. I rode in a fast tight left-hand circle while putting all my weight on the right side. It really wanted to lift the left side tires. lol I should have a better opinion after I put some miles on it this weekend. Going on a test ride in Wisconsin.

 

i pulled mine off in like march, liked it for slow stuff, but it sucked going fast, easy way to fix that was just crank up the rear suspension all the way, oh, and this was done when it was completly stock. i put it back on though. now it is off again and will stay off, with the HD springs in the front, and other stuff, i really dont notice to much body roll. now i can climb over logs like there nothing.

 

How difficult is it to remove? I do a lot of rock crawling and think I would do better without the sway bar.

 

The sway bar on the sportsman doesn't inhibit articulation near as much as the Grizzly does. I would bet from what I've seen that a stock form sportsman articulates as well or better than a Griz with the bar removed. I was pissed when I first got my 660. It was like a straight axle. Not even close to the articulation of my old swingaxle AC500. The bar had to go.

From a quick ride in the parking lot, it looks like the sway bar on the Rincon is going to burden it as well. I don't know how Arctic Cat does it. They have the best articulation in the business, and it doesn't seem to hurt their handling much either. Put a 500i up on a block on one tire and the rear rack is still parallel to the ground.

 

Hairback357,

You can disable the swaybar on the Sportsman in a few minutes. Remove the bolts at the rubber bushings.

Ebel

 

I took the sway bar off today and I made measurements of the suspension travel before and after. Without the sway bar the rear suspention travels a little more that 4 inchs further before the quad lifts a tire. The quad does have noticably more body roll but not bad. I don't ride fast very often anyway. I am a extreme trail rider where big rocks and off cambers are the norm. I have not taken it on a trail with the sway bar off yet so I will give it a try this coming weekend. From the way it feels just cruising around I think I will like it much more this way.

I was looking at the connections on this sway bar and I would bet that it would be easy to make a quick disconnect so if you wanted to you could hook it back up in a snap. I will look into that a little closer tomorrow.