Hot offroad new Bronco action!

Ford usually takes over a giant lot at the SEMA show (note that it is not SEMA, that's an association that happens to put on a show, but most people skip that detail) to aerosolize some rubber and give away t shirts and generally play to the crowd. One of the experiences this year was a Bronco ride. I didn't take part, but I watched from the sideline.

The route:

Truck goes up a ramp and into a pool. It has the wading depth of the Bronco and the Bronco Sport on the side. By the time we saw it, it wasn't full :) It was taken slowly, didn't really prove much.

Then over to a series of fairly tall bumps that alternated side to side. I'd say roughly 24" tall, and they were taken at crawling speed. This was pretty darn impressive as the trucks would get completely cross-axled with opposite wheels off the ground. The drivers stopped here with one wheel dangling and the other barely on the ground, then the truck would all of a sudden gain even more articulation and it would level out. I think they were disconnecting the sways while they were completely loaded up, which was really impressive. Still at least one wheel in the air, though. Then the truck would just drive off. The SWB version was more fun to watch here as it cross-axled more dramatically. Some obvious traction control going on here to transfer torque to the wheels with traction.

Then into a sand pit where the thing did a remarkably tight turn by locking the inside rear wheel and just pivoting around it. Basically a cutting brake. I don't know how much driver involvement there was but it sure worked. Not recommended for high traction surfaces.

Then a big up and over a giant ramp which probably felt impressive from inside but hey, I've driven Hells Revenge in Moab so that's just a hill.

The combination of for-real articulation, the ability to disconnect the sways at any time and what looked like a very effective traction management system makes this look like it's going to be a seriously competent rock crawler out of the box. I've never had a thing for Wranglers personally, but I can see a Bronco being a very good replacement for an XJ :) As I'd expected, they were all over the show.

Sorry, no pics but Janel might have some video as they were doing the cross-axle trick right in front of us as we were watching a dorifto Mustang make smoke. I'll ask her later.

The fact that the new Bronco can disconnect and reconnect the swaybar under load is awesome. I'm so used to yanking them before a trip and dealing with the "exciting" body motions on pavement.

I'd love to see what the mechanism looks like. Also, what happens if you reconnect the sways when the truck's twisted up? Can you add in some stagger? ;)

Ah, it's hydraulic. It may have some smarts about only re-engaging when the truck is sitting level, or maybe there's a locking pin I haven't spotted.

https://www.bwigroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Sta-Bar-Disconnect-Display-Presentation-FINAL-v4-VF480p30.mp4 

Keith Tanner said:

Ah, it's hydraulic. It may have some smarts about only re-engaging when the truck is sitting level, or maybe there's a locking pin I haven't spotted.

https://www.bwigroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Sta-Bar-Disconnect-Display-Presentation-FINAL-v4-VF480p30.mp4 

Whoever came up with that is a clever boy indeed.

Ford says you can do it whenever (paraphrasing) but that might just mean you can flick the switch at will and the bar won't connect until the two parts are aligned or something. Like an e-locker. 

It looks like it used pressure to control axial  motion and limit rotation around the recirculating ball section. 

So that would mean you can apply pressure at anytime and the two halves of the bar can only rotate in one direction relative to each other. So it would be stiff in one direction but move freely in the other direction until it reaches the stop. At that point it would return to normal sway bar behavior. 

The interesting thing to me is that depending on the fluid control system, it could be possible to make it behave with different stiffness levels and not just locked or unlocked. 

If you go to the manufacturer site, you can see that they do offer "dynamic" bars as well. I believe this one works without an external pressure supply, although that accumulator may be supplying the pressure you talk about. Interesting difference in the lines.

The combination of the accumulator and valves may be all that's needed for an on/off application. 

I'm guessing that the way it works is:

To unlock you open the valves to allow fluid to flow into and out of the actuator (and accumulator) as the bars rotate separately.

When you want to lock you set the valves so fluid can only flow into the actuator from the accumulator. As the sections thread together fluid fills the empty space and since it's incompressible the sections can't move part so it's locked. 

The dynamic bars are cool, I wonder when we'll see the first car with magneto hydraulic shock and hydro-dynamic sway bars, or has it already happened? I can imagine it would give you compliance in a straight line, while using wheel angle and yaw sensors to stiffen the bar when cornering.  

The issue that has cropped up on the bronco forums is the same rehashed IFS issues of undersized steering components with at least 1 destroyed rack and tie rods that cant hold up. i havent been on the forums for a while since I dropped my preorder and got a Gladiator.

looks like ford now has that covered though it should have shipped with that on Sasquatch or Badlands trims,

Severe-Duty Steering System and Performance Tuning
Ford Performance Parts also developed several new Bronco chassis components for the Bronco two- and four-door SUVs, including new severe-duty steering rack and tie rod ends to further improve steering system durability under high loads. The team also created performance tuning for the 2.3-liter EcoBoost four-cylinder engine that can be uploaded via a Pro-Cal 4 scan tool to the OBDII port.