How much load is a front sway bar under?

I need to space my front sway bar down about three inches to clear the 1uz oil pan.  And, in trying to come up with creative ideas to do this, I was wondering if I could just stack washers under the bracket and get longer bolts to make it work. But then I was wondering if the washers would allow too much slop in the bar and cause handling irregularities. 

Another thought was using a chunk of square tube with holes drilled through it for both bolts to go through. 

So, how much stress are front bars under? The end links are fine, it’s just the brackets in the middle that hold the bar to the tension rod brackets. 

Depends on how heavy the car is, how stiff the bar is, how close to the wheels the end links mount, and how hard the springs are.

The square tube with holes put through it could work, but make sure the material is thick so it doesn't crush or flex. Some billet aluminum with holes in it would be better.

You will be fine with metallic spacers/washers to get it low enough. Most of the work done by the bar is in torsion. Very little its transferred to the chassis vertically (only resisted by the bolts x-section holding the pivots on anyway). You may wind up with some fore-aft loading which will try to bend the longer bolts if the arms get to severe angles from horizontal.

I’ve usually used a block of aluminum and longer bolts to lower them and never had an issue. 

I have no quantifiable data for you, but here's something that might be of interest. On the FD, Mazda has a boxed sheet metal mount that locates the front swaybar about 4-5 inches down from the frame of the car. It looks like swiss cheese, likely to save weight. It works okay with the stock bar., but once you upgrade, convention says the stock mount can collapse under the extra load. Here's an upgraded aftermarket piece next to the stock part for reference:

Good to know. I’m headed off to Home Depot racing right now. I’ll try the square tube first. 

The car (1985 celica) weighs about 2500lbs. Springs are 275 front. Factory bar is 24mm

stafford1500 said:

You will be fine with metallic spacers/washers to get it low enough. Most of the work done by the bar is in torsion. Very little its transferred to the chassis vertically (only resisted by the bolts x-section holding the pivots on anyway). You may wind up with some fore-aft loading which will try to bend the longer bolts if the arms get to severe angles from horizontal.

I used to run a Herb Adams sway bar on the front of my 1979 trans am. It came with frame reinforcements because it would rip out of the frame. Of course it was 1 15/16" thick, but there's always exceptions to the rule. iirc the rear was 1 1/4" or something stupid like that.

Here is what I did to space the bar down 2"on the Molvo. 

In reply to Nick Comstock :

Sounds like the frame was weaker than the bolts that held it in...

In reply to NOHOME :

That’s a damn good idea to thanks!

Don't under estimate the force transmitted to the frame. I've seen bar brackets bolted through frame extensions bend the mounting points.  I'd definitely go woth fabricated alloy stand-offs - drilled blocks of solid aluminum.

I had to space the sway bar on my RX7 down maybe 1/2" or so. I just paid the $20 to buy the spacers from Hinson, but they would be really easy to replicate. Just aluminum blocks with countersunk holes to bolt to the factory mounting points on the chassis, then a set of tapped holes offset about twice the hole diameter for the mounts to bolt to.