I have a V8 ZJ setup going on this weekend. New drag link and tie rod and all new TRE's.

Can I remove the steering stabilizer on this setup? I know tons of folks run no stabilizer on One ton setups a lot but I'm not sure about the ZJ setup.

Thanks

 

I personally run one ton steering on my ZJ without a damper .. And on my XJ I will be installing crossover without a damper but for just a ZJ upgrade I would recommend using one. The damper is meant to hide steering issues, and dampen vibrations. In a perfect world it's not needed but it's a jeep, so I would use one until you upgrade to one ton.

 

I run the ZJ set-up with no damper and no problems.

 

I run zj upgrade with dampener. Might not need it but oh well. My parents asked what I wanted for Christmas so they got me all new steering and so I figured I'd get the dampener too. Why not? Definitely feels better than the old steering. Don't know if the dampener has anything to do with it but in my case I said why not and got it.

 

A steering stabilizer can mask a lot of steering problems,I won't run one at all on anything but thats just me.

 

Mine has one because when I bought it the damper was so bent that the steering was affected so I bought a cheap one. When I did the ZJ setup just left it, will come off one of these days.

 

I put the steering on last night. Left the damper. So far so good. Very excited to have that old junk out of there.

Thanks for the input guys

 

Its always a shock to see the difference between the two and the strength difference in them and for only a $100 total.

 

I agree. I did the drag link too since my TRE's were junk. It's just nice to have everything fresh and clean down there.

 

There are many folks on here who run without a damper and have no problems. I can't argue with that, and their experience is sound.

However, there are a handful of solid engineering reasons why one is on there and should be on there. And not just to hide death wobble or imperfections.

If your steering is setup well otherwise, the choice is yours. I can provide more insight into my opinion if you desire...or check my post history...the lone dissenter!

 

By all means, elaborate on the
Reasonings. I'm always down for some nerdy science talk

 

Ok, here goes. I'm going to try to write this as simply as possible without a lot of technical engineering jargon. As such, it's not 100% technically correct but it gets the idea across.

So we all know that the steering stabilizer does not fix death wobble, and only covers up some of the symptoms some of the time. So what does it do?

First and foremost, it reduces the bump steer that is inherent in the stock steering design. Although the drag link and track bar are nearly parallel, they are slightly different lengths. As such, certain jounce and rebound cycles will cause bump steer on an XJ.

There are three components to any vibrating system: mass, spring, and damper. Mass resists acceleration, springs resist displacement, and dampers resist velocity (speed). A steering stabilizer/shock is a damper. Try it for yourself: a shock will stay in any position you put it in, but try to pull it in or out fast and it resists.

On bump steer the steering stabilizer resists the "speed" of the shifting steering system, lessening the whip and movement of the steering wheel in your hands.

The other thing that the steering stabilizer does is lessen the vibrations transmitted through the steering system. These could be road noise vibrations or resonances inherent to the design. I don't know what they are, as I was not involved with the XJ design. As an engineer who has worked on chassis vibration, I can tell you this: all vehicle systems have resonant frequencies, and some occur at the same speed that the tires or drive train rotate at. So what do you do? A quick fix is to add mass or add a damper.

How do you know how much mass or damper is right (or wrong)? That's a tricky subject, but what comes out is called the system damping ratio. That's a number which tells you how "well" the system damps vibrations...with a larger number meaning it damps more. Sometimes more is good, and sometimes more is bad. In our case, I would think that more is generally good.

Let's assume for a moment that the Cherokee steering system is one dimensional. The damping ratio of the system is given by:

ζ = c / [2*sqrt(mk)] where ζ is your system damping ratio, c is your steering damper stiffness, m is the mass of the steering system, and k is the system's spring constant. In order to increase ζ, either c must be increased or... m or k must decrease. In the case of the XJ, it was probably easiest to increase c by adding a stabilizer!

I have attached a chart that illustrates how this works with a simple vibration. Don't get confused - the ζ they show is damping coefficient, which is related to but not equal to damping ratio. "Transmissibility" is essentially how strong the vibration gets, while wa/w0 is the fraction between the vibration and the natural frequency of the system. You can see that when they equal 1 all heck breaks loose! You can also see that the the higher the damping, the more damped (ie lesser) ALL the vibrations are.

And that's why I run a steering damper.

 

Nice. Thanks for that. Math beats anecdote for me any day. It's cool people can get away with either setup and still be happy too

 

Sure thing! It is indeed pretty neat that in this instance either setup seems to work for people.

I would say that the older the vehicle is, the easier it is to remove a damper and get away with it. Even 20 years ago, the methods of designing for vibration were crude compared to what automotive manufacturers do now.

On a new vehicle, so much goes into NVH (noise, vibration, and harshness) design that removing a damper or soft mount is a silly thing to do, especially if you don't know all the vibrations that particular part is protecting against.