Sway bars, also called anti-sway or anti-roll bars, are one of the easiest-to-install and most beneficial suspension components on any truck. The performance gained from a sway bar is something you can feel on city streets, highways, and the track. Because of a truck's high center of gravity, it tends to suffer from extreme cases of body roll, which is caused when entering or exiting a turn. The inertia from the truck shifts the center of gravity beyond the truck's center, causing the body to roll. When the weight is shifted from the center of the truck to the right side, then back to the left side, the truck begins losing traction, more commonly referred to as understeer. A sway bar ties the left and right wheels together and helps keep the center of gravity vertically over the wheels. The sway bar accomplishes this by acting as a torsion spring between the two wheels, so when the body begins to roll the bar transfers weight from the outside wheel to the inside wheel, keeping as much of the tire's contact patch on the ground as possible. What it all boils down to is that sway bars increase handling in corners, but don't decrease drivability at all.
When Chevy built these trucks, they came with a front sway bar option. In fact, all the '73-87 chassis came with sway bar mounts pre-drilled, regardless if they were equipped with one or not. It was up to whomever purchased the truck to opt for the sway bar package, and many didn't. In the past, as we all know, trucks were seen as workhorses. No one cared how the truck drove or handled; as long as someone could fill the bed and tow a trailer, there were no complaints. But as the times have progressed, truck owners now want increased driving performance out of their rigs.
Classic Performance Products has the answer with their front sway bars for '60-87 Chevy trucks that directly bolt to the factory mounting positions if the truck was pre-drilled (such as '73-87 chassis), or if it originally came with the sway bar option. For those not equipped, it's a matter of knocking out a few rivets and drilling two holes. The CPP sway bar will enhance equipped trucks' and non-equipped trucks' performance. On the one hand you'll be upgrading the stock sway bar to a bigger, high carbon steel 1 1/4-inch sway bar (which will increase handling over a stock sway bar; the bigger the sway bar, the better the handling), and on the other hand you'll be installing a new sway bar that will give you the same results.
 On '63-72 trucks, the installer...  On '63-72 trucks, the installer has to knock this crossmember rivet out and use it as the rear mounting position for the sway bar bracket. The rivet is located just to the rear of the front of the frame on the first crossmember. It's easy to knock out with an air chisel. Another option is to cut the rivet down the middle with a cutting wheel and break the head of the rivet off. From there, drill a hole in the front mounting hole and install the mount using the provided hardware. The sway bars can also be installed like this on post-'72 chassis as well. That's actually the road we took. We'll get into the reasoning behind that in a little while. |  Once the rivet was knocked...  Once the rivet was knocked out, the bracket was bolted to the frame. |  We greased the sway bar bushings...  We greased the sway bar bushings and installed them on the bar. Polyurethane bushings begin to squeak much quicker than rubber, so when installing the bushings, make sure to use the provided lube, and don't get cheap on the lube job! |