Sway bar discussion

[Whoodoo]

I know this has been hit a million times before, but I'd like to get more opinions on the matter. After reading a ton of posts brought up by search I'm still a little wary about getting huge sway bars. I'm not exactly sure how big the stock ones are as I don't have my car here in NY to go out and measure. So I guess I'd like to pose a couple questions:
1) How big are the stock sway bars?
2) On a solely street application (350 hp-ish, 4ws will stay)
a) How how do bigger sway bars affect ride quality
b) Are they really necessary?

My car rides pretty well for having 137k odd miles on it, but in my upgrade scheme I want to get everything else up to par before I go for power upgrades. I've already got evo 9 rear strut/spring and evo X front strut/springs ready, so the only other suspension things left to go are bushings and sway bars if I do anything at all. Overall I'm just tying to glean some finite knowledge about what kind of response larger sway bars will do for a street car.

 

[SleepinGVR4]

Plenty of people of this board swear that upgrading their rear sway bar was one of the best mods they've ever done to their car. Supposedly the difference is day and night.

I'll be doing mine shortly.

 

[belize1334]

Stock swaybars are like 19mm IIRC. Aftermarket range from 22mm to 26mm depending on the company and whether it's for front or back.

MachV sells both front and rear but their front requires some modification of the brackets to make it work. I think the simplest solution is to drill and tap the sub-frame which isn't really that bad if you're handy. If you can find a WL front bar (NLA) they come with a super thin bushing and can be installed using the OEM bracket with no modifications.

I run a Whiteline 22mm front bar and RM 15/16" (23.9mm) rear bar and I highly recommend this combo. I think it makes a huge difference for turn-in and cornering without being so stiff that it inhibits ultimate lateral grip.

Since anti-roll bars inhibit independent wheel motion you'll never notice the effects of a sway-bar while moving in a straight line. When you lay into a corner, however, they couple the inner wheel to the outer wheel which makes the outer wheel behave as though it had stiffer springs than are actually mounted. It is possible to overdo it but for the size of bar that we're talking about I don't think you need to worry about that. If you got some crazy huge custom bar you might find that there was some disadvantage but for the sizes that are readily available I don't think there is any downside.

I would argue, however, that the benefits of an anti-sway bar are somewhat wasted on a car with 4ws still installed. Please refer to my epic MSPaint drawing.


Imagine that you're in the brick shaped GVR-4 and that the car is headed down the page rotating counter clockwise around the oval track. At the point where you are the track is at it's highest curvature and to follow the track you need to be turning on the red circle at this point. The front wheels are oriented to accomplish this with the rear wheels pointed straight ahead as indicated by the little red lines. Now as you smoothly pass over 25mph your 4ws kicks in. The rear wheels suddenly point into the turn and are now aligned along the little blue lines. This instantly increases your turning radius and moves the focus of the turn forward with respect to the vehicle. So, where you were safely on the red circle, you're now on the blue circle. The blue circle doesn't match the curvature of the track so you overshoot and hit the tirewall (fire-hydrant). In order to avoid this you need to be able to suddenly turn in even harder to get the vehicle to rotate and get back on the red circle. But that's only possible if you aren't at the limit of traction. But, if you aren't at the limit of traction then you're not taking corners hard so why do you want anti-sway bars in the first place?




That is all to say that you should get anti-sway bars 'cause they're awesome and you should also ditch your 4ws system because it is the suck.

 

[iceman69510]

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rofl.gif @ Roger. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Brianawd]

I can tell you after having a 22mm front bar and a 26mm rear bar in my talon, then going to just a 26mm rear bar in the galant. I would say the galant is more fun to drive. Its just a little more tale happy, but is also very predictable. The talon had killer turn in but just was hard to get the back in to step out. I find with a AWD that just a little bit of over steer to help the rearend rotate makes for a faster car on a auto cross course.


Now if I can just find a auto cross course the is big enough for my car and the 3052 that would be great. I so miss auto crossing.

 

[4thStroke]

Come on mister, "my 3052 spools like a 16g." Grow the balls and tear it up. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[DR1665]

Curious: Would swapping the lines on the rear steering rack cause the system to turn the wheels in the opposite direction of the turn? This might introduce much more understeer, relative to the stock setup. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/dunno.gif

I've always thought I might upgrade the rear sway and ditch the front altogether. Let the front suspension do whatever it takes to keep traction, while the rear is allowed to break loose. To me, this might make the car handle a little more fun on the stages. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

[Muskrat]

Quote:
Curious: Would swapping the lines on the rear steering rack cause the system to turn the wheels in the opposite direction of the turn? This might introduce much more understeer, relative to the stock setup.



I've thought of this as well. Here's the problem: it would only come on over 35 mph, and probably be pretty unpredictable. You'd have to find a way to control it outside the factory system.

 

[belize1334]

^^ Agreed. Plus the fact that counter-steer in the back would make the car EXTREMELY unstable at speed. What you want is counter-steer at lower speeds and then same-side steer at high speeds. If you eliminated the rear pump and used an electric pump and then powered that with an IC that took the vehicle speed as input...then you'd be putting in a lot of time for not much gain. Just delete the system and be done.

 

Quoting Muskrat:
Quote:
Curious: Would swapping the lines on the rear steering rack cause the system to turn the wheels in the opposite direction of the turn? This might introduce much more understeer, relative to the stock setup.



I've thought of this as well. Here's the problem: it would only come on over 35 mph, and probably be pretty unpredictable. You'd have to find a way to control it outside the factory system.



It's 31 mph. And thats sound terrifying. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

 

[971of1000]

belize1334 Where can you get the thin bushings for the front to accomidate the larger sway bar while retaining the stock bracket?

 

[belize1334]

I don't know. They came with my Whiteline bar. Off the top of my head though...I would get a prothane bushing designed for the stock front sway bar and then go at it with a drill or some other carving too to hog it out and make the inner diameter bigger. You could presumably accommodate any size bar up to the diameter of the bracket.