Front/Rear sways or Just Front?

[mmm def]

I put my cusco rear in and really like how it drives, I have the Cusco front sitting in my house, should I do it? I don't track or anything but do drive aggresively every once in a while.

[jim1969]

put it on.

[edmundu]

Sell it and get Ion springs! With the springs you don't need the added stiffness of the front bar, and you get to keep your rzor sharp turn in abilities....

[HansGT]

i forget how it works...but if you add the front bar in addition to the rear bar wouldn't you cut down on possible over oversteer?

[HansGT]

Sell it and get Ion springs! With the springs you don't need the added stiffness of the front bar, and you get to keep your rzor sharp turn in abilities....

 

+1 on the springs.

 

Keefe recommends tires, springs or coilovers before sways. As the first two are reactive parts of suspension and sways are reactive. The stiffer sways will be asking more of your softer stock springs and stock RE92's.

[HansGT]

+1 on the springs.

 

Keefe recommends tires, springs or coilovers before sways. As the first two are reactive parts of suspension and sways are reactive. The stiffer sways will be asking more of your softer stock springs and stock RE92's.

 

uh....i ment the first two are active and the sways are reactive.

[edmundu]

^^^Post whore!

 

 

 

J/K

[jim1969]

sways won't lower you and they don't change ride quality (good or bad is up to you)

[johnny_m]

i forget how it works...but if you add the front bar in addition to the rear bar wouldn't you cut down on possible over oversteer?

 

Yes. When stock, the car has a tendancy to have a little bit of understeer. Changing the rear only will change that balance more towards oversteer. In the case of Cusco fronts and rears, adding the front will bring the balance back to little bit of understeer. Both front and rear bars are 4mm larger than stock (19/17->23/21).

[johnny_m]

sways won't lower you and they don't change ride quality (good or bad is up to you)

 

 

Actually sways can change ride quality. For example, going down the road, front right tire hits a pothole. Stiffer sways will transfer that jolt to the left side more than stock sways.

[PGT]

+1 I can attest to the difference in ride Q with stiffer sways. Harsher over the rough stuff. Always a tradeoff

[Xenonk]

put it on and see if you like it with the tighter front end turn-in.. some people dont like that feeling and want a cleaner pull out of the corners (cleaner feeling of track-out) without that odd feeling of inside-wheel lift.

 

Sway bars, like any other mod, really comes down to what makes you perform better, some people dont need all the parts on the car to make it drive faster... after all, not many of us have equal driving skills. IN terms of the racing world, driver skills are pretty equally matched, and it's up to the engineers to make the car go faster. We are not in the racing world and most of us dont have the skills as an F1 driver, but we can make or add parts on the car to make it perform to our needs and to our driving levels/skills match and work in unison.

 

Try it with the bar, then if you dont like it, take it off. But most higher skill drivers may want the bar and make use of the new mod to make the car go faster.

[SWortham]

I'd put them both on there... they were meant to work together. On a FWD car, a stiffer front sway bar can cause the inside tire to tend to lift during a corner exit. When you don't have LSD that can be a problem since that inside tire can just spin and you won't be putting any power down.

 

But with AWD, you've always got those rear wheels putting down power as well, so the lift of the inside front tire is not such a big problem.

 

Other than that, I bet you'll find the car is more fun to drive with the front sway bar installed as well. My brother recently upgraded his front & rear sway bars on his Mazda 6. And it's both easier and more fun to drive hard now compared to only having the upgraded rear sway bar installed.

[Xenonk]

I'd put them both on there... they were meant to work together. On a FWD car, a stiffer front sway bar can cause the inside tire to tend to lift during a corner exit. When you don't have LSD that can be a problem since that inside tire can just spin and you won't be putting any power down.

 

But with AWD, you've always got those rear wheels putting down power as well, so the lift of the inside front tire is not such a big problem.

 

 

not quite, by adding or changing the relationship of the bar sizes, you can make the car do certain things. And as for tire lift, it doesnt matter if it's FWD or RWD.. (see E36 M3 with a big 40mm front sway bar.. you'll see as much as 4" of wheel lift from a track car).

 

As a good driver, you can feel the weight shift and even feel the inside tire spinning from even an LSD or not, you will hear, feel and even see that the car is not getting the grip it needs on the inside (since the sway bar has exceeded its limit to prevent from the outside corner from compressing). The reason behind the sway bar is to raise the limit of grip, but the peak of the grip level (aka sweet spot) gets more narrow, meaning you have to be a better driver to keep the car at the limit of grip, or you'll suffer loss of grip.

 

In most cases that people assume that "bigger rear = oversteer" is because people over drive the car, meaning the rear end's level of grip exceeded max grip and thus starts to slide.. usually driver inputs of the gas, brake, steering makes the rear end lose its grip in such fashion.

 

Same goes for the front "bigger front = understeer". Most people steer too much or brake too hard and everything in between of exceeding the tire's 100% grip level. Sure you get more grip, but when the driver does something like 60% steering and 80% braking, that's a total of 140% worth of input in the the tire's maximum 100% grip.. that's 40% too much input that the front end suspension can't handle and the car will understeer. Let's just say that the sway bar "adds" another 10% grip to the tires (making it 110%), either way, the driver will still tend to overdrive the car at 140%, but our experiences tell us "the car tracks in better and understeers less" well, duh, it's 10% less than before. Some will argue the other way and say promotes more understeer. Again, it's the same issue of over driving the car and exceeding the limit. In this case, you have to look at it as a time frame. If the driver turns in too fast, the bar wont be able to handle that much of weight because there is less give in the stiffer (bigger/thicker) bar. If the bar was softer, it absorbs driver error input. The easiest example is comparing a go-kart (no suspension basically) vs. a car (full springs and shocks). If the driver just tossed the car around, the reaction won't be as bad since the shocks and springs take in the load before it gets to the tires. But for a go-kart, there is no give and all your input puts a lot of stress into the tires. Think of it this way: the stiffer your suspension, the more your tires will end up getting beat up.. the more it gets beat up or use up all the tire's grip limit, the less grip you will have or that you might even run out of grip.

 

I know that's a lot of info, but anyone can find more of my postings here that can explain the reasons for having a sway bar.

[SWortham]

not quite, by adding or changing the relationship of the bar sizes, you can make the car do certain things. And as for tire lift, it doesnt matter if it's FWD or RWD.. (see E36 M3 with a big 40mm front sway bar.. you'll see as much as 4" of wheel lift from a track car).

Yeah, I saw a few M3's lifting the inside front tire completely off the ground through a corner. I was just saying that when it's a FWD car without LSD, that's the worst thing that can happen when you need to get power down to the ground. And that's why some people with cars like that prefer not to upgrade the front sway bar.

 

But if it's AWD or RWD, at least you still have the rear wheels on the ground and pushing through a corner exit.