Sway bars = better handling

[shin0bi]

I'm no expert, or mechanic, or street racing F+F wannabe, but I wanted to work with what I got to improve the performance potential.

Holycrap.

I installed a front sway bar last night, and right off the bat, the damn thing has made a HUGE improvement in my handling potential.

If you want to improve your handling, and you drive a vehicle that wasn't necessarily made right out of the box to be driven like you hate it, then I'd highly recommend getting sway bars. Especially if you're inclined to take corners pretty hard.

Now for my question:

Can anyone weigh in on this for me?
Would a rear sway bar be recommended for a fwd daily driven application?

I've heard in some fwd applications, the added stiffness from a rear sway bar coupled with a light rear end can actually cause unsavory results. (Ie. the back can kick out when you really dont want it to.) Making safety a problem.

Anyone here with any first hand experience?

[bspot]

I went with a bigger rear sway and left the stock front sway (which is still fairly stiff) to get rid of understeer and balance the car out more.

If your rear is way stiffer than your front, yeah, you can end up with oversteer.

[Grogador]

Originally posted by shin0bi
Anyone here with any first hand experience?

Yeah, ask that guy who spun out and totaled his CRX on Deerfoot... he had stiff anti-roll bars...

[ercchry]

wow really? no way!

if you think that is somethng try coil overs

[The Cosworth]

Rear sway bar was a huge improvement on my car getting rid of understeer

[rage2]

Originally posted by shin0bi
I'm no expert, or mechanic, or street racing F+F wannabe, but I wanted to work with what I got to improve the performance potential.

Holycrap.

I installed a front sway bar last night, and right off the bat, the damn thing has made a HUGE improvement in my handling potential.

If you want to improve your handling, and you drive a vehicle that wasn't necessarily made right out of the box to be driven like you hate it, then I'd highly recommend getting sway bars. Especially if you're inclined to take corners pretty hard.

Now for my question:

Can anyone weigh in on this for me?
Would a rear sway bar be recommended for a fwd daily driven application?

I've heard in some fwd applications, the added stiffness from a rear sway bar coupled with a light rear end can actually cause unsavory results. (Ie. the back can kick out when you really dont want it to.) Making safety a problem.

Anyone here with any first hand experience?
Alright, here comes some disappointing news from someone that knows a lot about suspension tuning.

When you installed FRONT sway bars, you basically increased understeer at the limit. This reduced your maximum cornering speed, but increased your feeling of stability. So now you're cornering slower, but feel you're able to hold the car at the limit better, thus it feels "faster" to you. A common mistake.

I personally do not like using sway bars. Over curbs and bumps at the track, it transmits the shock to the other wheel, thus causing you lots of chassis stability headaches over bumps. Remember that the sway bar ties 2 wheels together, so any force upon one of the wheels will now be transmitted to the other.

The only time I would use sway bars is once you've tweaked your suspension setup, spring rates, camber, toe settings and you're still getting excessive over or understeer, it's a last resort change to help dial in over/under/neutral stance at the limit.

Example in point, on the Yaris hatchback, once I got everything setup, there was still heavy understeer at the limit, so turn in felt numb, transitions was terrible. Installed a REAR sway bar, and now the rear of the car wants to slide more at the limit. This allowed the car to turn in much better, reduce front tirewear at the limit, makes transitions (the car wanting to change lateral direction quickly) much easier.

Now, you wanna run both rear and front sways? That kinda defeats the whole purpose, unless you're on a racetrack that's as smooth as glass. I've driven poorly setup cars with both front and rear sways, and whenever they hit a bump, the car literally jumps all over the road, changing lanes etc. You get all the disadvantages, with none of the advantages. The left side of the car's suspension is completely tied to the right side. You've turned your independant suspension setup into well... a glorified solid axel lol.

Conclusion, it's retarded.

[avow]

that was actually a really good read rage :D thanks

[ExtremeSi]

Wow, that's interesting Rage. I never saw it that way.
What about front and rear strut tower bars? They don't really transmit suspension forces I don't think; they just help stiffen the car at the front and rear correct?

Because I noticed a difference after adding my rear strut tower bar. My car seems to have less understeer; but is this actually what's happening?

[rage2]

Originally posted by ExtremeSi
What about front and rear strut tower bars? They don't really transmit suspension forces I don't think; they just help stiffen the car at the front and rear correct?
Correct.

Back onto sway bars... an interesting sway bar system is BMW's Dynamic Drive system.

http://www.bmw.com/com/en/insights/explore/bmw_magazine/02_2006/dynamic_drive.html

Computer controls the sway bar's stiffness. On zero to low lateral forces, the sway bar is untwisted, untying the 2 sides of the suspension, giving full advantage of the independant suspension's ability to eat up bumps. Once the cornering forces increase, the system twists, and stiffens up the sway bars, reducing initial body roll (the primary reason for using sway bars).

It's only used in their bigger cars to provide a smooth ride, while allowing for lower amounts of body roll under cornering to give sportier "feel" in corners. While cornering hard, bumps will affect stability quite a bit. This is why it's not used on their "sports" cars, such as the M3 (at least that's why I think anyways).

There's a better way to improve roll stiffness without using sway bars, AND allow for the suspension to handle bumps without upsetting the chassis too much. I'm gonna be trying it out in the next month or so on the GTI, but with winter approaching, probably won't know how well it works till next year.

[LilDrunkenSmurf]

What method is that?

[shin0bi]

Wow, do I feel like a n00b / r-tard.

Rage, sir... you know your shit. That was an interestin and informative read.

I, on the other hand, am an idiot. I realize (now incorrectly) that I called them sway bars, when in actuality, what I installed was in fact a front strut tower brace.

My bad. Sorry for the confusion!

[Cooked Rice]

I run my 19 year old OEM front swaybar, with energy suspension bushings. For the rear I run a upgraded swaybar, Tanabe, with energy suspension bushings. I do this like stated above, I didn't want to induce too much understeer. But I also run both front and rear tower strut bars, it's a old/rusty car so I need both to reduce body flex. This is a really helpful guide:

http://www.rallylights.com/other/stuning.htm

[ottamania]

On my eg coupe that i had, I installed tokico shocks with eibach springs, front and rear adj. camber kit, LCA's, front and rear tower bars and front - rear suspension tech. sway bars. That thing handled awesome both on the track and daily driving. It became very stable on the corners. With the toyo ra-1 tires it was fun to corner in that thing.

[ercchry]

Originally posted by Cooked Rice
I run my 19 year old OEM front swaybar, with energy suspension bushings. For the rear I run a upgraded swaybar, Tanabe, with energy suspension bushings. I do this like stated above, I didn't want to induce too much understeer. But I also run both front and rear tower strut bars, it's a old/rusty car so I need both to reduce body flex. This is a really helpful guide:

http://www.rallylights.com/other/stuning.htm

ray, all you really need is more power and you would be fine :D

[Cooked Rice]

haha. my KA is doing just fine and dandy.

[bspot]

Originally posted by rage2

Alright, here comes some disappointing news from someone that knows a lot about suspension tuning.

When you installed FRONT sway bars, you basically increased understeer at the limit. This reduced your maximum cornering speed, but increased your feeling of stability. So now you're cornering slower, but feel you're able to hold the car at the limit better, thus it feels "faster" to you. A common mistake.

I personally do not like using sway bars. Over curbs and bumps at the track, it transmits the shock to the other wheel, thus causing you lots of chassis stability headaches over bumps. Remember that the sway bar ties 2 wheels together, so any force upon one of the wheels will now be transmitted to the other.

The only time I would use sway bars is once you've tweaked your suspension setup, spring rates, camber, toe settings and you're still getting excessive over or understeer, it's a last resort change to help dial in over/under/neutral stance at the limit.

Example in point, on the Yaris hatchback, once I got everything setup, there was still heavy understeer at the limit, so turn in felt numb, transitions was terrible. Installed a REAR sway bar, and now the rear of the car wants to slide more at the limit. This allowed the car to turn in much better, reduce front tirewear at the limit, makes transitions (the car wanting to change lateral direction quickly) much easier.

Now, you wanna run both rear and front sways? That kinda defeats the whole purpose, unless you're on a racetrack that's as smooth as glass. I've driven poorly setup cars with both front and rear sways, and whenever they hit a bump, the car literally jumps all over the road, changing lanes etc. You get all the disadvantages, with none of the advantages. The left side of the car's suspension is completely tied to the right side. You've turned your independant suspension setup into well... a glorified solid axel lol.

Conclusion, it's retarded.

I agree with most of what you said, except for the fact that using sways is always stupid.

I went for a slightly stiffer rear, and didn't go out and buy the biggest one, knowing that I would totally lose all independence. I don't really have a problem with picking up a wheel pulling on to driveways or up ramps or anything like that.

I for sure notice the negatives of the stiffer sway on bumpy roads, but when you're dealing with a car with 50:50 AWD and a V8 sitting over the front wheels, it's more than worth the slight loss in independence for how much of a difference it made in the understeer that the car experiences in stock form.

[rage2]

Originally posted by bspot
I agree with most of what you said, except for the fact that using sways is always stupid.

I went for a slightly stiffer rear, and didn't go out and buy the biggest one, knowing that I would totally lose all independence. I don't really have a problem with picking up a wheel pulling on to driveways or up ramps or anything like that.

I for sure notice the negatives of the stiffer sway on bumpy roads, but when you're dealing with a car with 50:50 AWD and a V8 sitting over the front wheels, it's more than worth the slight loss in independence for how much of a difference it made in the understeer that the car experiences in stock form.
No, it's not always stupid, otherwise race cars wouldn't be using them. What's stupid is guys that are just slapping the biggest front and rears on, stiffen the shit out of the cars, and talk about how great it handles, while the car's all over the place over anything bumpy at the limit (read a few posts up hehe). I'm assuming his track experience is at race city, and smooth isn't exactly a word that you can use to describe our road course.

Sways are useful IMO as a final tweak, unless the track is F1 smooth.

Maybe I'm just a bit biased, because I'm a curber at the track... it's part of the usable track and can get you a lot of times. I've been very very consistent now except for when I use the curbs, that's where I lose a lot of time on random laps. Been trying to chase down that perfect compromise of stiff suspension, low body roll around corners while able to obtain stability over curbs.

[Kloubek]

Originally posted by shin0bi
I realize (now incorrectly) that I called them sway bars, when in actuality, what I installed was in fact a front strut tower brace.


That's awesome. I know nothing about suspensions, but I still knew what a strut brace was. Didn't you inquire when you purchased it? lol!

[tsi_neal]

I disagree with alot of what Rage said...

Sway bars are a brilliant way of tuning the suspension while retaining good ride quality. However too stiff will cause some of the skipping across bumps rage is talking about, but too stiff of springs and your in a similar boat.

I can think of plenty FWD drive cars where a front sway bar will reduce understeer at the limit. On a typical mac strut suspension there is negative camber gain with body roll, sway bars will reduce body roll, reducing the negative camber gain, thus better traction at the limit and less understeer.

IMO a balanced set of bars, preferably with some adjustment, is a good comprimise for a street car. Increasing your spring rates in the corners but not in a straight line.

In my rx8 (for sale) i went with a set (front and rear) of bars and left the stock springs and dampers and stock alignment. Ride quality on the street is virtually unchanged, however on the track went from an understeering car to an extremely easy to handle neutral car thats still very compliant over the curbing...

I think the critical thing here is making sure you use parts that will work together. Depending what i want out of the car will really depend what parts i use. Just keep in mind that front and rear sway bars if properly matched will do wonders for you.

[rage2]

Originally posted by tsi_neal
Sway bars are a brilliant way of tuning the suspension while retaining good ride quality. However too stiff will cause some of the skipping across bumps rage is talking about, but too stiff of springs and your in a similar boat.

I can think of plenty FWD drive cars where a front sway bar will reduce understeer at the limit. On a typical mac strut suspension there is negative camber gain with body roll, sway bars will reduce body roll, reducing the negative camber gain, thus better traction at the limit and less understeer.
I know a lot about negative camber from body roll on mac strut setups... hard to believe front and rear were set with the same amount of camber lol.

http://www.virgeweb.com/rage2/944t/2002-10%20Burnt%20Valve%2018.JPG

While very stiff front sways will help the problem, it'll also transfer a lot of shock over bumps from one side to the other. Stiffer springs will not do that, but will give you poorer ride quality. This is why I prefer to use sways to tweak the final setup.

[H4LFY2nR]

Anti-Roll bars ARE a useful way to tune the roll stiffness of the front or rear suspension as well as the under/oversteer balance of the car.

Roll itself is bad because the roll moment produced by the CG height over the suspension's roll axis will increase the load on the laden tires, which will reduce the lateral acceleration available from the tires because pneumatic tires are load sensitive (the coefficient of friction decreases with increased load, at a rate faster than the lateral force increases with load). Additionally, the body roll causes the suspension to move through its travel, which depending on the type of suspension, can change the wheel camber in the wrong direction. (Think of what happens to a shifter kart in roll, there is no suspension, therefore the laden tires go into positive camber by the same amount as the body roll). A properly designed double wishbone setup will have enough camber compensation to keep negative camber on the wheels at all roll angles. However, this has to be compromised for camber compensation in bump, as excessive negative camber gain in bump will cause the car to track when one wheel encounters a bump. A mac strut suspension gains POSITIVE camber in bump and roll as the upper swing arm has an infinite length (no upper inner pivots), and the static camber must be higher than the maximum body roll angle to keep the wheels in negative camber.

The useful thing about anti-roll bars is that they increase the roll stiffness without increasing the ride rate (bump stiffness). This is useful because if the ride rate is too high, then the unsprung mass, and therefore the tire, will not be able to follow the bumps in the road (you will have raised the unsprung natural frequency too much). This will cause the wheels to skip over bumps (like a boat) and you will experience snap over/understeer. The bad thing about anti-roll bars is that they do reduce the total cornering capacity of the axle by reducing the load on the unladen wheel.

For a real road with bumps, your suspension should be soft in ride, only stiff enough to keep the car from bottoming out, and very stiff in roll, to keep the wheels in negative camber. That is why most production cars use beefy sway bars and softer springs to get a sporty feel.

Alternatively, if a perfectly smooth road or race track existed then you could run insanely stiff springs to achieve your desired roll stiffness, as you unsprung natural frequency would be irrelevant.

For race car design you can do calculations and run simulations to determine approximate desired unsprung and sprung natural frequencies, as well as ride and roll rates. However, this requires accurate and expensive track and tire data, which can only be tested for under finite conditions, which is why even the most heavily funded race teams still tune their spring and anti-roll rates at the track.

A quick note on dampers: The damping rate of your dampers (shocks) will also affect the roll stiffness during turn in/exit and transient conditions (slalom for example). Once again you want aggressive damping for roll and softer damping for bump. That is unless you have 4-way adjustable shocks (that is independent low speed bound and rebound, and independent high speed bound/rebound, a manufacturer that claims more than 4-way adjustable damping is talking out of their ass). In that case you can have the best of both worlds.

Aside: F1 uses a tri-shock (variation of mono-shock) suspension which has completely independent springs and dampers for bump and roll. They also have driver adjustable anti-roll.:poosie:

Hope this is useful to some

[shin0bi]

Originally posted by Kloubek


That's awesome. I know nothing about suspensions, but I still knew what a strut brace was. Didn't you inquire when you purchased it? lol!

Heh. Yes, I absolutely did. I was reading an article on sway bars before I posted, so I had the word "sway bar" on the brain.
Ugh. Been one of those weeks.



H4LFY2nR, that was a brilliant read. You used a lot of big, technical words, but I think I got the gyst of what you were saying.

[Inzane]

Originally posted by rage2
Example in point, on the Yaris hatchback, once I got everything setup,

:rofl: Why on earth were you "setting up" a Yaris hatchback? Setting up for what?


Originally posted by rage2
http://www.virgeweb.com/rage2/944t/2002-10%20Burnt%20Valve%2018.JPG

Is that Turn 3?

[rage2]

Originally posted by Inzane
:rofl: Why on earth were you "setting up" a Yaris hatchback? Setting up for what?
For some fun on the street. The Yaris can out corner both my GTI and my M3 in the slower corners lol.

You better visit Calgary before it snows so I can take u for a rip in the GTI to show u how sweet an "auto" is lol. I'll take u for a rip in the Yaris too haha.


Originally posted by Inzane
Is that Turn 3?
Yep.

[H4LFY2nR]

Originally posted by shin0bi
H4LFY2nR, that was a brilliant read. You used a lot of big, technical words, but I think I got the gyst of what you were saying.

Hahaha sorry for using some more technical terms. If anything needs clarification, ask and I'll try to explain.

But, to answer your original question, all things being equal, adding a properly sized rear sway bar will definetely improve the handling of your FWD (actually any car that has a forward weight bias). The key is to find a size that causes the car to become nuetral steer (neither understeers or oversteers in a steady state turn). This will reduce the total lateral grip from the rear axle to the point at which both the front and rear axles' tires are operating at their peak grip levels.

As for safety, production cars are designed to understeer at the limit because it is a stabilizing characteristic. Regardless of what the driver does (increase steer angle, increase braking), the car will plow (understeer) until the radius of the turn is large enough that the grip from the front tires is sufficient to keep the car turning at that radius. Oversteer is an unstable reaction, where the car will continue to spin unless the driver reacts appropriately (countersteer, less brakes). Steady state oversteer is a bad thing, ideally you want a neutral car that will oversteer on the application of power (from the rear wheels). You could setup your FWD to oversteer at the limit and learn to control it by applying power to the front wheels, but for a street(winter) driven car I would stick to neutral steer or a slight amount of understeer.

[Eleanor]

Originally posted by H4LFY2nR
WALL OF TEXT
Nerd :poosie:

[H4LFY2nR]

^There were pargraphs! :guns:

BTW you need to be a man and come to the OptimumG seminar.

[rage2]

Originally posted by H4LFY2nR
But, to answer your original question, all things being equal, adding a properly sized rear sway bar will definetely improve the handling of your FWD (actually any car that has a forward weight bias). The key is to find a size that causes the car to become nuetral steer (neither understeers or oversteers in a steady state turn). This will reduce the total lateral grip from the rear axle to the point at which both the front and rear axles' tires are operating at their peak grip levels.
Yep, pretty much sums up what I said too haha.

For those that care about suspension setups... I'm looking at getting stiffer spring rates on my GTI along with Koni FSD's. Koni FSD is explained here:

http://www.tirerack.com/images/pdf/koni_mclarenF1.pdf

This theoretically *should* give me less body roll without the use of thick sway bars, while each wheel can independantly and instantly adjust compression rates over bumps and curbs. As a bonus, ride quality is near stock. I'm hoping that this will give me improvements in all areas at the track, the big one being consistency over curbs.

I've read a shitload of reviews, and it's hard to judge how well it works... reviews are all over the map. A lot of drivers using FSD shocks are saying that the car feels less sharp, a little more numb than your standard spring/shock package, but laptimes improved. So it might be a small learning curve to drive it fast.

Once that's done, depending on how the car feels at the limit, I'll try and tweak cornering attitude first from minor alignment changes (if I need rear to respond to turn in better, for example). If that doesn't do it, then I'll have to resort to sway bars as a final measure.

[HiSpec]

^^

those Koni FSD looks sick!!
IIRC, Koni is the not company to use FSD, I believe Tein have something similar to FSD.

[Numi]

Originally posted by shin0bi


I've heard in some fwd applications, the added stiffness from a rear sway bar coupled with a light rear end can actually cause unsavory results. (Ie. the back can kick out when you really dont want it to.) Making safety a problem.

Anyone here with any first hand experience?

I run ITR front and rear sway bars on my eg6 with all the other goodies.
And its a stiff ride.
I can take offramps at excessive speeds.
Although i have has the back end skid out on me causing me to 180 in the street a few times.
Basically to prevent it when you feel like its gunna kick out dont hit your brakes cuz it will, instead try to correct the skid and straighten out.

[rage2]

Originally posted by HiSpec
^^

those Koni FSD looks sick!!
IIRC, Koni is the not company to use FSD, I believe Tein have something similar to FSD.
Ya, those are the F1 ones. The street ones don't look that cool haha.

Tein has the EDFC system, which is just in car adjustable. The Koni FSD's are patented so I doubt anyone's really copied them. They adjust automatically based on the rate of acceleration of the damper.


Originally posted by Numi
I run ITR front and rear sway bars on my eg6 with all the other goodies.
And its a stiff ride.
I can take offramps at excessive speeds.
Although i have has the back end skid out on me causing me to 180 in the street a few times.
Basically to prevent it when you feel like its gunna kick out dont hit your brakes cuz it will, instead try to correct the skid and straighten out.
I rest my case :rofl:.

[Euro838]

So is there any point to getting strut tower bars? If so, does it matter what type you get? I mean, I've seen them as cheap as like $20 or $100.

[rage2]

It doesn't hurt. Gains are very negligible. I haven't really felt or seen any difference on any of my cars where I added a strut bar.

I'm sure it's more noticable on cars where the chassis isn't that rigid.

[H4LFY2nR]

Originally posted by Euro838
So is there any point to getting strut tower bars? If so, does it matter what type you get? I mean, I've seen them as cheap as like $20 or $100.

^werd

A rigid chassis is the foundation of a predictable race car. Tuning the suspension on a race car with lots of chassis compliance will get you no where. As for a street car, it's negligible, but they will help prevent fatigue on your frame. A bar is a bar, but a $40 adjustable one will be more benficial than a $300 fixed bar because you can preload the adjustable one.

[flipstah]

I have a n00b question to ask.

I drive a Mitsubishi Outlander AWD and whenever I go round a corner, it feels like I might tip the car over. Can sway bars help mitigate this problem or is it inevitable because it's high?

[HiSpec]

Originally posted by rage2

Ya, those are the F1 ones. The street ones don't look that cool haha.

Tein has the EDFC system, which is just in car adjustable. The Koni FSD's are patented so I doubt anyone's really copied them. They adjust automatically based on the rate of acceleration of the damper.



I did a little browsing, and Tein have something call Micro Speed Valve (M.S.V.). Could be similar to FSD, or not... LOL

[shin0bi]

Originally posted by flipstah
I have a n00b question to ask.

I drive a Mitsubishi Outlander AWD and whenever I go round a corner, it feels like I might tip the car over. Can sway bars help mitigate this problem or is it inevitable because it's high?


From one n00b to another, I'll offer to weigh in here... because at least if I'm wrong, someone's gonna correct me.

Just based on what I've learned in reading through this post, I'm going to make the suggestion that no, sway bars probably won't do much for you in that area.

Your car wants to tip because the centre of gravity is really high, and its my guess that the chassis isn't super rigid.

Now, from my very newly learned personal experience, I WILL recommend getting yourself some strut tower braces. These will stiffen the front of your ride up a good deal more, allowing you to make those turns with a hightened level of confidence... Your car will just feel more composed. Less flex in the frame on aggressive turns and whatnot.:thumbsup:

Your main problem is always going to be the ride height though, so if its not out of the question, you might want to invest in some stiffer springs that offer a modest drop. You might even feel a difference with a 2 inch drop. But it all depends on what you use your Outlander for...

Anyone else, please feel free to weigh in and blow my theory out of the water if its wrong... I'd hate to give this guy bad advice.

[GTS Jeff]

Originally posted by shin0bi



From one n00b to another, I'll offer to weigh in here... because at least if I'm wrong, someone's gonna correct me.

Just based on what I've learned in reading through this post, I'm going to make the suggestion that no, sway bars probably won't do much for you in that area.

Your car wants to tip because the centre of gravity is really high, and its my guess that the chassis isn't super rigid.

Now, from my very newly learned personal experience, I WILL recommend getting yourself some strut tower braces. These will stiffen the front of your ride up a good deal more, allowing you to make those turns with a hightened level of confidence... Your car will just feel more composed. Less flex in the frame on aggressive turns and whatnot.:thumbsup:

Your main problem is always going to be the ride height though, so if its not out of the question, you might want to invest in some stiffer springs that offer a modest drop. You might even feel a difference with a 2 inch drop. But it all depends on what you use your Outlander for...

Anyone else, please feel free to weigh in and blow my theory out of the water if its wrong... I'd hate to give this guy bad advice. LOL sorry, but sways will do way more for a car's handling than strut tower bars ever will. PROPERLY INSTALLED strut tower bars reduce chassis flex and dynamic camber changes a bit, resulting in improved turn in, steering feel, and predictability...but only by a very tiny bit. As in, you'll only notice if you are very in tune with your vehicle and know it's every subtlety. Think about it; would a piece of cheap, thin piping really affect your chassis stiffness that much? The answer is no, no it wouldn't. Not to mention that most people just bolt their STBs down with no regard to proper installation. Negating their usefulness. STBs are the CAIs of suspension modding. ;)

Sway bars on the other hand, do tons. They use the leverage from the outside to actively push down the inside, and those physics don't change based on where the car's CG is.

[H4LFY2nR]

@Rage and the FSDs
Those are sweet! I'd like to know how they feel versus a 4 way adjustable damper. Are they truly an infinitely adjustable damper? As far as I figured out from my internet search it's a mechanical integrator feedback loop. This is the only damper curve I could find of it:
http://www.peterpyce.com/Dampers/Koni/Koni-FSD-001.jpg

@Jeff
Actually, the physics of a sway bar are directly proportional to the CG height. As I mentioned before, the CG height above the roll axis is the moment arm that the lateral acceleration force (which acts at the CG) uses to generate the roll moment. The roll moment is then reacted by the increase in vertical force on the laden tires (lateral load transfer). It is the uneven force between the laden and unladen wheels that the anti-roll bar (a torsion spring) uses to reduce the body roll.

I agree that a strut tower bar won't reduce the body roll, but it is still a beneficial mod. A thin walled tube is incredibly strong in tension and compression, and if they weren't useful, no GT racing team running a production unibody chassis would bother with the added weight. ;)


As for the tipping Outlander, a lower CG would actually allow it to corner faster, and beefier sway bars would make it feel more stable, but in the end you are correct to say that it is inevitable. It just isn't meant to corner hard.

[GTS Jeff]

Originally posted by H4LFY2nR
@Jeff
Actually, the physics of a sway bar are directly proportional to the CG height. As I mentioned before, the CG height above the roll axis is the moment arm that the lateral acceleration force (which acts at the CG) uses to generate the roll moment. The roll moment is then reacted by the increase in vertical force on the laden tires (lateral load transfer). It is the uneven force between the laden and unladen wheels that the anti-roll bar (a torsion spring) uses to reduce the body roll.

I agree that a strut tower bar won't reduce the body roll, but it is still a beneficial mod. A thin walled tube is incredibly strong in tension and compression, and if they weren't useful, no GT racing team running a production unibody chassis would bother with the added weight. ;)


As for the tipping Outlander, a lower CG would actually allow it to corner faster, and beefier sway bars would make it feel more stable, but in the end you are correct to say that it is inevitable. It just isn't meant to corner hard. I don't think we really have any disagreement here. Of course CG affects roll...I'm just saying regardless of that, swaybars will have an effect on roll too.

And yes, tubes are very strong, hence roll cages. No arguments from me there. But I'm just saying that if you can tell the difference between a Saturn SC2 with a STB installed vs. one without in a blind test, I'd be pretty surprised. As I said, STBs are the intakes of suspension mods. It's the first thing every ricer does to their car, but it doesn't do shit for them. I don't think I'd get any argument from you there.

[H4LFY2nR]

Originally posted by GTS Jeff
They use the leverage from the outside to actively push down the inside, and those physics don't change based on where the car's CG

I was correcting you on the fact that the CG height will directly affect the amount of roll stiffness that a given diameter sway bar will provide. A minor error, but misinformation non the less.

I agree with you that a STB is one of the first mods a ricer does to his car, and that it's contribution is negligible to the ricers car. But for anyone who is actually modding their suspension for performance gains, a STB shouldn't be brushed aside as a "ricer" mod.

[GTS Jeff]

Originally posted by H4LFY2nR


I was correcting you on the fact that the CG height will directly affect the amount of roll stiffness that a given diameter sway bar will provide. A minor error, but misinformation non the less.

I agree with you that a STB is one of the first mods a ricer does to his car, and that it's contribution is negligible to the ricers car. But for anyone who is actually modding their suspension for performance gains, a STB shouldn't be brushed aside as a "ricer" mod. A STB was an important part of all the suspension mods I had on my own car. I really don't want to partake in an e-pissing contest with you over semantics.

[shin0bi]

Originally posted by GTS Jeff
I don't think we really have any disagreement here. Of course CG affects roll...I'm just saying regardless of that, swaybars will have an effect on roll too.

And yes, tubes are very strong, hence roll cages. No arguments from me there. But I'm just saying that if you can tell the difference between a Saturn SC2 with a STB installed vs. one without in a blind test, I'd be pretty surprised. As I said, STBs are the intakes of suspension mods. It's the first thing every ricer does to their car, but it doesn't do shit for them. I don't think I'd get any argument from you there.

You might be right, Jeff... I upgraded my tires at the same time I installed my STB. The majority of the performance gains I'm noticing with regards to handling could be attributed to the upgraded tires...

But, from a stability standpoint, I felt an immediate and considerable difference in my car. There is far less body roll. Trust me, it feels more solidly planted. Its like a whole new vehicle.

[QuasarCav]

Originally posted by shin0bi


You might be right, Jeff... I upgraded my tires at the same time I installed my STB. The majority of the performance gains I'm noticing with regards to handling could be attributed to the upgraded tires...

But, from a stability standpoint, I felt an immediate and considerable difference in my car. There is far less body roll. Trust me, it feels more solidly planted. Its like a whole new vehicle.


STB wont do this unless your car has a cardboard chassis. You were feeling a stiffer sidewall and a better contact patch.