Hey all, i’m just putting together a list of stuff i can budget and install in my car this summer and i just have a couple questions.
I’m looking to order a set of sways for my s13 and i was browsing through companies and catalogs. What differences does diameter of the actual sway bar have on how the car reacts.
I’ll be looking at a mild suspension set up for mostly gripping next season and i’m going through companies like Ground Control, Cusco, and whiteline.
Any reccomendations?
Whiteline is extremely well known Australian company that makes products mostly for Subaru rally cars. Their suspension pieces are renouned world-wide.
The thickness of the sway bar doesn’t affect it much, however it plays a role in stiffness only because if you think about it, thicker=harder to bend/flex.
What matter is the preload on the sways. A good combo for S13 is 27mm front 22mm rear. Stock front is 24/25mm depending on model, and rear is 19mm I belive.
What matters most are the endlinks however. Whiteline endlinks use polyeurethane bushings and have 3 preload settings:
Soft, Normal, Hard. This will determine the ‘stiffness’ per say.
For a drift setup you definitely want something beefier in the rear. 24/25mm in the rear would be good to really solidify it.
Preload on the whiteline (and I’m assuming on others aswell) endlinks are just different holes you stick the end into basically:
Soft
------/—
Normal
Hard
—/------
mmm. thanks dan, i’m looking for a balance thats shifting more to grip. So you would reccomend i go with 27s in the front 22s in the back and how should i set the endlinks? And any particular company you would reccomend?
Try making rear a little stiffer. It won’t slide as much as you would perceive it to. Less roll = more equal load on both tires = more grip. Easier route might be to get adjustable sway bars so you can tinker around with it to find best suitability.
In my experience, I find that if I run nice stiff in the front and really soft in the back, the car oversteers more than it grips. I increased stiffness in the rear and it increased stability through the corner while providing more grip.
^^^ I agree
I put on front strut bars and the driving dynamics didn’t change much. The only thing different was that it didn’t grab the crowns and grooves in the road as much which would pull the car left or right.
I hung hard left on a corner at speed and the back end flew out as usual.
I then put on rear strut bars and the driving dynamics completely changed. The back end wasn’t as temperamental. It didn’t like to hop over road bumps. On hard launches the axle hop was reduced and I had much better acceleration.
I tried taking the same corner at the same speed and I pulled the wheel the same way. The back end stuck like glue. I tried the corner again at the same speed but this time I gave it more gas halfway through the turn. Back wheels broke free in a regular overpowered fashion but I eased off the throttle from coming the full way around and the back wheels went back to grip. This was on a cold -5 day with slippery crushed salt all over the place. Most grip I’ve ever felt on that car to date.
swaybars are over-rated.
if the sway bar is too thick and stiffens the car up too much, it does not allow your suspension to work independently (on s-chassis) meaning you will essentially lose grip.
The beefier swaybar in the front or rear will reduce body roll, and NOT allow the front/rear suspension work independently and will understeer/slide out easier. Just imagine if your car was driving on an uneven surface and if you had a really big sway bar in the rear, both wheels will be affected by that uneven surface BUT one wheel will have less traction because it will not be as planted to the floor because of the stiff sway bar.
Best bang for the buck would be suspension techniques. They use an OEM style endlink. Endlinks are a very important part of the swaybar because it is what holds the sway bar inplace. If the endlink has a weak design or has too much play (old bushings), the efficiency of the bar will decrease.
The width of the bar does greatly affect the performance of the sway bar because when you corner, it essentially twists and bends the bar. The less twisting and bending of the bar, the less body roll and increased rigidity you will get.
If you don’t plan on getting coilovers yet, i HIGHLY suggest you get some swaybars while running lowered springs/shocks. You will automatically feel a NIGHT AND DAY difference. Reason being is because the spring/shock combo is usually pretty soft compared to most coilovers out there and therefore, it will help with grip and not affect the suspension working independently as much as if you were running coilovers. With coilovers, you would in most cases lose grip with the added beefiness of front/rear swaybar and will not notice much of a difference of the addition of a beeft swaybar except for loss of grip. How I know? I’ve ran the same swaybar on both my spring/shock and now coilover setup. With the spring/shock combo my car felt like it was on a friggin rail road track and gripped HARD. With the coilovers, the back came out REAL easy when i had a beefier REAR sway bar.
All this is from personal experience (s-chassis) and not theories that i’ve read from someone else.
I hope this helped!!
Woops, sorry guys. My mistake. I misread. I thought you said Strut Bars, not Sway Bars.
For your situation, you could have turned down the coilover dampers to softer settings to compensate for the sway bar stiffness.
The point of sway bars is to eliminate body roll as well as TOO much independability of suspension. if you go over bump, one wheel goes airborne or gets less load and loses grip. The other will take the excess load and soon break tires traction. Sway bars solves this problem by keeping it less independent. But if too stiff, it’ll slide out a lot like Samson’s situation. So basically it’s trying to find the perfect balance between independent suspension and sway bars.
I’m not sure, but I believe the proper way to get a good compromise between too stiff and complete independance is to match your sway bar preload or ‘stiffness’ to your spring rate on your dampeners. That’s how whiteline designs their full line of suspension. Everything is meant to go together as a package.
Thanks to pat, samson, osad and davd for the help. I still have alot of time until i finish budgeting and planning. But a set of good swaybars will definetely be near the top of the list.
on my 74 road runner i had a 3/4" fron and no rear as a factory setup.
the car nearly rolled over like a dog in turns at 60kph
upgraded to 1 1/2" front and 3/4" rear.
driving changes:
car does not roll at all in a 60-80kph left at a light
coffee is not allowed / safe in my car anymore…at almost any speed.
rear swingout is suuuuper easy by comparison as the forces that did “lean” my car, now push a little more sideways…(in the back…a lot)
racing seats were then required.
this car has a solid rear axle so i’ll be a bit different for you…
also there was almost no noticeable change in straightline driving as it was a no pre-load setup…because in this car all you’d get is binding which = yucky.
with justa set of lowering springs that have a slightly incresed spring rate the car will still be readily driveable…stiff coilovers become very annoying if you drive a lot…
really it becomes a case of %street VS. %track VS. willingness to deal with a soar/wet but and you doing the rolling arround your car, not the car leaning anymore…
any oe setup with a bench seat and full race swaybars will now be a lateral rollercoaster ride of inappropriate hipchecking…
but in a strait line…very little noticeable difference
just my .02
Wow, something you’ll never hear about on these boards unless you drive a select few Datsuns on a Solid axle RWD setup, or a Nissan Truck. I won’t even say Nissan Car. I can’t think of one since 1983 that was RWD and had a Live rear differential. Datsun changed their name to Nissan in 1984. hmmmm
the stiffness of a sway bar doesnt always depend on the thickness. some bars are hollow, and therefore softer. the material used and temper of the metal also affects stiffness.
generally there are 2 suspension tuning methods. in japan it is popular to just get coilovers with really stiff spring rates and damping. if your suspension is stiff enough, then you dont need sway bars. this works well in japan because the roads there are really nice, smooth and well kept.
in north america however, the roads often suck balls. you have to take a different approach. you can use a softer spring with a progressive spring rate in combination with a well valved shock that will deliver softer high speed damping and stiff low speed and rebound damping as well as stiffening the chassis and using stiffer sway bars and a little bit more sidewall on your tires. this produces a car that can handle bumps well while also delivering a stable drive.
^^+1
F.I.R.S. FTW!
solid rear axle sucks for anything but towing/basics…its the cheap way out
Definately FTW.
I changed the whole rear subframe on my Datsun for Solid Rear axle to F.IRS. Holy Shit it make a HUGE difference in how it drove. It was well worth the week of all nighters to line that thing up and weld the IRS subframe in.
All it really needed to be perfect was a larger rear sway bar. The stock one on there literally looks like a A bunch of paper clips straightened out and welded at the ends to make it longer. I guess it helped that the car was so light so there wasn’t any opportunity for roll anyway.
my set up is awsome
hicas sway bar with bings links