Sway Bars!!!Wich ones???What you guys Think

SON240sx Automotive
1

I am looking to purchase sway bars,but i dont know wich one to take among all the different compagnies,and I was wondering what you guys think.

Like wich ones you bought???Did you regret it,maybe you would have wish to get another compagny …(adjustable or not ,big advantage or not,recomended tickness…

I ve made a search on nico and most guys came up with whitelines.

http://forums.nicoclub.com/zerothread?id=199089

       thank you,I ve looked here and it didnt seem to have a thread on this subject (well on what kind to take) hope im not double posting anyway thanks
2

I got Whiteline sway bars (front and rear) with Whiteline bushings and endlinks. They are quite beefy and feel great on the car.

PDM Racing sells them for about 400USD (front & rear)

edit: I think the ones from PDM are 27mm up front and 22mm in the rear.

3

I have whitelines, they were great and have a couple stiffness adjustments.

4

I bought a pair of ST’s but didn’t have a huge use for the front so I sold it. The rear made a huge difference though, I am really happy with the performance of it and it comes with bushings and endlinks aswell.

5

I love my Whitelines, front and rear.

6

is there a lot of difference between the tanabe (30.4mm f/27.5mm r) and the whitelines (27 f 22 r)

7

Not to hi-jack your thread but I have also wondered about the benifits / draw backs of different sway bars. Can anyone comment on how it affected the cars tendency to understeer vs oversteer over stock. I currently have stock S13 bar up front and S13 Hicas bar out back and I experiance some understeer on the track. I’m afraid if I go with a whiteline bar front and rear its only going to increase my understeer and not cure it. And if I go with an aftermarket rear bar only it will just turn my car into a tail lose drift slut. Also not what I’m looking for. Opinions?

8

If you want to fix your understeer at the track, slow down into corners or get better tires. The sways will reduce body roll, not make you a better driver. not trying to rip on your driving skills, I understeer too.

9

Yeah I had someone asking me why they experience more understeer with a rear bar. I did not experience this, I had nothing but positive results installing th ONLY the rear. It didn’t make it tailhappy, a little easier to kick it out, yes, but more controllable/predictable when it does go out.

10

^^ i believe that was me

i think my bar was too stiff since mines 3way adjustable and i had it at the stiffest setting (stiffer than tanabe), making the rear end a lot more planted.

plus, it was 0 degrees outside, i think my summers in the front gave way while my semi bald winters in the rear were at its optimum temperatures for grip. that probably played the biggest role.

i’m going to tune it more when its at least +10.

11

Yeah I didn’t want to mention your name…

Sounds like you may have it figured out tho, that reasoning sounds about right.

12

how considerate :slight_smile:

i’ll update you once the weather gets better and tell you what i find out.

i may go to the middle setting.

anyone know how much of a difference solid endlinks compare to regular polyeurothane ones?

like 1 bar with solid and the same bar with poly, how much stiffer would it make the bar since theres no flex? never found an answer to that question so far…

13

No offense taken, I’m all over the better tires already and I’m working on the driving skill. I have been in peoples cars though where regardless of speed you turn the wheel and that car TURNS no understeer or massive oversteer, just a nice neutral hard corner. That is what I’m after, which we all are I’m sure.

Theo

It sounds like a rear only bar maybe what I’m looking for.

The only problem with this thread is the lack of S13 owners input. We seem to have more of an understeer issue then the S14 owners… I haven’t figure out why for sure yet. Smaller front sway may be the culprit??? I suck at suspension stuff.

14

s13 imput are always welcome :stuck_out_tongue:

15

hey is there any people with s-12 and s-11 :stuck_out_tongue:

just wondering !!! :slight_smile:

16

S12s? Real Silvias? We’ve got a few :wink:

Sway bars?

Well … how they affect understeer/oversteer is not black and white.

Sway bars control body roll, that’s it.

Body roll, affects your car in different ways.

Body roll can cause understeer. So in essence, a sway bar could reduce understeer.

What is usually ignored is WHY body roll causes understeer. Body roll changes your camber. You are effectively increasing camber on the inside tire, and adding negative camber to the outside tire.

It’s dependent on speed, load, angle how much it will affect the car.

Some racers leave their suspension settings alone, and play with anti-sway settings instead.

Others stick with stock sways, and play with suspension.

They’re all components of the same system. Which is what makes choosing them difficult. People always turn to sway bars, likely because they are inexpensive, and people have heard of them. Hell, most 4-lug S14s don’t even have rear sway bars at all.

Anti sways are used to further tune your suspension. Just adding them blindly may or may not improve the handling of your car.

Part of what makes the S13 so easy to drift is its tendency to understeer on corner entry. Before you get your panties in a knot, bear with me. Once you get into the understeer, the KA has plenty of torque to power over, transfer the weight, get the grip back to the front tires, and let the back end come out.

S13s/S14s use narrow diameter HOLLOW sway bars from the factory. You can essentially bend them by hand. The S110/S12 generation had same diameter (even thicker in some cases) SOLID bars. They don’t understeer. This makes them even harder to drift.

So … your best bet is to figure out WHY your car is understeering before you start playing with anti-sways. Also, if you have coil-overs, camber plates, and anti-sways, you have a hell of a lot of suspension tuning to go through to take advantage of the setup.

17

Thats is alot of great info mr200. Any tuning tips? Places to start? I guess base camber settings and toe?

18

i think its also because with a larger bar (stiffer) it causes the car to be planted more. that is one thing i noticed with my progress sway bars. with the rear 5x more planted, i could corner real hard but also harder to break loose.

as i said, i will have to actually test it in real summer weather.

and theo, what is the specs on ur ST sways? Hollow?

19

on audi you will find typically that they have a large diameter front bar and a puny straw (11mm? or so) on the rear, they have hardly any negative camber up front and quite a bit in the back… they understeer

let’s compare the sizes, audi 4000 front bar is approx 22mm, while the 1996-01 a4 is around 31mm… their front suspension hasn’t changed much in that time but they felt adding larger bars help…

another aspect of audi/vw however is their rubber bushing dogbones… basically each arm (independant wishbone) is isolated but also binds when deformed, by bind I don’t mean hits the end of it’s travel but resists moving… so whatever spring rate they have, when you compress the suspension you have more little forces acting on the upright, and this little force becomes quite significant whenever turning or driving irregularly, the extra soft push also doesn’t have a tendency to bounce like a spring so all the force is applied progressively

there is a lot in suspension design, and the poor man’s mac strut with a sway bar is hardly complicated, you only have 2 positive forces to play with and the alignment

but as commented, learn to drive a shit car and you become a better driver, don’t expect the car to do the work for you… soft suspensions with decent geometry can teach you a lot

20

Samson

The ST sways are solid, non adjustable.

Fronts they offer are 1 1/8"
Rears they offer are 13/16"

Rear is not crazy large, but more than enough for me (as stated, I only use the rear).