meckert

iTrader: (11)

OP-- look if your going to do sway bars-- buy a frt and rear set from 1 company and dont mix and match and that will eliminate a lot of issues. Its been recommended that you purchase an adj rear bar, I agree and that will allow you to balance the car the way you want. getting a larger rear bar and getting a rear bar larger then the frt bar are two different things--due to weight distribution of frt engine cars in almost every case the frt bar is larger and you will find that from the venders you will look at, in the ralliart comparison listed above and the final choice you make--so let not talk more about imbalanced bar selections unless you want to find yourself in a curb or off the rd like FJF suggested. An adj rear bar will allow you to dial the car in and offers leverage point making the bar seem smaller or bigger depending on the setting. My .02 Good Luck.

Dallas J

iTrader: (1)

There is no "One size fits all" rate or balance. As soon as you differ from stock in spring, alignment, wheel/tire size & grip, or weight then the bars just become a tuning tool.

On softer spring rates like GTworx, a big front bar helps reduce front roll and camber loss. Bigger rear just picks up the inside rear sooner and too much. As spring rates go up, front bar rate can go down (net front grip increase) and rear bar can go up (more effective net front grip increase as long as you can use the bar with enough front rate).

Of course at this point what you run also depends on spring rate. Figure out what rate and rate balance you want, then get bars to suit. I personally just swapped back to stock front bar with cusco adjustable bracket and Hotchkiss rear bar.

When you make a change, go autox it. That's a great environment to see how the car handles in most aspects. Make a change, test, make a change, test.. do that for a while and you'll start to figure it out on your own.

golgo13

iTrader: (134)

I agree that it's a system that's meant to be tuned together. Altering one aspect of it in a vacuum doesn't work.

aklucsarits

iTrader: (2)

Yes, we all know that if you overdrive any vehicle in adverse conditions, you will probably eventually run out of talent and luck.

My Evo is on stock suspension + a whiteline bar on the stiffest setting. I even have some toe-out in my rear wheel alignment. The car is very easy to control and feels much more nimble than stock. Yes, I drive it on the street like that all the time, including in the winter. And no, I have not killed any puppies or baby duckies with it.

MRLancer05

iTrader: (2)

I run the same Bar on the mid setting and stock suspension, I found that the full stiff made the car to tail happy, but my rear struts are shot I think and my driving style may be more aggressive. I am an avid autox'er so that the type of handling I am talking about.

So yes most of it comes down to driver needs, but I think the 26mm Front and 24mm adjustable from WL is a great setup that should allow you to adjust it to your liking.

WRC-LVR

iTrader: (1)

I agree with the post and also the Ralliart figures.

Used to be the only way to get the 03-05 to turn was to stiffen the rear so high spring and RSB rates..

But the advent of the 05 front diff changed that, it helps pull the car thru the turn. That needs the tires flatter on teh ground in front = slight bump in front bar rate and spring. People match that with better rear diffs to rotate the car even better...that needs the rear tires on the ground too so the rear bars rate goes down a bit to allow that. The advent of the ACd controller tuning has now moved that to much better finer tuning yet.

My personal opinion is for spring rates 350-400 on Bilsteins use 26 mm adjust FSB and 24-25 rear RSB. Hotchkiss brackets and links up front or custom they can be made cheap. Get the ACD tuned.. Get a better rear diff or re-arrange the plates correctly as seen on the sticky. make sure all the bushings/joints are in good shape... looseness is bad..Use -2/-1 with zero toe all AROUND

tune it with the adjustable bars for front to rear balance for the intended use.

Autox experience as noted above helps to learn what you what for the SPEED range you are going to be doing ...DONT overdo it either under or oversteer..

unless you want to make more parts available for the rest of us

Sharkbite2000

iTrader: (21)

I just loved the Robi Spec sway bar set up, it was perfect~

03whitegsr

iTrader: (8)

Are you running a Grp.N car on Grp.N courses?

Sure, Ralliart knows what they are doing. But is what they are doing even remotely similar to what you are doing? When's the last time you cleared 100' of road in the air at 100+mph or dropped the inside tire off the road edge for extra traction on rough pavement?


It's all about what you are doing with the car. An auto-X guy is going to likely tell you very high spring rates with a lot of rear bias and softer bars. This is done to help prevent from lifting the rear excessively and to give the car a tail happy rear end to help the car rotate at low speeds for tight corners. A road race guy might give you anything from fairly soft to fairly stiff, simply because most of their time might be on a rough or glass smooth track. Low speed, high speed. What kind of aero package they use, etc.


So in summary....your source is wrong unless you are Grp.N racing back in 2006. Then it was good info. Now it's just another opinion that you can take in and do your own testing with.

FWIW, I would agree with their numbers for an average road course type setup with moderate size tires. Something you could go to a lot of different tracks and do fairly well with. But if your local track is glass smooth, you are running 315 slicks, and you have a ton of aero, it's not going to be any where close to right.

golgo13

iTrader: (134)

Fair enough.

This, which I think is the majority of the people on this forum? I would expect race teams and the like to have a suspension tuner they work with and not really use EvoM for this information, but it wouldn't be the first time I've been wrong.



EDIT: That statement I made doesn't include people that auto-x, so in essence it is false in that regard.

03whitegsr

iTrader: (8)

Like I said, it depends. We only have one road course within about 400miles of here. It's glass smooth and you can get away with a very stiff setup. A good setup out here takes advantage of how smooth it is, ups the spring rates and gets the car low without fear of bottoming.

I would agree with the general sentiment you are putting out though. If the person is out for that last 1/10th that optimizing for a given track brings, they likely know what they are doing or have somebody working with them that does. It's still good to see that info on here though.

I can tell you for a fact though, that setup listed isn't even close for some really fast guys on here. Those spring rates are pretty soft. Like I said, those Grp.N cars are setup to handle just about anything. Even tarmac courses aren't all that smooth and I believe they had a higher ride height and softer springs to cope with it. Probably not a bad idea for a street car, if you aren't after the lowered center of gravity and improved aesthetics. The higher ride height brings far fewer geometry issues.