tanabe front swaybar
 

Is the 25.4mm Tanabe Sustec FSB a good replacement for the stock front bar? I already have a Hotchkis RSB and intend to get revalved Bilsteins and GTWorx springs as well. Thanks.

Your question was hard to read lol. Is it a "good bang for your buck"? Absolutely. I've driven a couple Evo's on the track (buttonwillow/ laguna seca) with them and I'm convinced this is the sway bar that I'd love to put out front of my Evo as well. And for some credibilty, I also know out of the several Evo 8/9's that have won the solo2 SCCA series, they were using these sway bars as well. So they're doing something right ;)

I guess it depends on your setup and whether your talking about road course or autox. FWIW, I installed a Tanabe fsb and it was amazing. Totally worth the pita to install.

The only downside with any of these larger bars is that the little clearance you have is reduced even more underneath the car with the power steering line and the transfercase snout piece. Also, some sway bars have rings fitted or welded on to locate and center them on the car, this one doesn't. You center up as best you can and I assume it centers itself eventually because it is allowed to slide a bit Im guessing. I just tried centering my fsb with the bushings away from those little holes on the subframe as much as possible because it just seems like a better idea for the bushing to rest on as much of a solid piece vs over a hole. Its a weird design why they put those holes right next to where the sway bar bushings rest.

^ interesting. The stock sway bars, I believe, do not have these "centering" tabs neither? Correct? I couldn't see that being too much of an issue. Thanks for sharing your experience though TommiM, as usual.

The stock sway bars don't have a welded centering rings or anything like that. According to the Mitsu manual there are marking on there so when you mount it up you align that marking up the bushing or something like that.

The aftermarket bushings are usually wider than the oem one as well. This means that essentialy you can mount the bushing a little off center either way of the bracket. The oem bushing fits snug against the bracket one way, and even has a nipple to center itself. THis is how mitsu designed it so the sway bar can essentially be put on at a certain spot. With any aftermarket ones you get a little more leeway and no real defined location like oem.

Im not saying this is a bad or flawed design, hell it honestly may not even really matter. I guess I just pay too much attention to these little details sometimes. I just have an appreciaton for the fitment of an oem setup I guess.:beer:

Lol no I appreciate your input/ honesty TommiM. I do recall seeing white paint marks on the front and rear sway bars when I was installing ES polyurethane bushings. Too bad the ES (and I believe most/ if not all other bushing MFG'ers) bushings do not have those "nipples" to help with alignment/positioning.

Still getting the Tanabe S.B ! ;)

Hopefully sparky appreciates the input, surprised he hadn't chimed in yet

If you need to make sure the sway bar stays centered, you can buy split collars to go on the bar.

Make sure to upgrade the end links and end link mounting plate on the front bar. IIRC Cusco end link plates will give better angles and adjustability for the front bar. Also the rear bar endlinks help with bring the bar into play faster if they are beefier.

Here is a link to ones you can make yourself

http://www.cs.unm.edu/~donour/cars/evo_endlinks/

^ I love this! I think I already commented on this previously,,,, but well done!

sparky,

Pm or email Evolutionary....his extremely well built track car went thru several iterations of front bars. He can probably recommend the best one that will last.

I have a recollection that the Tanabe is a hollow bar that is welded together in the middle. This failed on someone's track car, not sure But i thought it was Evolutionary too.

Hope this helps

I'm curious about this as well....I'm trying to decide between the Tanabe or the Whiteline FSB

Evolutionary has recommended the Tanabe front sway bar in previous threads ;) that's where I found my recommendation lol I tend to believe what he says, he has a good track record, literally...

sorry for the confusion. I do remember one of the bars being hollow and someone having an issue with it. Bugs me i cant find it now though..

YES indeed i would go with EVOlutionary's experience...

For those not running swaybars with welded on collars to stop the bar from moving laterally :

http://www.mcmaster.com/#split-shaft-collars/=nu8sks

Those are in metric sizes.

Nice find. IIRC when I was messing around with my fsb I recall there not being a lot of room and Im not sure if these will fit. You may be able to get one on the passenger side, but I believe its a tighter fit in the drivers side. Also the swaybar sits fairly close to the subframe so not sure if these collars are going to fit without rubbing at the very least. That wouldn't be good.

I tried fitting some special inner lined clamps, but even those I didn't like the way they sat against the bushing. With the tanabe sway bar, from my experience, it can be a little tricky when you center it up to try and put some type of collars on the bushings. When you have it centered, it seems like the drivers side outer side of the bushing doesn't have a straight enough end to put a good clamp/collar on. If you use the inner side, then you run into the same issue with the passenger side. You may have to move it around and get adjustable endlinks to compensate. In the end I just gave up on it, and left it without a collar. Whatever performance gain was not worth the hassle to try to figure this thing out.

Interesting product from Whiteline. Called a "lateral lock" for the swaybar. Looks like another nice option as well.


http://www.whiteline.com.au/product_..._number=KLL122

Im thinking about picking one up

I have the whiteline front sway bar(26mm) and the whiteline rear sway bar(24mm). I have found through my auto-x experience that the size of the bar is going to make your suspension stiffer in the corners but only if the end-links are setup properly.

I was experimenting with my end-link position in the rear and I adjusted the bar to soft and spaced out my endlinks as far as possible away from the bar. Leaving a safe amount of thread so the nut could be properly tightened.

With this setup I found that the rear end would tripod way less but the tendency to under-steer was high. I have tripoded on the stock setup before and it felt less responsive than the stock rear sway bar. Suspension tuning can do wonders.

Yeah those have flatws on the sides to help install.....other than that they look identical to those from McMaster Carr.

Buy them and see if they install easily and work to keep the bar from moving laterally. :-)

spacing the endlinks out from the bar puts undue pressure on the bolts and creates angular forces you dont want. I see what you were trying to do, basically soften the rear bar enough but I would not do it that way..

What springs are you using for this,Deylag? What LSD ? What front endlinks are you using? Im guessing the spring rate upfront is not enough and allows the car to roll over in the front and overload the outside front despite the thicker bar there. This will also unload the inside front tire and cause some spin on the inside front. All this adds up to loss of total grip on the end you need it most. softening the rear bar wont really help much as you have not addressed the overall roll of the car. Having the rear tires on the ground works best when the LSD is active and that is under throttle...IMHO. it also requires the lsd to function well which is why the TRE or Shep diffs transform the car from the apex forward and the acd tune fixes the turn-in by unlocking, and to the apex and forward by locking up better

Other than that you might be going into the corner too late too hot, Scotty :-) JK

Scotty,

You have a couple good points.

Here is some info on my setup:

Suspension Mods

All around:

Carbing Six Point Ladder Brace
JRZ RS1 Coilovers
JRZ Camber Plates
Eibach Tender Springs
Eibach Springs
Spring Rates: FR:600 Lb/in RR:650 Lb/in

Tires: 255/40/17 Hankook RS3
Wheels: Jungle Grey 17X9 +35 5ZIGEN FNO1R-C

Front:

Whiteline Roll Center Kit: KCA395
Whiteline Steering Precision Kit: KCA387
Perrin PSRS-Offset: PEPSUS400
Whiteline 26mm Front Sway Bar: BMF48
Robispec Control Arm Lower Inner Front Spherical Bushing
Homemade Adjustable Front Endlinks
Ultra Racing Front Fender Braces
AMS Front Cross Beam Member

Rear:
DME Rear Toe Arms
AFI Adjustable Lower Control Arms
Robispec Rear Trailing Arm Sphericals
Homemade Adjustable Rear Endlinks
Whiteline 24mm Adjustable Rear Sway Bar
Weir Performance 12 plate Rear Diff Swap
EM Racing Z-bar Trunk Cage

Suspension tuning is an ongoing educational process for me. To be clear, I only noticed the touch of understeer on maybe the first turn but after my tires warmed up it was similar to driving a FWD car. It didn't have the complete FWD characteristics but the rear had way less response than my previous rear end-link setup.

I am sorry in advance for being off-topic.

The tanabe is a 25.4mm, maybe I missed it but I didn't see that size on there.
Also,those look pretty beefy and clearance between the bar and the subframe might be questionable. If those things rub couldn't it bind up the natural motion of the bar changing the way it performs?

Ive heard of some folks who have had issues with the small bolts that hold the two piece collar just stripping out or not clamping down tight enough to actually stop the bar from sliding. These folks later ditched them for regular hose clamps,lol
-just what I been told, ymmv.

I feel like sway bars are one of the best mods on any car.

Ya. With the evo its all about what type of racing and what the rest of your current setup is. For example I have a stock rear swaybar and at this point with my setup, I don't feel upgrading to a larger rear bar would be beneficial.

^ same here. I see it too often where people have ridiculous sway bars and don't have the suspension to compliment the benefits of having one.

Yep hose clamps can work as well and cheaper but id use t bolts to get a bit more holding power.

Dont ask me how to orient them as I havent tried it

Sway bars are or should be the final bit to the puzzle to fine tune the balance of the car. Springs etc first so they are more important.. as are the LSD's

IMHO :-)

Sorry back on topic.

Robispec springs and TRE max lock rear diff, awesome first mods to your evo{thumbup}

I tried using high torque clamps, and iirc I ended up putting them both on the inner side of each bushing. Once the bar was centered as best as possible, the inner section provided the most level surface to put a clamp on. What I didn't like was that since the clamp itself is reather flat except for the screw section, it ends up digging into the bushing and can cause premature tearing. Something like a collar works better as it wont tear into the bushing, but your just more limited to space. Between the firewall, power steering lines, and the crossmember, your limited to space.

Im not saying those collars wont work, I honestly don't know since I haven't tried them. Im just saying whatever you chose to use just be cautious that theres not a whole bunch of room to work with.

My Evo had the Tanabe hollow front bar on it in 2010, and my codriver Chris Mayfield managed to win Solo Nationals in SM class in it. Of course, I drove the same car, and the Tanabe front bar didn't magically enable me to do nearly as well. YMMV. :lol:

The Tanabe front bar is indeed hollow—it weighs 7.78 lb vs 10.34 lb for the OEM front bar—but it is not "welded together in the middle," at least mine isn't (the attachment points for the endlinks are welded to bar itself though). Zero issues or failures with mine, and I've driven my car fairly hard on track and autocross for the last two years. It's a nice part.

That being said, I'm going with a different setup now, and my Tanabe front bar is for sale, if anyone's interested... and here's my step-by-step how-to on swapping the front bar:

https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/ev...ring-rack.html

I think I'm the only one who has broken a tanabe front bar in half at the weld. They grind the weld down smooth and then powder coat over it so it doesn't look like its welded together in the middle but it is. I suspect they all are.

Any advantages of going with a 25.4mm versus the 26mm from Robispec?

Depending on how your car is set up, 26mm could certainly be too stiff and counterproductive.

Any good suspension set-up reads for the CT9A?

I spoke w/ Robi at length. He did not recommend up-sizing the FSB beyond stock (confirmed by Mueller as well)

Robi did recommend his adjustable FSB end links & the fender brace along w/all his other Robi bits

Mueller noted that the larger bars have a tendency to lift the inside front wheel in tight, fast corners. Obviously, not a good thing on a AWD'r

Nice.

I wish this information was more readily available and common knowledge.

:crap:

https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/mo...k-my-math.html

It all depends on the rest of the setup. Just saying no upgraded FSB cause it "will" do something is a wrong approach. Instead of guessing what's going on, the info is out there to calculate a balanced setup. Get your N.F.s roughly set, then balance swaybars. Make adjustments from there.

And you can deviate from normal conventions when your car isn't normal. For instance the evo has a different suspension type and roll rates front/rear, plus its extremely front heavy. With this, I tend towards softer rear springs and heavier rear bar (from where I calculated, not vaguely).

All I have to say is math only gets you so far. Ha

I recently did a setup that didn't use swaybars front or rear and on paper it should have understeered with the spring rates I selected. It was wildly loose in the rear.

Threw the stock front bar back on and now it's fairly well balanced but it KILLED turn in response. Must find the balance between spring and swaybar to get the right balance of turn-in and overall handling nature.

Interesting...i did the ES front sway bar bushings ( stock bar ) as a single upgrade sometime in March 2013. No other changes......turn in felt different and car felt "heavy" in front. much more centered and less responsive at the same steering angle running straight or in corners. Effect felt more at slower speeds.

So the bar effect, despite not changing the bar, is different as the stiffer bushings cause the bar to work now at smaller suspension deflections.

At some point then I may try the RSB settings on my 25mm Progress bar on full stiff to see what that does....yes I understand it gives up total grip by sending some of the load to the front while the inside rear is on the ground... no matter

As noted by 03whitegsr above the feel on the road is important as well. And sometimes you cant change the driving style to suit the car.

Griceiv

Thanks for chiming in I couldnt find that in the "coff'-coff" search engine

glad i remembered it correctly :lol:

With only one broken and some extremely heavy use by Evolutionary etc i would say they are pretty safe. Bugs me that they are welded and nothing is noted in the construction though..I dont know of other bars that are welded....most are formed from one piece by heat and bending or forge/bending

The Tanabe is hollow though where all the others are solid bars. Completely different construction methods have to be used. Still surprised they are welded in the middle though as a CNC bender seems like it would have no trouble kicking out a 1-piece bar.

I'm surprised you broke one though griceiv, seems like with the type of spring rates you use, there would be less bar deflection?

Does anyone on this board use a suspension tuner or is it all trial and error? I understand that if you don't tune the suspension together, you'll be pushing off one problem (say, understeer) onto one part in an attempt to compensate for that problem and potentially add in an entirely new problem because the wrong part was added to the equation or adjusted incorrectly.

I was considering coilovers and eventually a RSB, but I have absolutely no idea how these particular parts are going to work as a system. I'm aware that suspension is not a simple bolt-and-go but I'm a bit ovewhelmed by my utter lack of knowledge surrounding this topic.

The forums are tough because I'm constantly running into conflicting information.

:dunno:

I want to step up from my OEM sway bars and my MR Bilsteins with Swift Spec-R springs at some point very soon, but I'm not sure the best way to approach this.

Any knowledge from suspension gurus would be welcome.

Actually, this post might need to be its own topic...

:lol:

"Conflicting information" might not really be conflicting. You have to recognize that they type of racing you are doing and the type of local tracks/events has a big impact on the suspension set up.

One guy might say "my car is perfect on 16k/20k springs and no rear swaybar" because his local events have fairly smooth surfaces. Another equally competitive car in a different region with rough surfaces might say "8k/10k springs and huge bars work perfect."

It's also subjective. While there might be an "ideal" suspension setup, if the driver isn't comfortable with that setup, it won't be the fastest for that driver.

Robi and Mueller are both “suspension tuners” though, so yes, they definitely exist. I think both have just moved on to other platforms as their main focus but I bet they both do EVOs constantly still.

:crap:

Well, I wasn't expecting a one size fits all solution, but I wish I knew were to start to get a good baseline.

:dunno:

Perhaps we just had a poor quality one but it did live a hard life with us. the bar bushing alignment was terrible, I could by eye see the two areas where the bushings sit were not anywhere near concentric (not even parallel really) and as a result would always push itself way off to the passenger side. So i think it was under a lot of lateral tension in addition to any suspension loads we were putting on it. I think the t-case tail shaft was smacking down on the bar when launching or something. the weld that failed was also pretty slim on penetration. a .120 wall tube had maybe .030 of penetration. Obviously they just butt welded it with no chamfer at all and then ground most of the weld off.

TL;DR- 3lbs weight savings wasn't worth the hassle for me.

Sounds like you did some decent post mortem on the bar. W/O a proper chamfer, that weld penetration would not really hold.
I am surprised about the misalignment you describe though and would expect that to have played a large part due to the constant misalignment stress vector.

Something else to check now if when i put a bigger bar in. :-)

Email Smike....:-) my take is that you need a systematic approach. and quality parts that actually do adjust or have an decent effective adjustment. And knowledge of how things affect each other. Both cost $$

/\/\ the other poster is correct, there are different ways to achieve the same thing and knowledge of what worked on one car must be tempered with what the car was really setup for and the conditions. This is the whole reason true race suspensions have such a range of adjustment and options. To find a way to get the car to handle for that particular application and track or surface if you will and allow the driver to get the best out of the car. And yes sometimes you have to compensate for the driver involved...For example if the driver is not good at trail-braking then you dont want to set the car up so that it has to be tossed and trail-braked to get it to turn in. Other wise the driver is just gonna be slow. and unhappy with what they cant do very well.

You have spent enough time on these forums so you have a good idea of the better parts involved. Ohlins, KW swift springs and sways Whiteline Tanabe FSB etc.

The best info I can give you ....clearly define the use and track targets for the car... If you dont have time to play with settings, then get Robi or Mueller to set the car up ( maybe SMIKE dont know if he does that or if you are local ) Yes that costs money to get Robi out to your track.

Alternatively, get Andrew at GTWorx to help you out and get it spec'd and setup properly.



Then get a driver /coach familiar with the car and setup to coach and help with any car tweaks.

Best regards

Thinking a good place to start would be an adjustable rear way bar. That will offer you a lighter then stock position, a stock position and then a heavier then stock setting. This will allow you to play a little bit with how the suspension works and not put you in a compromising position. Try that. It gives you t he flexibility to change and provides some options. the bilstien and gxworks springs are a great combo-- I just did the whiteline fsb---thinking about it and driving it, not a whole lot of diff over stock-- maybe this will help. GL

Let me go turn on the Smike signal, maybe he'll jump in here.

:lol:

Anyway, I'll go talk to some people and see where is a good place to start for some road race upgrades.

Every time I go to autoX events, I'm reminded how capable an EVO is with minimal mods. There is an IX with stock KYBs and swift springs, camber plates, rear sway bar and as much wheel and tire as he can run in STU and I think that's about it. He's very close to FTD almost every weekend and usually top 3-4 PAX. We have 4-5 national champions that are part of or region so we aren't overwhelmingly slow or anything.

It's truly impressive how fast such a simple car can be with a person driving the hell out of it. I'd love to buy a stock IX and spend a year or two in it just tracking the hell out of it.

I have a BMW that I autox that I just did a full suspension setup in. I swear to god, it was faster on the stock suspension simply because of how comfortable I was with it. I'm sure after a couple events to sort everything, that will change greatly, but right now, driver confidence is everything.

^^^
I think this is it ultimately.

With regard to the FSB on the other hand I think Robi is one of the top guys for suspension set-up. I got his springs and hard bushing kit w/ RCK and Perrin steering precision kit and that stuff is great.

Robi also recommended a heavier rear bar. I didn't go for it. After an ACD flash and a TRE Max-lock I am happy that I didn't do the rear bar and I am contemplating installing a FSB - I have one under my bench. I think it will allow me to get on the throttle earlier, harder and ultimately longer because I will feel more comfortable with the car that way. It has worked for me in other cars. But until I do put it in I won't know.

Certainly one guy on the board posted that at Laguna he could keep his foot in it after putting in a FSB, whereas he felt the need to lift before.

Yet there are many different ways to set up a car that will work for different drivers, different preps and different applications/tracks ... ultimately it is the whole package that matters ...

Do it.
I have a TRE max lock, ACD Race Flash, Robispec springs, oem kyb, and star specs, and a tanabe fsb. Before, with the stock fsb I would have to lift off the throttle a the S turn in the back stretch at Thunderhill. I would have to almost be at 2nd gear and start to get on the throttle towards the middle end of it. There was also long sweeper that I would start to get too much rear bias and rear end would just start coming out and I would have to lift off the throttle to keep the grip on the front end.

I installed the Tanabe fsb and went back to the track the following month with nothing else changed, boy what a difference. That sweeper I was now able to take with my foot planted down and the car would stay really neutral. The S turn I mentioned I could take in the top of 3rd gear now with no issues. 4th gear seemed like a bit much so maybe I actually need more rpm now for that turn.

.

https://si0.twimg.com/profile_images...65549/stig.jpg

What's the question?

:lol: Smike to the rescue!!

My Smike signal worked!

:thumbup:

So, my thread jack question was:

What's a good suspension upgrade path?

I have no idea where to go next with my set-up.

is it this part: http://www.maperformance.com/collect...tsubishi-evo-8

?

got mine in the mail yesterday! looks good, but id on't like that the ends are welded on

Wondering why you felt it necessary to uprate the FSB:confused:

I have spoken w/many EVO track guys including 2 very serious EVO susp shops (Robi / Mueller) who note, uprating the FSB is a performance negative on our EVO's

The idea behind their opinion is AWD's need to have all 4 wheels firmly planted when cornering. Uprating the FSB (especially w/higher rate performance springs) will cause inside wheel lift during hard corning

I have never seen an evo lift the front wheel - I'm running 8k/10k, various bushings, WL RSB (on soft), ohlins, cusco 1.5way RS rear diff, ER ACD tune, and street tires - my car lifts the inside REAR wheel on turns in autox, I'm very loose (rear comes out) on lift, and the rear comes out in a controlled manner on power. On track, with the same setup minus the FSB, the car was fairly neutral on warm tires and oversteering (not on power) on cold tires.

There's a pretty good FSB thread on here that goes over some of the benefits of a FSB.

here it is:

https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/ev...de-evo-ix.html

Yeah, Was involved in the debate on that thread

My inside rear used to lift until I had a set of C/o's made for my driving style. No droop springs needed 10K / 12K (Swifts)

You are already running a high rate spring pkg. The old saying goes: Soft springs w/big sways or big springs w/ soft sways. Cant have it both ways / one or the other {thumbup}
Ive seen inside lift on EVO's. Its a known performance neg

Anyway, Its all good. Youll get first hand experience to see if it works for you

thanks - I'm reviewing it as we speak. one nice thing: I'll be driving the evo this weekend with the setup as-is (except for superpro bushings being installed), and fresh re71rs. I'll see how the car behaves - if it's perfect, then maybe I won't do it. but if it's still a little loosey-goosey on these lifts (slaloms are scary - car feels like it'll bite at any moment) then i'll put on the bar. so between races, the only change will be the fsb, except for the clutch which is being serviced, which is why I'm doing the FSB.

I was ok with the ends being welded on. I was less ok finding out that they're welded together in the middle when it broke in half.

I read that in the FSB thread - surprising, I'll take a look but I didn't notice anything that indicated it, so I guess it's a pretty smooth job they did there. hopefully I don't see the load you do, my car is pretty mild - can't imagine it breaking mid corner doing 80 or something though :eek:

Question regarding this FSB - I've got a 25.4mm hollow bar on my Mini for the rear, and the fact that it's hollow makes it roughly as stiff as a 22mm solid.

Was wondering if the case was the same with this tanabe bar? I haven't seen any specs on how much stiffer it is, but it must be pretty darn close to the stock fsb since it's hollow...

Also, can someone let me know where exactly on the bar it connects to the car? I want to add some McMaster carr tape on it

Hollow bars completely depends on the ID. Just by diameter (ignoring leg change), for your example the ID would be,


(25.4^4-22^4)^(1/4)=20.65".


Basically, Do^4 - Di^4 = Deq^4 or Do^4 - Deq^4 = Do^4 (because algebra)


BUT, just looking at diameters is bad swaybar math. The leg length also has a big role (what you adjust in an adjustable bar), as well as the angle of the leg (does it go straight to from the bushing to the end link or come out then turn).

Any update on the FSB difference?

Considering getting a Whiteline 26mm FSB while I do the clutch replacement.

MR Bilstein shocks / Robi spec springs / Super Pro bushings / RCK / Cusco adjustable sway bar mount
/ Rear trail arm bushing upgrade / 24mm RSB + mount bracket is only what I got,

Got H&R camber bolt to get -2.8 deg front camber / rear is -1.2 deg

Need to re-arrange my stock rear LSD plates in near future,
and ordered J-speed front fender brace.

After reading threads, seems like larger FSB is not good for tight corners / quick turn-in feel, but would benefit mid-high speed corer stability?

My local track is Inje Speedium, and it has quite a bit of altitude change (~130 ft), but mostly mid-high speed corners.

Hope to hear advice before ordering a whilteline FSB. :) Thanks!

What is the spring rate on the Robi springs? IMHO, you cant run both, a high rate suspension spring coupled w/a high rate FSB (its one or the other)

Most serious track guys choose to run just a high rate track spring w/the stock FSB w/adjustable endlinks.

Too much FSB rate coupled w/high spring rate, leads to severe understeer & the potential for lifting the inside front tire when cornering :crap:

Thanks for your reply.

I think it is about 20% higher rate + 1" drop for the front (although progressive),
and about same rate + 1" drop (w/ KYB shock, and maybe less than 1/4" drop w/ MR Bilstein) for the rear.

I don't think Robispec springs are "high rate" compared to most coilover setups.

I can still play a bit with Cusco adjustable sway bar bracket to 86% / 100% / 116% with the aftermarket FSB. :)

im bumping this - i'm considering going back to the stock FSB to counter some corner entry push I have on the car - did we ever determine how much stiffer is this than the stock FSB? If it's not much, I may just get ciro's fsb brackets that can go 15% softer on its soft setting. if I did either, what's the best way to help with the increased roll up front? add a few clicks of compression in the front shocks?

Hi Sam

Just commenting on adding compression. From my understanding, a single adjustable coilover is mainly a rebound adjustment with a combined compression movement (very slight). The upper adjustment knob is mainly REBOUND

Need Dallas to comment on the rate difference

If you don't want to swap your fsb then I would assume the next best thing would put your RSB to the stiffest, increase rebound on your rear and reduce a little up front.

If you dont have FSB adjustable bracket, certainly get or make some. Its super useful on any bar to have that adjustment range. Also, the cusco brackets can be swapped left to right and right to left which will give you an extra soft setting. So you could effectively get about 70% bar rate from what you have now with that change to see if you should have less front bar.

As for rate, Ive measured (by dimension and by load/displacement) the rear Tanabe bar but not the front. Cant seem to find a rate or rate difference from stock online in my quick search.

these? https://www.maperformance.com/produc...ishi-evo-8-9-x

i'm not sure what you mean by right to left and left to right

Yep, those. The brackets have a L and R stamped into it and 4 holes. 3 of the holes are meant for an 8/9 and shift over one set for the X. You can actually make use of that 4th hole as a low side adjustment point if you put the "R" stamped bracket on the left side of the car. It will certainly make more sense once you have it in the car though.

One bit of tip though, find some button head screws to replace the normal bracket bolts or the heads get in the way when putting the swaybar link nut on.

is that last tip only if they're flipped? otherwise i'm not quite visualizing the situation, but I'm willing to try the mildly softer setting first

Nope, doesnt matter if you flip or not. Two of the swaybar bracket holes just happen to line up with the mounting holes so it gets in the way of a socket to get on the nut. I will certainly make more sense once you do it.

ahhh i'm pretty sure i know what you mean - thanks!

Dallas,

gonna install the brackets today. closer in towards the car = softer, I'm assuming?

>>>

you sure? that seems opposite, like the endlink would have to be "reaching" further?

Sam, My bad.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.evo...fffc66a819.jpg

Outer increases motion ratio on the bar. Think of it this way, which way moves the bar further in roll? Outer = stiffer on the arm, inner = stiffer on bar settings.

thanks, installed it with the left-right flip and put it on the second hole for now. no kidding about the clearance from the bolt head to the fsb bolt. the stock endlink sends strained to say the least and I'm finding it difficult to believe it'll make much difference but I'll find out this weekend

Had a hard time w/this Dallas. Seemed like the inboard setting would have been the higher rate, due to less of a moment arm on the bar (stiffer). Wasnt until I found their diagram that made me second guess this.

Thanks for your explanation :beer:

whew - they are fully installed, endlinks not strained, just looked that way as i had the steering wheel turned from side to side to also do the brake calipers at the same time. they are on solidly tight, but don't know about the torque specs. a little more complicated for me with the brake air guides, but they went on fine. i cranked them on as hard as i could with the tools i had, they were originally on pretty tight but they've also probably never been removed from the factory. with them on "reversed," the 3rd position away from the engine is roughly OEM, and i've put them on the second position inward. if I still feel like the car's too pushy I'll try the 1st position

https://www.maperformance.com/produc...evo-8-9-klc139

are thse the correct endlinks to use for the evo 9? i've read some endlinks are too long, want to make sure these fit correctly.

I use those on my 9. Fits fine.

the threads aren't too long?

Too long for what? Only thing I can think that has some obstruction is with the cusco bracket. You will have to do it in a certain order/way to be able to get the bracket bolts on and the nut for the endlink on. But is doable.

yea that may be an issue..

Lol its not a big deal at all, takes a couple minutes to get em on. Did it on mine no problem.

well the top of the bolts for the bracket + the threads/bolt for the endlinks

even on my current endlinks, i think i had to get the bolt on there before positioning the arm properly (ie getting a tiny bit in the hole, just the tip lol, and then feeding the bolt onto the thread so that the bolt wouldn't have to come across the top of the bolts for the bracket)

Here is what mine looks like.
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.evo...6232079eb7.jpg

hmm ok looks good. hopefully the endlinks get rid of the clunking in hard cornering i'm getting (existed before & after the brackets, i believe since the fsb)

FYI I used different nuts that came with the Whiteline ones. The ones Whiteline uses are locking nuts and its a PITA to put them(due to having to use alan on the face of the bolt) on so I just took those nuts and got em sized and got regular nuts instead.

FWIW, kinda mentioned before but - I am likely going to flip back to the stock front sway bar during this off season while I've got some stuff off the car.

What should I expect, other than the car being looser a tad? A little more roll in the front? I can go back to soft on the rear bar as well. The FSB thread convinced me to get the FSB, but I think it's too much on my car, and I'm trying to get the car a little looser.