actually i think the stock evo bar is the same size as ours

 

Interesting. Worth looking into.

 

You don't want a bigger front sway. Trust me on this one. I don't know anyone makes an adjustable front sway.

If you have adjustable rear sway, you can dial the car to your driving style.

 

I've talked to a number of autocrossers who swear by their stronger front sway bars... granted, those have all been on Civics, but they are all positive that they improve handling significantly, even defying the common understeer/oversteer reasoning. Anyway, like I said before, I wouldn't mind trying a larger one, but I have other things I'd spend money on first (if I had it). I wouldn't buy it before I could try it and I'm sure no one's gonna make one for free for me to try, risk-free.
-N

 

the only people who normally buy front sways are RWD cars to help counter the extreme oversteer that powerful RWD cars can produce... this moves the car to a more natural handling and make it more predictable.

 

I'm with Neilschelly on this one. At first I felt the opposite, thinking a larger front bar would kill the oversteer. But a lengthy discussion on the SCCA forums lead me to realize that a larger front bar would reduce body roll, which would allow better handling and still not create the dreaded understeer. A larger bar on just about any 2500+ lb 4 door is probably a help.

However, I maintain the opinion that a larger front sway bar is more crucial on a stock Lancer, since body roll will kill traction on such a camber challenged car. On the more prepared Lancers, once you get over 2.5 negative camber up front, you won't need to worry about the body roll much. But it was still on my plans for possible testing in the future.

 

looks like the gurus have spoken and im wrong. well at least the right info got out.

 

I wouldn't say "wrong" actually. It's still a debatable topic on any auto racing board. Some people remove the front bar altogether to get better oversteer, some people get a bigger bar to reduce body roll. As I said, I think the latter is clearly the best choice for stock class autocross, but in higher prepared classes, it's a highly debated subject

fyi, I was going to "test" the front bar, then try to make a decision. Since I never got that far, my opinion is no better than yours on the matter. Speculation... the art of suspension

 

Option 1: remove transmission and almost all of the front suspension to add thickness to an already huge bat

Option 2: Camber plates


Hmm......

I don't know about this guys.... it seems like an awful lot of work for something that might not even work. It would definietly be last on my list of all mods. I mean, once you add the upper strut braces, good sized rear sway bar (and stronger perches help a lot too when they don't flex) trunk bar and tie bar (which I took off after installing the SS kit because it was too easy to spin without the little help from dynamic camber) - you basically have a metal box on springs that are on wheels. So now what you have is the whole solidly connected box rolls on the springs. Increase the spring rate and the rest of that roll is significantly reduced.

I don't know, and I'm not saying it's a bad idea necessarily. But it's like getting 10.5:1 CR pistons before you've even got an intake or header- sure, you might notice it a little, but without the mods that should be before it, you're really making a lot of extra work for yourself for not much gain and spending money that could be used to get your mods done in a more effective order.


My nickle on the subject....


EDIT: what about an undercarriage brace to tie the bottoms of the control arms together, too....? That could be similar to a thicker sway bar....

 

Hey, you're an engineer! Make one and test it!

Sorry, couldn't resist.

 

there is a company that makes chasis bracing for the eclipse runs on both side of the entire car and attachs across to each other in a few places in the middle... im sure that would fix the body roll

 

I might be wrong, but doesn't the Lancer have static camber? From everything I've seen and been told, the camber stays alost the same under the complete range of travel with the shocks. That's the Lancer's biggest weakness compared to the Civic, which increases its camber as the shock is loaded more.

 

Well yea, all cars have static camber- as long as the car isn't moving. If you can watch a Lancer taking a hard corner, you'll see the tire come under the car a little. Not being able to set the front camber to anything but the -0.3 deg that comes from the factory is the biggest weakness.

But in the rear the bolts that hold the arm to the vehicle are mounted in two rather soft rubber bushings. If you raise the rear and then lower it and watch the camber, you'll see that the camber does get more negative as the vehicle settles.
Why the rear lower tie bar works- it doesn't allow for the arms to move independently of each other. and it's function is to eliminate dynamic camber effects when the car is trying to straighten out after a turn. Not so much of a problem with the Teins, because the springs do such a good job of "pushing" each tire into the ground, and coupled with the dampers they're very effective at resisting compression, so that when the car needs to right itself, the suspension does a good job of not letting the body oscillate. These oscillations set up a situation where you're going through a range of cambers, none of whic are now optimal for your straight line driving. Or thik of it this way- as the car rocks back and forth the camber goes in and out a little- sort of like you're turning the steering wheel back and forth, just a little, every 3rd of a second, or whatever the time is for the oscillations. You don't want to be adding any steering inputs, do you? So you don't want soft "lowering" springs to be adding any extra tire movements on your behalf.
But this lack of independence is what I think was making me spin. You noticed the same thing, didn't you? (I think it was you who told me you'd removed a tie bar because you couldn't keep control of the rear during events)

even more OT: You can also set the rear camber by loosening the nut and then turning the bolt that is mounted in an eccentric.... from the factory, most are turned all the way in, which is just about 0 deg. When I had the rears on slip plates and was messing around with the bolt I was getting about -3 deg. Of course I came to realize that the slip plates weren't doing me any good in this situation and I should have been adjusting on the wood mini-ramps that I've been using.


Ok, I'm done

 

You're absolutely right, once I added a rear tie bar and strut bar, the back was actually a little too loose. Now I just have the strut bar. So what you're saying is our rear ends have dynamic camber, but the fronts don't? I see that as a slight problem in causing understeer, although like you and I experienced, there are other components to cure that. You should have seen the smile on my face when I finally looped my Lancer, my competitors didn't know why I was so happy

 

The front must have some dynamic camber, but I don't know how much Or maybe not... If you look at a VW with solid axles the whole tire rolls over.... Hmmm.... we need a camera on the front tires at the next event