Talk to me about ... sway bars

[[FnG]magnolia]

I've been reading some positive comments about adding front and rear sway bars and am tempted to put a 22" adjustable sway bar on the rear of my Legacy. How much firmer will this make the ride? Anyone have any real-world experience of doing this?

 

[Clarkey]

22" holy crap

It won't make the ride any firmer. The whole point of the ARB is essentially to increase the spring rate only during turns.

 

[[FnG]magnolia]

Ah ok. So regardless of which of the 3 adjustable settings is chosen, ride comfort won't be compromised? I must have misunderstood something when I was reading about this as I thought it became less comfortable the 'harsher' the chosen setting.

Cheers for the help. Again

 

[Dogbreath]

It does increase the spring rate in one wheel bump, so a stiff anti-roll bar will tend to make the ride a little harsher.

 

[Kei]

A thicker front arb will increase the liklihood of understeer, a thicker rear arb will increase the liklihood of oversteer.

 

[The Running Man]

i put a 22" whiteline R anti roll on my corolla!

no aditional harshness, buit more turn in and stability from the back end. imo it was a good spend of £130...

mine was not adjustable.

 

[kaiowas]

This is the effect of adding Whitelines to an MR2:

Silver car is a mate who had an virtually identical suspension setup to us but with std rollbars, red car is ours with Whitelines:

 

[Relentless81]

I believe the thicker you go the more you lose traction in wet conditions, something I read somewhere recently

 

[DreXeL]

One of the first mods I do to any car is fit a thicker rear ARB. Basically you can use ARB's to change the overall balance of the car in mid-to-high speed cornering. If you want to improve turn-in and shift a neutrally balanced car more towards oversteer than uprate the rear ARB and leave the front one stock.

 

[Witor]

This thread reminds me I need to look into the front ARB on the Alfa. Think it's on it's way out, or the bushes on it anywho.

 

[Berger]

I believe the thicker you go the more you lose traction in wet conditions, something I read somewhere recently

The friction of the surface is reduced when its wet, so you have less roll and usually dependant on the geo (Tony, WIM y0!) setup less grip because of this. A stiffer arb would just reduce roll even more and potentially reduce grip further.

 

[Fr0dders]

It won't make the ride any firmer

so a stiff anti-roll bar will tend to make the ride a little harsher.

no aditional harshness, buit more turn in and stability from the back end.

Great

not confusing at all guys !

 

[Dogbreath]

An anti-roll bar is a spring, and in one wheel bump it increases the effective spring rate, so in terms of ride comfort it is going to have a similar impact to increasing the main spring rate. The point is that you don't usually make substantial changes to ARB stiffness for road use, so the effect will be much less than fitting stupid GMAX <insert other cheap and nasty spring company> springs, but it will be there.

 

[M0T]

This thread reminds me I need to look into the front ARB on the Alfa. Think it's on it's way out, or the bushes on it anywho.

Good luck, its a fantastically long job that involves removing the wishbones and taking apart the subframe. I think the book time is something like 5 hours and there seem to be a few reports of people not having the subframe correctly aligned when reassembled.

 

[Witor]

Not what I wanted to hear M0T

Ah well, i'm pretty sure it's the bushes on the front ARB which are on their way out.

Car drives/steers/handles fine, but there's a funny "wobbling/clunking" sound upfront, almost from the front footwells. It's like a clunking sound over bumps and undulations, which lessens to almost nothing after 20-30 minutes, points at the front ARB bushes probably warming up after that amount of time.

Had a quick look, and few people recommend knocking out the bushes as that method aint always successful.

 

[lordrobs]

I would seriously look at what you are trying to achieve before going for front / rear / both.

As DreXel said if you are trying to invoke over steer or, as in my case, move the bias away from under steer a rear might be all that you need.

A 22mm adjustable whiteline on the middle setting improved the turn in on my Octavia noticeably.

 

[Meridian]

I would seriously look at what you are trying to achieve before going for front / rear / both.

As DreXel said if you are trying to invoke over steer or, as in my case, move the bias away from under steer a rear might be all that you need.

A 22mm adjustable whiteline on the middle setting improved the turn in on my Octavia noticeably.

This. Unless you plan a lot of track action, I can't see changing the front helping you. How much a stiffer rear will help is dependant on a lot of other factors. I had one fitted, which decreased bodyroll enough that even I noticed, and decreased understeer a little, but not completely. But my car has pretty stiff suspension by default.


M