Slightly stiffer rear sways make a difference???
 

I own a '16 BRZ. Stock sways are 18F/14R. I'm thinking on upgrading to a 16 rear. Will that be stiff enough to make any difference?
As of today I don't have any other suspension mods, but will be getting a set of RCE Yellows soon. Also, its my daily driver (reason for not going with coilovers), and as far as motorsports, about once a month I autox and drift... well, still learning to drift.

You will definitely feel a difference going to a 16mm rear.

A good performance alignment is also highly recommended. Get some camber bolts up front and take it to a good shop.

- Andrew

Thanks for the info and the quick reply

Are you not planning to upgrade the front bar too? If you only increase the rear bar size, you may run into oversteer issues. You might want to consider running 20F/16R to keep the balance right.

I'd get the alignment first. More camber up front without touching the rear will loosen up the rear a bit on it's own.

A bit more oversteer is what I'm hoping for actually. Want it to rotate a bit more while autocrossing, and want it a bit more tail happy while drifting.

Most people I know with drift cars set them up pretty neutral and stable, then get it sliding with power instead of setting the car up really loose. Setting it up really loose will make it easy to start sliding, but way harder to control the angle of the slide or get it to stop sliding.

If you're set on it being way looser, it'll be a handful at autox. The easiest way to manage it would just be to remove one of the front swaybar end links for drifting.

What he said. :thumbsup:

It should rotate more for sure. I think for autocross you may run into trouble putting power down, especially on stock springs.

Keep in mind the Torsen becomes an open diff if the inside tire is fully unloaded, and by stiffening the rear sway bar you are increasing the propensity for that to happen.

I understand and completely agree with you. The thing is that I keep regaining grip towards the end while drifting. I know that one can't really set up a car for both autox and drifting effectively.

Maybe raising my rear tire psi will help, or more practice while drifting. I have no issues while autox, I'm usually one of the quickest even though I'm completely stock. I'll try more camber upfront first, and tire psi before switching the sways then. See how that goes, and go from there.

Another option would be less grippy tires at all 4 corners, it'll keep it neutral for easier recovery but also let you spin the tires easier.

My preferences to dial out understeer would be to adding extra grip front, instead of reducing grip rear. Imho simplest way for that would be without any stiffer sway bars, but simply adding more negative camber in front then in rear. I was way more happy with car behaviour when i got -2.4 front / -1.9, as now i can much easier turn in front with less understeer, especially if transfer even more load to front with brakes. With stock even zero camber (overall grip aside) i had to input much more efforts, eg. also adding scandinavian flicks to get more turning inertia.

What would be the optimum swaybar setup for RCE yellows then?


A slight change in rear swaybar and a good alignment would probably work out well when starting autoX and drifting when you're not adding a ton of engine power.

Personally, I'd go with adjustable ARB's, so you can fine tune.