Quote:
Originally Posted by CSG Mike
Short version: we use neither.
Medium version: Are you modding just to mod, or are you looking to change an aspect of your car? What exactly do you dislike about the car that you are trying to change by getting sway bars and endlinks?
Long version:
AutoX guys use massive front sways because they are limited on modifications by classing rules. The massive front sway gives the front INSANELY fast response/transition times, but at the cost of massive understeer during sustained cornering load.
What is fast at AutoX is not fast on track, and vice versa. AutoX guys will almost always argue otherwise, and give you the "so and so autocrossed, and was decimating people on track" reason regularly. They're decimating newbies because they have seat time, not because the setup is faster.
Tracks typically have sustained turns, not slaloms/cbox/etc. that reward quick small direction changes.
Going back to a previous question, what are you trying to change, and what is your end goal?
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First - thanks. Your responses are always straight up, no BS. I like that.
Short version: My car has no real deficiencies at the moment, i.e. no persistent, defenite, consistent handling flaws. However i have lowered it without doing anything at all to adjust the swaybars to match my ride height. Unsure what ill effects that might have in terms of handling and tire wear.
Medium version:
I'm planning on entering club level time attack events. Nothing fancy - just for fun. However the class I'll be running in has some pretty decent competition and their cars are reasonably well set up. The regs also mean that the competing cars will be running R compound rubber. I'm planning on upgrading my rubber in order to be competitive, which will mean I'll be experiencing a whole lot more lateral Gs on my car than I have up until now.
I haven't touched the stock swaybar and don't feel a real need to change it, but i would definitely want to make sure it's at least installed and adjusted properly for my car and not causing any problems.
Long version:
I'm expecting the extra forces to tax my mid-range coilovers pretty hard (RS-Rs on stock 6k/8k soring rates). Mu alignment is semi aggressive already: -2.5 camber front and -1.8 rear. I'll dial that in further based on tire wear and tire temps.
About 30mm lower than stock. Current swaybars and end links are stock & I've never touched them. Unsure whether never having adjusted the sway bars when lowering the car, or lacking the means ro adjust the bars, is a big deal or not. I get away with things on my current setup judt fin but i'm guessing that the car will want to roll around a lot more with R compound rubber on it.
Since I've never adjusted my stock bars in terms of checking for preload or binding issues this is the first thing i'm looking at.
Beyond that, if there were a definite performance edge from having ugraded sway bars i'd jump on them but i don't have any info to suggest that at the moment. i'm pretty happy fine tining alignment settings and tire pressures to imorove times given no other serious flaws exist.
Mainly want to make sure that I'm not running the stock swaybar setup in a way that it might degrade the car's handling or cause excessive tire wear.
I'm betting on better rubber as the single most beneficial uograde for the money at the moment. Completely changing my coilovers out for something better just isn't worth it to me at this time, hence i'm looking at other bang-per-buck items like end links and sways for possible benefits - if there are any.
My main goal is to make the best use of the stickier rubber that I can in order to shave time and especially to avoid destroying my tires prematurely or losing time due to possible flaws in handling, which could in turn be due to bad or negligent prep on my part.
Essentially I want to make sure I've picked all the low hanging fruit that I can, avoid stepling on any oine cines and just get on with it.