The anti swaybar “upgrade” rant post!

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Re: The anti swaybar “upgrade” rant post!

Postby Yowie » Wed Jul 28, 2021 8:58 am

Now anti swaybars add or subtract grip?
I gotta look that up!


I recommend that you do. Any reputable book on tuning a car's handling will do.


I found handling heaven by upgrading other related parts


Well done.

There are many paths to achieve an outcome.

I got 180kw at the wheels with a VF46 and E85 fuel. That comes with certain costs & compromises.

Others got 180kw at the wheels with a bigger turbo on 98 octane. That comes with other costs & compromises.

Both are valid paths.
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Re: The anti swaybar “upgrade” rant post!

Postby bigBADbenny » Wed Jul 28, 2021 12:36 pm

Its a point of contention indeed!
Some say its give or take, others say its just take.

Feel free to share a link to your sources. Here's something I'm reading:
https://forum.miata.net/vb/showthread.php?t=459244

Sure makes for awesome bedtime reading tho ZZZZzzzzzzz :P

In the meantime I'll be enjoying all the compliance from the stock swaybars, as recommended by an actual oem chassis engineer, who setup the dampers specifically for my car.

Actually, my wife does, since she's dailying the car and I'm missioning it on weekends. Lucky her, she's done well :P
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Re: The anti swaybar “upgrade” rant post!

Postby Yowie » Wed Jul 28, 2021 2:20 pm

That's a great* Miata forum link - cheers.

[*I've only read the first three pages of nine at this point, so if they turn into massive racists or something I don't endorse that :P ]

Lots of really interesting information on optimum distribution of roll stiffness between springs and bars, with different applications, pros & cons for the different approaches. The consensus doesn't seem to be at either extreme of the argument/spectrum.


In the meantime I'll be enjoying all the compliance from the stock swaybars, as recommended by an actual oem chassis engineer, who setup the dampers specifically for my car.


Cool. That's really awesome that you've modified your car in a way you're really happy with.

Likewise, I agree that going too extreme with any modification (eg massive bars & soft springs or super-stiff springs & no bars) is probably best saved for race teams with the budget to tune for a specific application, not for the P-platers.


What I disagree with however is any broad-brush assertion that Method X is the only valid path.

I personally like Japanese turbo stuff - which has technical merits that could be written out in long lists. I am not particularly interested in the Holden/Ford/V8 side of motoring enthusiasm. However I respect that an LS engine is a very compact, well-designed, reliable, inexpensive powerplant with many brilliant applications. An LS is often the answer, whether the question is "engine swap", "reliable track car" or "drag car". Not my cup of tea, but respected all the same. I promise not to rant against V8s on their forums.

I'm also not at all religious, but I'll leave alone those who are a long as they don't linger on my doorstep or try to brainwash my kids.
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Re: The anti swaybar “upgrade” rant post!

Postby bigBADbenny » Thu Jul 29, 2021 9:31 am

I’m not black and white about the subject. Its a grey area, especially since cars have bars as an ADR requirement.

This may have not been a thing over the years, but even our 84 323i E30 has something I mistook for a coat hanger wire between the rear trailing arms!

In terms of handling as haptics for our cars, this is half the fun of mods.
Making our own perception, muscle memory and expectations conform to a change in handling, we’ve imposed through mods.

We’re naturally inclined to think any change is for the better, a la “good different”.
Plus we can adapt to any type of car, as driven in any conditions.

I suppose some people are inclined to a more is more philosophy and thus are left always wanting, or have to make do with too much.

Others have adapted to know that less is way more, and is in some respects, more fulfilling.

Therefore it’s no wonder that this massive grey area of haptics and perception plays to a simple and inexpensive mod like uprated anti roll bars.

Especially since when you get really technical on the subject of handling, friction coefficient of tyres etc, you realise that people’s perception of slip and grip is very broad, and the effects may be felt as soon as the car is moving, not at the edge of traction on a track.

Additionally, one certainly does not have to be a chassis engineer to feel these effects, either.

Completely irrelevant but here’s a TA car that went faster w/o ARB:
https://m.facebook.com/groups/timeattac ... oser=false

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Re: The anti swaybar “upgrade” rant post!

Postby bigBADbenny » Sun Aug 08, 2021 4:01 pm

And also Jezzas h6… as timed on track.

So in the process of ranting out on the subject, I’m now researching a few different aspects of the question.

I’d love to add the CorgiWerx 5way adjustable blades to a stock swaybar.
El Corgo mentioned heat treating the welds on the bar, in order to normalise the weld.
This is interesting stuff, so an old school blow torch and IR thermometer gun would be on the shopping list.

Having worked in weld heat treatment I have some idea of the intent.
I’d imagine you’d get the torch going with a fairly neutral flame, max heat, and over a few hours, move the torch away from the work piece to bring the temperature down very slowly. Or just turn the flame down, assuming the torch has that kind of adjustability…

Then there’s the swaybars on swaybars idea from AutoSpeed.
So good and you could make a light bar both heavier and adjustable, the latter by adjusting the attachment point of the add-on bar to the installed bar.

Then there’s the totally loony idea of flexible or damped swaybar end links.
Iirc some earlier Subarus have plastic links, but would they flex?

Damped links are already a thing for off-road cars… After a certain point they extend or compress to enable wheel articulation.

Which brings us to the concept of active swaybars or swaybar links.

This is huge, related to either hydrolastic or 48V electrical systems, and generally allow otherwise wallowy barges to behave like sportscars in corners.

It all makes for awesome bedtime reading: certain to close your eyes lol! :P
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Re: The anti swaybar “upgrade” rant post!

Postby JezzaH6 » Sun Aug 08, 2021 10:25 pm

bigBADbenny wrote:And also Jezzas h6… as timed on track.


Whilst I appreciate the confidence I hesitate to call my track experiences empirical data- but I do agree anyway :lol: While its probably more applicable than John Doe 'thrashing' it through some abandoned back street, I have only done 5 track days and definitely would not call myself a racing driver. After starting off not particularly fast, I have consistently dropped 1-2 seconds per track day, as a combination of skill level increases and modifications done to the car. There has, however, been one track day that does not fit this trend, and that was the one I did with the whiteline 20mm rear sway bar. That track day was a 28c day, sunny and there had been no rain in the few days before- basically optimum. My issue with this as a data point is that sway bar was only on the car for that one track day- I removed it not long after as I wasn't happy with it. Therefore, for all I know, maybe something else was to blame there. Who knows. Maybe an off day/I was tired. Maybe different alignment specs. Oil on the track that no one else had issues with. Who knows. That was track day #4, where my best time was 0.92 seconds slower than the track day before.

I chose to install the rear sway bar on the advice of people on the facebook page, who claimed it made a positive difference even with the Shockworks. Day-to-day driving definitely 'felt' faster- there was definitely less body roll that even led to passengers stating the car felt 'more sporty'. The first time I 'actually' tried to drive with it though was an eye opening experience, to say the least. On a twisty road I am very intimately familiar with the very first thing I noticed was how much less grip the rear end had. Not that it had 'transferred' or 'unlocked' any grip to the front, though, but cornering at speeds the previous setup would have done comfortably saw the back end step out. It wasn't like the current setup is either, with DCCD and front LSD meaning cornering is basically turn in and control back end with the throttle and cornering speed, but unpredictable, with snap oversteer occurring after even mild understeer. It was hard to predict and even harder to control, and lead to more than one brown pants moment. The limit was both much harder to find, and it was almost impossible to hold it at the limit without the car snapping around. This lead me to the conclusion that less body roll does not equal better cornering. Maybe more confidence inspiring, but on these heavier cars, after a point, there is very diminishing returns.

I ended up getting a custom made solid 18mm arb for the rear end of my car, and I am still running the stock H6 21mm front sway bar. 18mm was decided in conjunction with another member, based upon both our mutual hatred of the handling characteristics of the 20mm rear arb, and comparisons between my stock 16mm hollow rear arb and his hollow 18(?)mm rear arb. 18mm solid was a bit of a guess, but we extrapolated based upon testing with the 3 different rear arb's we had access to. I am quite happy with the performance of the custom bar, being 3 way adjustable I keep it in the softest setting most of the time, and this set up is much nicer to drive both on and off track. This setup is slightly stiffer at the back compared to the stock one on his tbSTi, which I believe is 18mm hollow, and is definitely stiffer than the stock 3.0r-b rear bar, but it is much more predictable compared to the whiteline rear arb.

There have been no brown pants moments on road's I am familiar with, and a continuation of lap times decreasing. With the same (basically) setup I was about 2 seconds faster at Winton between the whiteline and the custom rear sway bar. The car is a lot more predicable at the limit, and it is easy to hold it at the limit without worrying about the back end snapping out on track. If I ever feel the need to play around with the front arb I am pleased to know I can stiffen up the rear to match but I don't see the need to do that anyway.

However, I am not against people fitting the whiteline (or other) bar if they feel like it improves their car. Just because I feel like it made my car slower, some people may prefer the stiffer corning feel. If you were running crap tyres, or maxspeedingrods or…(you get my point :lol: )… the loss in overall performance may be overshadowed by the confidence increase offered by a flatter corning profile to a less experienced driver. Some people may be chasing the more oversteer-y driving profile, and I am sure that with further playing around with alignments and front arb's it could be made to be more predictable. I'm still not convinced it would be faster, however.

What I don't like is people is people spouting off the 'magical' nature of a rear antiroll bar. 'Just like coilovers', 'poor man's coilovers', handle's on rails' etc were all things I read that made me spend (waste) whatever it was that I spent on the whiteline bar. Without lots of time spent perfecting other parts of your car, especially alignments and spring rates, they flat out won't make you car empirically faster. Feels faster, and actually is faster, are two different things, and this is the thing I am most happy I learnt from this experience. People trying to justify the money they spent on the arb is probably another reason so many people rave about them- I wouldn't be surprised- its not nice to feel like you have wasted your money on something.
Last edited by JezzaH6 on Sat Oct 09, 2021 10:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The anti swaybar “upgrade” rant post!

Postby bigBADbenny » Thu Oct 07, 2021 11:43 am

Phew! MIC DROP :swoon:



I’m not one to comment on swaybar posts in other model exhaust mod posts, so I’ll do it here :P

Robert.hogan wrote:Hello Gen V crew.
I own at 2011 Gen V Gt Wagon 6 speed manual.

Absolutely love it but looking to improve handling and just read what one of you guys said about the difficulty of installing a bigger front sway bar so a rear sway bar it is then.

Questions i have are what size??

I was thinking 22mm and is it possible to install yourself for someone who is not a mechanic.

Would you recommend a front strut bar as you well??

Thankyou for info.
Rob


It seems pointless to advise with so little info, so perhaps the answer is: it's your car, time and money: go for it! Otherwise:

Firstly, what’s wrong with your handling and under what conditions?

Can you describe what’s lacking as regards the handling?

Eg road speed, behaviour in corners etc.

How many km on the car?

What mods, upgrades etc to the tyres, suspension and bushes already?

Any related maintenance undertaken?

I only ask because a swaybar/s upgrade might be the last item you’d consider given the other factors mentioned in my questions above ;)
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Re: The anti swaybar “upgrade” rant post!

Postby bigBADbenny » Thu Oct 07, 2021 6:31 pm

I took the liberty of looking up release reviews of the 2010 Liberty GT, and neither of them mentioned that the car suffered from excessive body roll…
Which suggests, to me at least, that car journos aren’t chassis engineers or alignment and suspension gurus.

Or that perhaps the GenV was, as stated, an improvement over the previous generation, adding double wishbones… somewhere at least.

So perhaps your car has worn out other things, like the dampers, which in conjunction with spring rates, can be demonstrably shown to affect actual handling along with other things, things that aren’t even swaybars!

But since you asked about swaybar upgrades, this is a thread just for this very purpose.

Anti swaybar upgrades are amazing apparently, although I can’t even find a single reference anywhere to how they tangibly improve handling, in road cars at least.
The more informed references mention increased LTT or load transfer which is the same as saying “moves cornering forces around”.
Even more informed sources say concentrate on other factors.

Anyway have a read, last time I checked, it’s totally ok to express opinions and dissent here, thankfully.
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Re: The anti swaybar “upgrade” rant post!

Postby muzza » Tue Nov 23, 2021 7:51 pm

It’s an interesting topic, lots of opinions of course.
Top suspension people usually consider all parts of a suspension in tuning, usually with a specific task in mind, eg: race track, or road racing or off road or improved road performance. Springs, dampers, bushes, sway bars and geometry are parts of the whole, you can’t change one without affecting others.

But as we know, what “feels” faster may not actually be unless tested empirically. Autospeed’s articles are very useful and analyse these type of upgrades well.
Sway bars can transfer grip between axles to affect balance as well as effectively increase wheel spring rates on an axle.

For mine, with the Gen V I wanted simple, cheap and easy, max bang for buck and that’s the rear sway bar.
The 20mm 3 point adjustable for the wagon gave me some reduced under steer for better balance, a flatter corner feel, esp when loaded and a slightly firmer ride, acceptable.
I felt it had some roll-steer from factory and the RSB I felt reduced this for me, less mid corner correction was required.
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Re: The anti swaybar “upgrade” rant post!

Postby bigBADbenny » Thu Jan 20, 2022 7:02 am

Its all good when the car isn’t close to its limit, but when it is eg on track, changing the fundamental dynamic balance of the car, plus reducing the overall compliance, can mean the traction breakaway point is far more abrupt and less predictable, leading to an increased possibility of the car spearing off the track.
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