The anti swaybar “upgrade” rant post!

[bigBADbenny]

The swaybar “upgrade” rant post.... Edits forthcoming:

It drives me absolutely NUTS that the go-to handling mod for any car is a swaybar/s upgrade.
Its absolutely the LAST thing to mod on a cars suspension, and then only for fine tuning handling at the limit on track or closed circuit.

Car makers don’t put weak swaybars on their products to hobble the handling, they match the swaybars and dampers to provide the best real world handling tendencies.

As the dampers wear out, this balance is affected, but the solution is better found in new or upgrade dampers, not just making the car roll less with less compliant swaybars.

Agreed. I haven't gotten into coil-overs, but front & rear swaybars have made a real difference to the handling of my awd suv (among other suspension modifications).

Maybe for these top heavy cars but bear in mind swaybars are for fine tuning handling characteristics on the limit on track, not adding spring rate or reducing roll.

You’re effectively hobbling your crappy dampers and the whole car.

For a more naturally handling car that’s capable on any road, you want a digressively damped shock, eg Koni’s or Shockworks.

You properly wouldn’t get it till you drove one thusly equipped.

*told off for ragging on above member for recommending upgrade swaybars*

The statement needs emphasis to overcome years of misinformation.

Swaybar mods were born on the track and on smooth jdm roads.

Stock dampers are worn out at 100-150km.

The solution is a damper upgrade, then swaybars if required, and then for the purposes of handling fine tuning, not supposedly holding the car flat in corners at the expense of overall compliance and grip.

Its a ridiculous dogma supported mainly by the aftermarket wanting to put $1k worth of useless metal under cars that are predominantly street driven.

Next up they’ll have 40mm bars or swaybars for swaybars!

Too much is never enough when you’re starting on the wrong foot to begin.

If it sounds like I’m substituting one dogma for another, I’m not.

I’m suggesting that handling mods should be approached from the core of the system: the springs and damper combo.

Get that aspect correct and the car will need less in the way of bandaid mods to handle properly.

[bigBADbenny]

Reserved.

[Yowie]

Damn. Looks like me and thousands of others have been enjoying the "wrong kind" of better handling very inexpensively. Don't I feel silly.

Better let the car manufacturers know they are messing it up when they release a hot model with thicker swaybars front & rear.

This anti-swaybar rant was predicted in 2005 https://www.autospeed.com/cms/a_2746/article

But there is a simple way to achieve a noticeable improvement in handling without spending much money at all. The trick is in the sway bars, also called anti-roll bars or stabiliser bars. The purist will say that changing sway bars should be the last step in setting up a performance suspension system – but that’s OK, we’re not purists.

"If it's stupid but it works, it isn't stupid" as the saying goes.

Above the "coil-overs on my Subaru" enthusiasts are the open-wheeler club racers, laughing at all of us as we put anodised billet "race spec" parts on our 1.7 tonne front-drive-biased passenger cars and argue the toss with each other over handling.

Everyone has their own interests, budget and goals with their vehicle. Personally I find most of the obsession over cosmetic modifications not to my taste. Likewise I would not spend tens of thousands on a 300+ KW engine build in a Subaru - I would get an XR6 Turbo if I want drag-level power. For the time being I am not interested in coil-overs due to price and durability issues compared to OEM spring & damper type suspension on a daily-driven-over-B-grade-roads road car. If I get a track-day MX5 I'll almost certainly get coil-overs for it.

These differences in personal taste and priorities don't "drive me absolutely NUTS" however, because I'm happy to read about what other people do on a very friendly* forum.

[*especially when you compare to the sort of aggression and poor manners on the US Subaru forums]

[Turbo Lag]

My 2c.

I think there's simply too much misinformation floating around about sway bars, especially when they are very effective at what they are supposed to do. For the average punter, I can see why a larger bar would be considered an upgrade.

In my opinion, the misinformation stems from the concept of a stiffer ride quality/less body roll = faster. I feel like the majority simply see this as a way to reduce body roll without understanding how each part of the suspension works holistically, so therefore they may believe that a stiffer spring will do the same as a larger sway bar.

Most are also not willing to experiment with different setups, further driving biases towards the sway bar being an upgrade. The cost of each component does not help the cause. I doubt many would want to admit that they either don't feel anything, or would rather choose to believe that the car is better, when in fact it is no different/worse. That is also not to say that there is a right/wrong here - it seems to come down to preferances/preconceptions.

I also don't think the majority have really pushed their cars to the limits to understand the trade offs with less body roll. Even if they did, it is very hard to tell what is actually faster without quantifying this. In a blind taste test I doubt many would even notice (and nor would I until the car is pushed to the limit). Personally, I did not notice any difference with them until I reached point break, where the car stops rolling and instead slides sideways (either front or back). With different car set ups, I'm sure this will also drastically change each result too.

Ultimately I don't think the preconception will be stopped any time soon, and that's ok. If they're happy with their car then that's fine, unless they're asking for advice and too stubborn to hear another perspective on it.

I have made myself pretty vocal on what I think about larger sway bars, and it probably comes out in this post too.

Here's a curveball; if you're reading this, try disconnecting your sway bars and see if you notice any difference. If you don't, then IMO they are unnecessary to your setup. I've disconnected my front for some time now and am starting to prefer it over having one, but you do lose some front end responsiveness.

[bigBADbenny]

We can’t discuss anything without a contrary point of view anyway!

My point is that great dampers solve the perceived issue of body roll in a more compliant, safer manner.

Case in point: an esteemed member tuned his Shockworks enhanced lib with a custom swaybar just slightly harder than the stock item after finding that aftermarket bars were way too hard for the intended effect, fine tuning handling at the limit on track.

So the aftermarket adheres to the too much is never enough ethos. It’s ridiculous but true.

Let me read the link for starters

That’s indeed hilarious and an awesome coincidence!
Mr Edgar actually suggests swaybars on swaybars loooool!

The thing is, until you’ve tried digressively damped shocks, be they coilovers (SW) or struts (eg Koni yellows) it would be hard to comprehend the extent to which they liberate the handling, over conventional dampers.

Its simply another level.

I’m not against swaybars, I just wish the aftermarket didn’t start the “upgrades” at way too much.
There may be a place for that level of tuning, but for the street? Meh.

Furthermore I want to say I wish there had been some kind of dissenting opinion on the subject when I started modding my lib 10 years ago.
I would have gone straight to Koni yellows and would likely have left it there.

It took discussions with OEM chassis tuning whiz Brett O’Brien of Shockworks, to open my mind to a better way.
One that unleashed the car for any reasonable application be it street, track or especially gravel.

I’d take a new set of oem KYB’s over bandaiding worn out dampers with upgrade bars, that’s IME too.

[spike2135]

Feel better?

[bigBADbenny]

Hey can you redact that quote you made of my comment in your member profile please?

So I have not made these posts with any expletives, you’ll have to add your own, one expletive every second word should do the trick


I’m not done, no way!

The whole “too much is never enough” thing absolutely triggers me.

The car can’t be low enough, it can’t be too “flat” in corners, it can’t have too much power, or too much boost.

Its the human condition I guess, one that leads to unreliable un-driveable cars, where the fundamentals have been lost due to an unquenchable dissatisfaction.

Everyone is on the same koolaid, the aftermarket, workshops and peers.

How about promoting grip and compliance, celebrate enough power for the application and the nuances “under the curve”, how about over-speccing builds for reliability and de-tuning for headroom, why not focus on the importance of engine vacuum and use boost appropriately for the turbo or better still actual drivability?

[Yowie]

If the Subarus on here are setting you off, better not look at the modified cars on the rest of the internet.

[bigBADbenny]

Where did I say that?
I’m talking about attitudes and presumptions in general as related to enjoying Subaru ownership.

Swaybar “upgrades” are the tip of the iceberg.
A bellwether for misinformation.

Here is great because everyone is elsewhere, having a proper ménage.

[bigBADbenny]

And another thing, how about we go get tuned, but don’t bother health checking the car prior?

And just to compound the situation, we let the tuner decide what max boost etc the car runs for said tune? (It’s almost always too much)

I see this constantly, and it never ends well due to the human condition, ignorance being bliss for most.

Imagine, when the tools are at hand, and affordable, relying on the cars check engine lights to tell you when you have an issue?

Then blame... the car for being unreliable... LOL!

Imagine getting a code scanned, replacing the part in the cel description, with no fix!

The cel diagnostic procedures are in the factory service manual and guess what?

They favour actual diagnostics over random parts cannon... Amazing!!!

[Yowie]

So, for a street-driven passenger car, in your view:

(a) $2250-$3000+ worth of coil-overs (properly tuned, based on the best advice etc.) is the sensible middle ground; but

(b) subject to point (c), $500-$600 worth of aftermarket swaybars fitted at home is the thin end of the wedge in terms of upgrades based on misinformation, over-upgrading, 3000cc injectors, lumpy cams, human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria...; but

(c) a moderate increase in swaybar thickness (as a thought-through component of a holistic approach to suspension) can be ok sometimes?

For what it's worth, I agree with (c).

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I agree with you that some people take street car modification too far according to one's own taste, priorities, budget and sense of the best engineering solutions. Excessive lowering and excessive turbo size isn't my cup of tea either. But this forum would have an awful lot of rant posts if we all felt the need to dish-out hot steaming ladles of justice to the offenders on every modification topic.

It's a bit like driving in traffic. Everyone slower than me is a frustrating ditherer. Everyone faster than me is a bl00dy lunatic.

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I also agree that a sensible approach heading into a tune is a good thing. You and others do good work around here providing recommendations and resources to help people get these basics sorted. If I may say so, usually the tone is friendly/helpful/etc. which probably assists in the persuasiveness of your comments.

This swaybar-focused rant leveraging into all-things-wrong seems out of character compared to that other fine work.

[BillyCorgi]

I wil just leave this here.

viewtopic.php?f=19&t=24407&hilit=+sway+bars

[bigBADbenny]

I’m absolutely thinking of modding a stock front bar for adjustability, eg a little harder but most importantly, softer!

If the extension can be welded with decent penetration, I’d hope to not require all the normalisation, tempering etc.

That’s why this is a rant post, feel free to rant it out!

Yes absolutely, a middle ground is always best, but the aftermarket decided to just offer hard and harder.

El Corgo, I love the diy, you’re a legend

[bigBADbenny]

So, for a street-driven passenger car, in your view:

(a) $2250-$3000+ worth of coil-overs (properly tuned, based on the best advice etc.) is the sensible middle ground; but

(b) subject to point (c), $500-$600 worth of aftermarket swaybars fitted at home is the thin end of the wedge in terms of upgrades based on misinformation, over-upgrading, 3000cc injectors, lumpy cams, human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria...; but

(c) a moderate increase in swaybar thickness (as a thought-through component of a holistic approach to suspension) can be ok sometimes?

For what it's worth, I agree with (c).

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This swaybar-focused rant leveraging into all-things-wrong seems out of character compared to that other fine work.

You’re forgetting oem (or upgrade) KYB’s, Bilstein B4, B6 or B8, Koni Sport Yellows (or better)!!!

New or upgrade dampers would be better than bandaids worn out items with heavy swaybars.

The rant can be toned down at my leisure. I self-moderate you know, well mostly

[Kimmo]

Everyone slower than me is a frustrating ditherer. Everyone faster than me is a bl00dy lunatic.

If you amend this to, 'half the people slower than me are frustrating ditherers; everyone faster is a bloody lunatic,' it becomes quite credible.