suh4 wrote:Hi
If I want to improve cornering which bar I should get?
First things first, What is your car?
What is it you want to improve about the cornering of your car?
Turn in?- speed of turn in
- turn in "bite"
- overall balance when turning in
- balance when on the throttle hard
- balance when on the throttle moderately
- balance when off the throttle
- balance when turning in with a neutral throttle
- balance when on the brakes hard
- balance when on the brakes soft/moderately
- feel
- amount of body roll
- amount of body pitch when on the brakes
Mid corner?- overall balance
- balance when on the throttle hard
- balance when on the throttle moderately
- balance when off the throttle
- balance with a neutral throttle
- balance when on the brakes hard
- balance when on the brakes soft/moderately
- balance shift when lifting off the throttle
- balance shift when getting on the brakes
- feel
- amount of body roll
- overall grip
Corner exit?- overall balance
- balance when on the throttle hard
- balance when on the throttle moderately
- balance when off the throttle
- balance with a neutral throttle
- balance when on the brakes
- balance shift when lifting off the throttle
- balance shift when getting on the brakes
- feel
- amount of body roll
- amount of body pitch (squat) when on the throttle
- overall grip level
How well do you know the cornering and handling characteristics of your car? How well do you know your own driving characteristics/style and how you can change the car's balance through changing driving style?
suh4 wrote:Will strut bar have to be worked together with lower arm bar?
Can I use sway bar and strut/lower arm bar together or can only choose one?
You can chop and change any combination of braces and anti-roll bars. The change in the cornering characteristics of your car will vary depending on what you do.
suh4 wrote:Should the car already have the anti roll bar (which is sway bar i guess)? if I need to replace the stock bar for a stronger one or normally add a new sway bar?
The car will already have front and rear anti-roll bars. People generally replace the stock anti-roll bars with stiffer items when they "upgrade" the anti-roll bars
suh4 wrote:For a liberty AWD will a rear bar help more or a front bar help more?
I believe that if you are going to play with anti-roll bars you should look at getting both front and rear with at least one of them adjustable then doing some back to back tests of the different setting combinations of the two bars. This can be on a race track or on a quiet road (where you shouldn't be pushing all that hard anyway IMO). That's just my opinion though, many blindly believe that a stiffer rear anti-roll bar is the single best thing you can do.
It will have a bigger affect than a stiffer front anti-roll bar on its own would but it basically changes cornering balance by reducing rear end grip. I have found the general balance of mine to be vary between controllable mild understeer to lift off (and sometimes snap) oversteer and pretty much everywhere in between depending on how I drive it. When you have a car with a known tendency towards lift off oversteer, you don't need to be making it worse IMO
suh4 wrote:Sorry I am confused with these so many types to choose, hope someone can give me a clear idea, just looking for one or two bar(s) that help the most......
Well it depends what you want to change (if you really need to change anything at all). There is a fair bit more than just anti-roll bars or struts/bracing that you can do to change the handling characteristics of your car.
IMO, you are best served getting to know your car, how it handles different types of corners, surfaces and driving styles. Only then can you really know what you need to improve about the handling. Many will proclaim that a stiffer rear anti-roll bar will fix your car's handling immensely and it might well work for them but it may not be dealing with the issue you have with your car.
The front lower control arm bush mentioned above is another one that is mentioned a lot (one that I will do soon I think) but it comes with a couple of caveats:
1) Increased amount of diving under brakes and nose lift when on the throttle. If the amount of fore-aft body pitch you currently have is not comfortable for you (too much) than any "anti-lift" kit is not for you - it will make it worse.
2) Slightly increased amounts of noise/vibration/harshness on any surface irregularity.
Reducing the anti-lift/dive of the front end and stiffening up the connection of that arm to the body though will increase the amount of feel and improve the ability of the front wheels to track the road over undulations when turning during braking and acceleration.
Go out and understand what you want to change (or if you already have gotten to know your car near the limits you'll be pushing it to, describe what you want to change to us) and come back with a list of things you want to change. It is
your car, not mine or anyone else's so what one of us might think needs to be changed may not be suitable for
you.
