I'm not sure if my Short Ram intake would be better than a cold air intake up on mountains I need help deciding on that
We live in a rural area with lots of wallabies (small kangaroos) etc , that's why all our cars have additional lights.
Yowie wrote:Stifull, you forgot to mention to our American friend that you always need to keep the sunroof closed on account of the drop bears.
.. Firstly I am not a suspension specialist but I think I understand the difference in ride and stability that sway bars and coilovers have. Sway bars (anti roll bars) , as I understand them, work by transferring weight from one side of the car to the other.. As one side is lifted up by a car taking a corner fast, the sway bar has two opposing forces working on it. While the inside wheel is trying to lift off the ground while the other outside wheel is being forced downwards by the weight being transferred due to the effect of the car turning. The sway bar takes the upward movement from the inside wheel and forces the outside wheel to not go down as far, while the downward movement of the outside wheel is forcing the inside wheel to come down, so the sway bar is keeping the car flatter on the ground so the tyres have a better grip with the weight difference on either side being reduced. A thicker sway bar makes this weight distribution even more constant but, also makes the car more rigid and less comfortable for the passengers. Replacing the 2 inner sway bar mounts on the body and the 2 outer end links that connect the sway bar to the axle or differential from rubber bushes to polyurethane also helps to make this firmer and more rigid as well. So regardless of what springs and dampeners (shocks) you have, the sway bars will keep the car planted better as well as keeping all 4 tyres having more contact with the road. You only have to look at the guys who take the sway bars off their 4wds so the suspension can travel further to keep all 4 wheels in contact with the surface of rough terrain (good idea) but watch them go around a corner fast on a nice road and you can easily see why sway bars are also known as anti roll bars because the body of the car will be leaning/rolling a lot more than with the sway bars fitted. Start to loose it and turning it back the other way without sway bars and it will easily get out of control because the tyres are swapping weight around so much that they stop responding to the steering and well you know where that leads. Weight distribution on tyres is critical when breaking and cornering hard. For this reason you will see race cars breaking hard before a corner but releasing the brake soon enough before they enter the corner to allow the cars weight to settle evenly on the road. They rarely break during cornering, in fact they will often accelerate through the corner once the car has settled.Tonic wrote:But how do you feel about sway bars?
Stifull wrote:.. Firstly I am not a suspension specialist but I think I understand the difference in ride and stability that sway bars and coilovers have. Sway bars (anti roll bars) , as I understand them, work by transferring weight from one side of the car to the other.. As one side is lifted up by a car taking a corner fast, the sway bar has two opposing forces working on it. While the inside wheel is trying to lift off the ground while the other outside wheel is being forced downwards by the weight being transferred due to the effect of the car turning. The sway bar takes the upward movement from the inside wheel and forces the outside wheel to not go down as far, while the downward movement of the outside wheel is forcing the inside wheel to come down, so the sway bar is keeping the car flatter on the ground so the tyres have a better grip with the weight difference on either side being reduced. A thicker sway bar makes this weight distribution even more constant but, also makes the car more rigid and less comfortable for the passengers. Replacing the 2 inner sway bar mounts on the body and the 2 outer end links that connect the sway bar to the axle or differential from rubber bushes to polyurethane also helps to make this firmer and more rigid as well. So regardless of what springs and dampeners (shocks) you have, the sway bars will keep the car planted better as well as keeping all 4 tyres having more contact with the road. You only have to look at the guys who take the sway bars off their 4wds so the suspension can travel further to keep all 4 wheels in contact with the surface of rough terrain (good idea) but watch them go around a corner fast on a nice road and you can easily see why sway bars are also known as anti roll bars because the body of the car will be leaning/rolling a lot more than with the sway bars fitted. Start to loose it and turning it back the other way without sway bars and it will easily get out of control because the tyres are swapping weight around so much that they stop responding to the steering and well you know where that leads. Weight distribution on tyres is critical when breaking and cornering hard. For this reason you will see race cars breaking hard before a corner but releasing the brake soon enough before they enter the corner to allow the cars weight to settle evenly on the road. They rarely break during cornering, in fact they will often accelerate through the corner once the car has settled.Tonic wrote:But how do you feel about sway bars?
Coilovers, well they are just an improvement to normal springs and dampers that can raise a car or lower a car by a simple adjustment, make the ride softer or harder by adjusting the dampening effect as well as giving the ability to increase camber (leaning of the wheels out at the bottom to increase tyre footprint when cornering) for track days or not leaning so much for normal driving so you don't wear your tyres out to quickly. Too much camber for normal driving will prematurely wear out the inside edge of your tyres. Coil overs also normally have a smaller diameter spring so they enable cars to have wider than normal tyres fitted without hitting the existing springs, being able to adjust for greater camber also means you can wind in the top of the tyres to stop them scrubbing on the guards. I built my blue wrx many years ago using normal but new wrx dampers with King Low springs. The springs are firmer and also lowered the car 30mm at the rear and 45mm at the front so it has a better stance, however because they are still a large spring they don't allow me to go any wider than a 215/45/17 tyre on a 17x7" rim. I also replaced both 19mm sway bars with 24mm front and 22mm rear as well as all whiteline bushes, links etc as well as an anti lift kit to stop the cars nose from going up every time a higher gear is engaged at high revs. My liberty GT has coilovers which allows me to have 235/40/18 tyres on 18x9.5" rims which not only give greater tyre footprint but also the GT has a wider track which also aids in stability. With the coil overs being soo adjustable you can just leave the stock sway bars, mounts and end links all standard and still achieve the desired results because the adjustability and design of coilovers can make up the difference.
Just a note. On my 4wd I bought some adjustable, greasable and most importantly detachable rear sway bar end links so when driving off road I simply pull out the "R" clip and locking pin and the sway bar simply lays on top of the swing arms so the car has much more reach/compression on the rear axle.. They were designed for a much bigger 4wd so I shortened them and increased the thread so they fitted my car perfectly. However I never actually bothered fitting them as I have gotten a little too old and lazy to take my beautiful 4wd camper out into the muddy powerline tracks etc and then having to spend the next 4 days cleaning the engine bay etc.
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