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Front Sway Bar

4.8K views 37 replies 10 participants last post by  rocwandrer  
#1 ·
Recently changed my setup. Front springs are 9k with stock sway, rear springs are 7k w/o sway. Same camber settings I had before, -2.5 rear, -4 Front. Car feels much better, but now I am getting understeer during turn in. Would dropping the front sway bar help this? I was also thinking I should probably add a touch of toe out in the front to help, as of now I have the factory toe settings all around. For all you that have dropped your front bar what were the biggest differences you noticed?

-Carson
 
#4 ·
So now you get into some semantics on turn-in definition. Does the car do an initial turn-in then wash out as you go through the corner, or does it not want to turn in? For my setup I have a little toe out in front 1/16 to 1/8. Rear is zero toe. I also got rid of the front sway, but I change several things at once. So i can't say sway bar was or was not the improvement. If you up the rear to 8K and remove the front bar you will almost have the same spring rates that I do. Most people that drive my car spin it, and I have never heard that it understeers once going to this setup. For many other setups the car would push after the initial turn in, although with soft front(350) and stiff rear(700) the turn-in would take forever to happen.

Also what kind of rake are you running. I found the front higher than the rear makes the car work better.
 
#5 ·
I feel like I can't take turns as fast as I used to be able to. Like I'm expecting the car to turn but it slides, I have to slow down in order for it to not understeer. Mid turn the car is slightly rear bias at the limit, but not much. So I would have to say it doesn't want to turn in. I have about 1/4 of rake. 5'' front, 5.25'' rear(measured from the pinch rail on the jacking points). I realize it is supposed to be lower in the rear, after I changed my springs the heights changed and I ran out of time to mess around with them. This could very well be why it isn't turning in. Also what are you guys running for ride heights?
 
#6 ·
Couple videos from last event to help describe what I'm talking about. First video I was running my coilovers dialed back 5 clicks from full stiff on front and rear with 37psi on all tires. Second video I increased the rear to full stiff and kept the front at 5 clicks back, tires still at 37, and it seemed to help. It especially helped in the first slalom, in the first video my front slid out about halfway through. Second video was a tenth of a second faster.

http://s1184.photobucket.com/albums...ms/z328/Carson470/?action=view&current=NewtonSpeedwayAutocross2ndfastestrun.mp4

http://s1184.photobucket.com/albums...lbums/z328/Carson470/?action=view&current=NewtonSpeedwayAutocrossfastestrun.mp4
 
#7 ·
Definitely zero out the toe. I was having a terrible time with horrendous understeer when I had the rear toe'd in, but I zeroed out the rear ( and kept the front toed out an eighth cause I like the way it feels) and it was a whole different car.
 
#14 ·
This.

Edit, I just re-read what I typed and it sounds harsh. I hope you don't take it that way and there is something useful in there.

It seems to me like much of the understeer you have is being induced and/or made worse by your inputs. if you watch the video and stare at the horizon, in that first sweeper it is understeering pretty badly. For a sweeper, as a rough approximation, with that stiff a suspension the steering input should end about the time the horizon finishes tilting. You are turning the wheel slightly too fast at first, and then when it is understeering, you turn it more, instead of unwinding to fix the mistake. When you have turned the wheel a little too far, have understeer, and make the classic mistake of turning it even more, this is one of those rare moments when a quick/violent jerk of the wheel in the unwind direction is the correct correction. I can think of no other occasion when the right thing to compromises smoothness of steering input for making it fast. Then at track out, you have understeer, but start feeding in throttle anyway. Either it is ok to drift off the line the steering is indicating, and you unwind as you add throttle, or you need to wait out the understeer before adding throttle. adding throttle during understeer without unwinding the wheel is like applying the brakes and the throttle at the same time, at the additional expense of steering control.

Also, am I being dense, or do you say you changed your setup and got entry understeer, but don't say what it was before?
 
#12 ·
I actually found out you can go to low on the MR2 and cause more body roll. I ended up raising the car to make it work better and get less body roll. The pinch rail measurement is a little off for me to measure because I have different tires and rims on the car. So I could measure it next time I put the 195 on it.
 
#17 ·
you've almost doubled the front spring rate... that's why it wants to just skid over the surface! The other thing is the driver input, you're trying to get in the corner too fast and compromising your mid corner and exit too much - I do trackdays here in the UK and am not a auto x expert, but having done a day with a couple of other guys in Spyders they were both suffering from massive understeer (all of us on largely similar stock/mildly modified suspension and tyre setup) and the reason was they were going in too hard and getting into that on-throttle understeer described above.

I'm not sure on why you guys in the states prefer to use stiff springs instead of a medium spring and an ARB, but seems to be the trend so I won't argue, but your front tyres are getting loads of grief from the lack of suspension movement- better to have a little more compliance, loose the speed of turn in, and get through the corner in a nicer balance.

Personally I'd stick with the old springs and use a stiffer bar to help turn in, but given what you have on the car now I'd drop the bar.. of course I'd also follow the advice of the other guys here and get rid of the toe in as well. Best of luck!

Jonty
 
#18 ·
We talk about front or rear bias but we are not really changed the roll resistance ratio front to rear. We are simply removing the bars and upping the spring to compensate for the loss of the bars.

The stock bars are probably about 5-6Kg front and 2-3kg rear (I am guessing at the swaybar numbers here).

Before you had 5kg+5kg=10kg front and 7kg+2kg=9kg rear.

Now you have 9+5=14kg front and 7kg rear.

Did you revalve the front shock for the new spring rate?

If it was understeering before it should understeer more now.

Drop the front bar if you want to run stiff front springs.
 
#19 ·
We talk about front or rear bias but we are not really changed the roll resistance ratio front to rear. We are simply removing the bars and upping the spring to compensate for the loss of the bars.
I've tested this with two setups, one using a 22mm front swaybar, the other not. The balance of the setups was not the same albeit similar. The swaybar setup understeered in steady state more but both had trouble with spinning the inside tire under acceleration (500/500+22mm front sway) vs 672/500 no sway. I'm not sure where the disconnect is, whether I'm calculating the swaybar rates wrong or if swaybar roll resistance does not exactly translate into spring roll resistance.
The stock bars are probably about 5-6Kg front and 2-3kg rear (I am guessing at the swaybar numbers here).
The stock swaybars are much less. I calculated 2.6kg front, 1.4 kg rear or 150 lb/in front, 80 lb/in rear.

The stock spring rate being 80 lb/in front, 140 lb/in rear

Balance is hard to compare though though because alignment, tire size, ride height, shocks all influence it.

But to the OP, go 0 toe all around and report back. I like making one change at a time so I wouldn't do anything else other than this.
 
#20 ·
The stock swaybars are much less. I calculated 2.6kg front, 1.4 kg rear or 150 lb/in front, 80 lb/in rear.

The stock spring rate being 80 lb/in front, 140 lb/in rear
Is your math taking into account that both wheels are affected? I don't have my notes with my, but IIRC, I had numbers similar to silversprint. (~300lb/in added by the bar)
 
#30 ·
I can't speak too knowledgeably on this topic, but with my setup just adding toe out to the front, and leaving the rear toe'd in did nothing to negate the understeer. Now dropping the front bar would probably help, because you are effectively lowering the ratio front to rear. I would follow advice of others and change one thing at a time.

edit: disregard, I read that all wrong.
 
#31 · (Edited)
Just disconnect one of the endlinks of the front swaybar at your next event and see if you like it. It's quick, easy, and painless.

Dropping the rear is going to change a lot more than just trying to remove the swaybar.

If you drop the rear you will have less rear roll stiffness which will lead to more understeer than you have now.

But, dropping the rear will also put you in a worse part of the camber and toe curve - both will be exacerbated by the reduced rear roll stiffness - which may give up rear grip leading to oversteer, but as a result of having less rear grip which imo isn't that great.

Or you can drop the rear and try both swaybar connected and disconnected at your next event and see which one feels better.

Just some thoughts.
 
#32 ·
My setup mantra is to start with what is fastest for each parameter. So don't compromise anything for anything else. No changes at the front of the car to fix oversteer. No changing camber or toe to tune handling bias. Definitely no tuning bias with tire pressures. Max them all out (so that means figure out if -3.0, -3.5, or -4.0 is the best camber setting, not just "max it out"). Then make smart adjustments that make the driver/car combo more consistent and faster. Fight the urge to do things to the car that make the driver/car combo "less consistent but faster" as long as possible.


1.) As to the question of why I personally so much preferred to eliminate anti-roll bars from my setup, which I was asked here directly, I've talked about this freely on here. My number one reason is consistency. Before I dropped the front bar, the car handled differently at different venues, with changes in the weather, etc. Without the bars on the car, the handling only changes if the tires start going off, or I make a setup change. Secondarily, I believe there is more ultimate grip in cornering to be had without the bars. It is not a free lunch. The car does not launch quite as well, and braking requires slightly more skill for the same level of deceleration.

2.) Discount setup advice that comes from a different operating environment, unless you can understand the differences. In road racing, having more front stiffness doesn't help put the power down coming off a corner in the same way as it does at autocross corner exit speeds (note that I'm saying same way not meaning specifically the magnitude of the effect (which is also true) but meaning the mechanism for the effect. Toe differences overwhelmingly have a greater effect on transients in autocross than at road course speeds. And so on. A good autocross setup for a given driver can be, but isn't always a good road course setup, and vice versa!

3.) The bias of camber front to rear seems a little more than I'd expect is necessary with that much stiffness. The stiffer the car is in roll, the smaller the required disparity in camber front to rear. Remember, the principle reason for the disparity in static camber is that the rear gains more camber than the front for the same roll angle. Since the car ALWAYS rolls the same amount front as rear, and the tires are generally of the same camber preference front and rear..... the outside front tire often also has more load on it at the critical moment than the outside rear does, so that can mean needing a little more static camber too (even if the camber curves are similar, which is not the case for our cars). If you really need the -4.0 in the front, you might take advantage of running less than ideal for cornering in the rear for purposes of being able to get the throttle down sooner on corner exit, so I'm not saying it is wrong, but pointing to it as a deviation from my setup mantra.

4.) I can not explain why with any certainty, but my experience has been that rear lower than front works better than vice versa. I think many of us here have independently come to that same conclusion, some of us without knowing that others had come to the same conclusion when we did our testing (a blind test is always more convincing).

5.) Toe. Baseline should be zero. Zero is usually best for tire wear. In a steady state corner, zero is damned close to the fastest setting. Overall, zero is plenty fast, and has no evil habits. No evil habits is what you need for all your baseline settings. People use toe in at the rear of the car to compensate for other problems; it should not be presupposed that you need toe in at the rear. We use toe to tune transient behavior, not limit behavior. You have a limit behavior problem that is overshadowing any transient behavior issues. Set the toe to zero, fix the big problem, then go back to messing with toe later.

6.) If your goal is to learn to tune the car, change only one thing at a time. This can be hard. To test changing just the front bar, you need to increase spring rates at the same time as removing the bar, or you are testing a bias change, roll stiffness change, % contribution in roll from bars, maybe bump stop contribution, etc, etc, etc.

7.) It sounds like you have your rake, camber settings, toe settings, damper choice, roll stiffness bias, and driving technique all in the mix here. If you care less about understanding how it works and learning to tune, and more about driving the damned car, I'd suggest you build a plan here to copy a good setup as your next step, and tune from there. I say build it here because when you eventually deviate from some part of a good setup, people can help you know in advance what to do to adjust for it. Taking a good setup that uses super stiff front springs and running it with softer front springs, you either need to compensate by running a front bar, or by softening the rear springs and dealing with the extra body roll, for example.


I think dropping the front bar off the car, the toe to zero front and rear, and the rake to zero or slightly negative (raise the front as much as you lower the rear, then change ride height later), probably without a spring change, and before you get better dampers will make the car into something you rave about. From there it will just be fine tuning.
 
#35 ·
Roll control (important for: transient response, keeping off the bumpstops, dynamic camber, roll steer, etc) Is driven by roll stiffness. Some of these factors can be cheated with other setup parameters. For example, raising the ride height can help keep you off the bumpstops, increase roll resistance by raising roll centers, improve dynamic camber by climbing the camber curve, etc.

Whether you are better off keeping the front bar or not depends on the compromise you're willing to pick. Usually the argument revolves around ride comfort. The fact is a front bar can be a really good compromise between ride and handling.

I think that thumb rule you are looking for is personal preference. I started dropping the front bar at 400 lb/in plus Saner 1", going softer on the bar and up in spring rate. The first step was, iirc, a big jump on both ride and handling fronts. The last jump (ditching the stock bar) was noticeable in handling improvement, and about a wash in ride (harsher over two wheel bumps, but less cowl shudder over 1 wheel bumps.)
 
#34 ·
Had an event today!

I ended up disconnecting the front sway bar at todays event. I know its changing multiple things at once, but it seemed like the best option. The car felt better, not much better, but better. There was a long sweeper and I had no understeer problems at all! Car felt great on the sweeper, however, during lower speed quick transitions, the front would slide slightly. Under higher speed quick transitions, the rear would kick out a tad. <-- hopefully that makes sense.. I also feel like the car is more controllable without the front sway bar(More predictable). Next event is next weekend. Will be trying zero rake and 0 toe all around. I have asked this before, but what is a good height for the spyder? I have read you don't want to let the lower control arm go below parallel with the ground, but I have also heard that that isn't necesarilly true... Any thoughts?
 
#36 ·
Alright pulling this thread back up now that I have some math on my current setup of 525,475 (front,rear) without any sway bars. This gives me a rear to front frequency ratio of .8. This works back to the front sway bar after some number crunching, I promise.

Taking a look at my roll rates, I have 180 Nm/deg of role resistance more at the front than the rear of the car. At least I think that is what that number means. Assuming I like how my car handles, and if I wanted to get this flat ride frequency ratio of 1.2, note that stock has a 1.13 ratio which I use instead, I would either have to run a 275/475 setup or a 300/525 setup to reuse my springs that I am currently using and then have to supplement the from roll stiffness with a sway bar. The first setup I would need to add back in 900 Nm/deg and the second setup I would only have to add back in 800 Nm/deg. I am not sure how that translates back to your guys calculated spring rates for the stock bars. Not sure how you convert degrees back to inches. If I just look at the rates at the wheels I would have to add back in 240 lbs/in sway bar to the front.

Just as a side note if the stock setup is 80/140, then my 275/475 setup is 3.4 times stock, and 300/525 setup is 3.75 times stock setup. So oddly enough I find myself still wondering why people want to run a stiff front spring setup along with a stiffer front bar and why they wonder why the car pushes with that setup. I don't think that I am too far off with my setup with out a sway bar but it would be interesting to do the test comparison between the two setups. The only issue I see is that with a front spring that soft I would have to raise the front height a bit to keep from bottoming out. It seems that I would have to almost double the shock travel because the spring would compress twice as much. I also did a calculation to see what flat ride rates I would need if I kept my front 525 spring rate, and the 525/950 setup seems a little ludicrous.
 
#37 ·
So you are basically looking for a swaybar that gives a wheelrate of around 240lbs/in.

The CHE front bar (22mm) has a spring rate of 250lb/in. Assuming a .58 motion ratio, it gives a total wheelrate of 168lbs/in. (single wheel rate of 84lbs/in)

A 1 inch Saner or Addco bar has a spring rate of 435lb/in. Total Wheel rate is 292lbs/in

So you would have to find something in between
 
#38 ·
Working 18 hour days, so no time, but:

1 degree is 1 inch of travel in 180/3.141" of track width (measured roughly center of the tire to center of the tire). So if your c-c track width is 58", 1 degree is 1/2" of compression from ride height due to roll.

Total travel of an anti-roll bar is twice that amount for the same angular change, because it sees one wheel rise and the other fall... with a stiff enough bar, the effective rate drops off, because it can not exceed the inside corner spring rate (after mr applied) in total roll resistance contribution steady state. In transients, the rebound damping zeta times the shaft velocity can artificially increase the anti-roll bar rate to at most its theoretical value even if that exceeds the wheel rate (again, with rates filtered through both motion ratios before comparing).