dynamo

I am upgrading my front sway bar (ex 22mm) to the Si one (26mm) tomorrow night. I am doing the swap with someone who has an Si, and as I understand we would have to swap front LCA's to make this work.

My question is: how difficult are the front LCA's to take off? Are they attached to the hub somehow, and what is involved in taking them off and replacing them? Someone mentioned something to me about the lca's being attached to the hubs via balljoints, making it very hard to take off. Is that true?

Any help would be much appreciated! TIA

Doctor CorteZ

why are you putting a BIGGER front bar on your car ?

do you want it to handle worse ?

what size is your rear bar now ?

dynamo

My rear bar is a 22mm comptech sway/tie bar combo.

The reason I wanted a thicker sway bar in the front is because I have driven several Si's, and it seems that the front end is a lot more stable, especially during cornering. Initially, I thought that a strut bar would remedy the situation (since Ex's don't have those either), and I put one in place. The handling improved somewhat, but is still nowhere near the stability I felt while driving the Si.

Can someone explain to me why would the car handle worse with a thicker front sway bar?

Doctor CorteZ

a larger front bar will induce understeer , the thing you dont want in a FF set-up

if you want to plant the front , stiffen up the rear

what spring rates do you run now ? what shocks ?

dynamo

I have ground controls with integra spring rates, and KONI yellows for shocks.

The reason I want to upgrade the front bar is because the car 'plows' into and out of turns, and doesn't feel as stable as the Si's do. I am aware of the oversteer problem, but I have good tires and feel pretty confident in termy ability to control the car. Other than oversteer, are there any other issues that I should be looking at?

Also, how hard is it to dissassemble the front lca's from the balljoints that they are attached to by the wheel? Do I need any special tools? Could anyone please give me some pointers on how to do this?

owen_the_soyboy

what you want to buy / borrow is a ball joint separator of the type that has a bolt that pushes the balljoint thru the LCA. you do not want to play with a fork type of separator as a first timer, unless you are ready to repair a torn balljoint boot, which is easy but still a PITA.

go to Pepboys or Autozone and buy what looks like a C-clamp for ball jont separating.
The ends of the C will face up and slip around and rest on the topside of the LCA. There will be a point on the tip of the bolt, this is to poke into the center of the balljoint's threaded end to keep it on center. Slap a wrench on the C-clamp's Bolt to push the balljoint up and out of the LCA. Pretty simple.
Then removing the LCA bolts on the inward end are simple but may be frozen, some liquid wrench may help you out.

Doctor CorteZ

you need stiffer springs out back
the teg rates from ground control are nasty

if your "pushes" or plows into turns , a larger front bar is only going to make it worse

FF - stiffen the back , loosen the front

try unhooking the front bar and see how that feels , just be very careful as your car will be very VERY tail happy

I really think that your confused about the car and thinking that the only difference in the Si's are a larger front bar

that is not the case , it simply could be you need an alignment or something simple

the answer is NOT a larger bar , I will not say this anymore I think you need to understand alot more as far as chassis dynamics but you are not going in the right direction , in fact you are going the complete wrong way to get a better handling car

dynamo

What other differences between a '00 Ex and '00 Si are there as far as the suspension goes? Everything else is already swapped out, and the only remaining part that is stock is the front sway bar. I did have stiffer springs in the back before (skunk2 co), but due to a lengthy daily commute I swapped them out for the GC's which gave me a much more comfortable ride with minimal, if any, loss of handling.

Also, I don't see what would an alignment have anything to do with this at all - I just got an alignment done a month ago, and the car handles exactly like it did before the alignment.

I guess my point is that although I agree that I still need to learn more about chassis dynamics, your response doesn't provide any answers to what I am asking. What I do know, is that I've been driving an Ex for over two years now, and have driven an Si before (with a very similar setup) and the front end felt a lot more stable in the corners than the Ex. Do you have an explanation for that?

dynamo

Thank you!!! I'll pick one up on my way from work. Any idea how much it is going to cost?

Doctor CorteZ

a GOOD alignment will do more than you think

what specs did you get on the alignment ?

I cant compare two cars I've never driven to tell you what exactly the difference is I'm simply telling you the BEST way to set-up your car and it DOES NOT involve a larger front sway bar

post anything in the roadrace/auto-x forum and ask how good putting a larger front sway bar is on a civic and see what kind of answer you get

I will not pursue this any further , I'm obviously wasting my breath if you want your car to handle WORSE than do it

But I told you 3 times at least that a larger rear bar is only going to make your car plow MORE

understeer is plowing/pushing in turns
oversteer is the back coming around in turns

which one sounds like the front wheels are gripping more ?

a larger front bar WILL make your car understeer MORE so do what you want , just answer that one question .............

Doctor CorteZ

oh yeah here I dont feel like typing all this crap

http://www.whiteline.com.au/articles/RH_Civic95a.htm

READ that

owen_the_soyboy

$10 to $20

yer welcome dooooooood

dynamo

No need to get annoyed, I was just trying to get an aswer about something you seem to be knowledgeable about. Thanks for the link!

I'm probably going to delay the install until this weekend, and will decide by then whether I still want to go through with it. I really hate the front end body roll in the turns, but I would hate to have more of it as you are predicting. In the meantime, I think I will turn up the stiffness on the KONI's (they are at about 1/3 of a turn out of the available 2 turns now) and see if it makes an improvement.

Doctor CorteZ

a soft front with some body roll is a GOOD thing , as long as the rear is stiffer

read that article I posted , and it will tell you a few nice things to know about setting up a nice little car

you DONT want a larger rear bar , when the front is soft it will grip MORE

dynamo

I decided to go with my initial decision on this one, and did the front sway swap this weekend. I went from 22mm to 26mm, and I am more than happy with the results. The car handles great during sharp cornering and in sweep turns, the front end is 'planted', the 'turn-in' is very sharp and responsive, and all of these are a nice change from the marshmellow-front-end feeling of the Ex bar. The oversteer is still there, although to a much lesser extent, which is perfectly fine by my as getting the car sideways does not do much but put me and the car at risk. Thanks for everyone's input and advice on this.

The install ended up being a pain in the *** to a certain extent. The LCA's and forks had to be swapped, and since I was doing this for the first time, I ended up pushing the balljoint out of its socket in the LCA. Putting it back in place ended up being a lengthy, frustrating but educational experience, as I got to disconnect the axle form the hub to hammer the balljoint back in place (haven't done that before), and became a lot more familiar with the front suspension assembly (beyond a simple shock/spring install).

Cortez: I see your point about oversteer (now that I experienced the difference for myself), but at this point I think it really depends on the personal preference and style of driving. I appreciate the characteristics I described above more than the usually unpredictable oversteer, and am happy with the choice.

Owen: thanks for the tip on the ball joint remover. I rented the tool ($6/day) and found it to be a lot more user-friendly than the fork would have been.


[Modified by dynamo, 2:54 AM 8/4/2002]

Doctor CorteZ

understeer =

my car suits my driving style just fine , and will be even better with my 21F/23R

oversteer =

glad your happy with the mod though , after all is is YOUR car..........

owen_the_soyboy

aaaaaaaah a happy ending for all

Doctor CorteZ

....how it should be