sfr4dr

Does anyone make a good large front sway bar? Also has anyone used the ADDCO rear sway bar. I have never heard anything about it. I might want a 19mm and the only ones I could find were ST, Addco, and Neuspeed. I don't like how the ST bar mounts. The Neuspeed bar is way too expensive. I think the TypeR 22mm might be too big with my smaller Ls front bar. The car is also a 4 door so there is already more weight over the rear than an R.

Steve91

Why do you want more front bar? Are you not getting enough understeer already?

Upgrade the rear bar first and drive the car to see how it handles before you buy a bigger front bar.

solo-x

yeah, big front bars ALWAYS increase understeer. they also make steering response slower. it's really a waste to use one, since the rear of the car does ALL the roll control.

if you really want a larger front bar and all the benefits that come with it, a gs-r/itr front bar will fit your car. and it will only set you back about $130 or so. ironic that nobody wants to put a part on their car that was found on a factory, fwd drive, street tire equipped car that could pull a healthy .95 g's on a skid pad. how horribly it must have pushed!

nate

sfr4dr

You have to remember that my car is a 4 door integra and compared to Steve91's crx or a 2dr integra there is more weight over the rear of the car. As it is with the stock bars and other mods the back end steps out if I let off or brake mid turn. I don't want to get the big rear and have it be too big for the ls front. What do you think about a 19mm rear and the stock front with ES bushings.

jc836

The ADDCO on my CRX was a very easy project-all we did was remove all of the stock components put the u-shaped retainers on the mounts and marked and then drilled new bolt holes. Then the install itself using the kit with polyurethane bushings rather than rubber. You can order direct from ADDCO or from Summit Racing. You will need to tell them which bushing kit you want. So far the 19mm rear bar works great.
I have not installed front bars on the CRX or Prelude as they do nothing for me-I wanted to reduce understeer and have. The Prelude uses a 25mm Neuspeed bar, btw. MY 96 CivicHB has ST bars on both ends and that was done because a CX comes without any to begin with.
Good luck with your setup.

vwong

I don't know about your setup, but I still feel that my GS-R Sedan doesn't have enough oversteer. I've already put stiffer springs (from 6kg/mm to 8kg/mm) in the rear. I also have Neuspeed 19mm rear swaybar. It's still not enough. I'm going with either an ITR 22mm rear swaybar or a custom 24mm rear swaybar. And I won't be touching the front swaybar at all.

sfr4dr

Your GSR's front bar is also 2-3mm larger than mine. So if I got a 19mm rear that would be equal to a gsr having a 21-22mm rear bar. Or if I got the 22mm typeR bar then that would be equal to a 24-25mm bar on a gsr for my ls. Do you see where I'm coming from? I also don't need as large of a bar because the car only gets autox a couple times a year. How much was the Neuspeed bar? Does it use the stock mounting brackets? I am still not the best driver so sometimes I will enter a turn too fast then I will realize I'm going too fast so I let off as an instinct then the back end slides a bit. I don't want the back end snapping out fast in a situation like this. Thanks for the insight.


[Modified by sfr4dr, 7:05 AM 9/27/2002]

Vitt1

How soon do you want to have the bar installed? I will be selling my Neuspeed bar but not sure when I will have time to take it out of the car. I'm working a lot of hours lately. Stock mounting points, already has chassis plates for reinforcement, poly bushings, and adjustable endlinks. Send me an email with an decent offer if you are interested.

Catch 22

You seem very reluctant to take this list of consistent advice, but I'll throw mine in anyway.

Don't put a bigger front bar on the car. It will tend to want to lift the inside front, thus reducing front traction.

19 to 22mm tends to work well on the rear of Integras. 24 to 26mm for those of us that like 'em loose.

solo-x

interesting. my 24mm front bar on my civic must be reducing so much traction. i must have the inside wheelspinning like crazy. or not. for autocross, a stiffer front bar will speed transitions and make the car turn in quicker. for road racing you might not want it, but for autocross you definitely do.

nate

Catch 22

Whatever.
The really fast national level FWD autocrossers around here remove the front bar in most cases. The ones who leave it on run a HUGE rear bar to keep the car flat and keep the inside front planted.
So unless you're running a big assed rear bar and/or high spring rates, you are lifting your inside front whether you realize it or not. Or maybe you're just going really slow.

But hey, what the hell do a few national champions know about autocrossing.

JeffS

Nate, you would stand a much better chance of making your point if you'd leave off the first sentence of each of your posts.

Anyway... I'm currently running a GSR front bar with a 22mm rear bar on my hatch. I've yet to start doing a lot of experimenting with the setup, but I really don't forsee myself taking the GSR bar off...

solo-x

yeah, but it's so annoying to hear stuff like "always" and "never" because there are so few things in car setup that follow a black and white rule. i run the itr/gsr bar on the front of my coupe, with a 22mm rear bar. i have absolutely no problems with wheel spin coming off of turns, nor do i have any loss of grip. which surprised me since before the itr bar i actually tested (huh, go figure i'm speaking from experience) my car with the stock front bar and with no bar at all. yes, the car did rotate better in both cases, but it slalomed like crap and i had huge nasty inside tire spin problems without any bar at all. and lastly, of the top 10 sts cars at topeka i can't think of one which DIDN'T have a front sway and i think only half of them had the stock front bar. 99% of car setup advice on the internet is directed towards road racing. most of that advice was developed when race cars used bias ply tires instead of radials. and all of it assumes that you have close to an ideal setup to start with. keep the "always" and "never" comments out of the setup advice and i'll play nice.

nate
who beleive it or not LIKES helping others go faster.

Catch 22

Nate,
Think about how a sway bar works. Just the basics.

Think about all those pics you've seen of FWD cars picking up the inside rear tire. Why is that? What is picking up that tire? Is it anti-gravitational?
No, it's the rear sway bar. That link to the outside rear tire.

Now, with your front sway bar attached, jack up one side of your car until the front tire leaves the ground. Now disconnect it and jack it up again. Note how the front tire stays on the ground longer???

This isn't intended to be a black and white example. Just a simplistic way to prove a point. Swaybars work in conjunction with each other and you will find very few cases in a FWD car where a larger front bar won't dictate an even larger rear bar to keep the inside front planted.
Now where the hell is that great pic of Blake Meredith's CRX at CMP... With the inside rear 6" in the air but the inside front nice and planted??? Yeah... no front bar.
You can ignore this input if you choose. No skin off my ***.

Scott, who runs the stock GSR front bar on open, fast road courses and disconnects it for tighter, technical courses and occassional autoX.

Watkinsm3

Hey nate... how's it going?

I'm gonna try and keep this from becoming a war so I'll keep my statement as simple as possible...
I only question your attitude about this not your car prep or driving. You are allowed to stand by your setup and obviously you've proven that yes indeed you can be fast (BTW- Good job at Nats) with a big front bar. My thoughts on the subject are : maybe you could be faster still? I run the wrong springs rates (higher in the front) and actually had a long talk with truechoice about why I would use them (well not that long but still...). It may come down to this... I may actually be faster with a slower setup or slower with a faster setup because of comfort factor.

Oh hell... I walked away from my computer and now I lost my point....

Doctor CorteZ

THIS is your problem.

NOT the car but the driver , any FWD car will rotate when you drive near the limit and lift or brake.

take a driving class and see if you wanna change anyhting after being shown a couple things by an instructor.

solo-x

it is possible that the car could be faster. i won't argue that since i don't have the time or money to test _every_ possible combination. however, i don't think removing the front bar is going to make it faster. if indeed i was getting traction problems on the inside front i would look into it, but since i had more traction problems without the front then i have had with the front bar i'd venture to guess it isn't too big of a problem. keep in mind, the itr uses the same front bar and most guys that track the itr's keep the bar in the car. can a car be fast without a front bar? there is no doubt in my mind that it is possible. can a car be fast with a big front bar? again, no doubt in my mind that it is possible. what it really comes down to is driver style, driver preference, and overall car setup, which is what i think matt was getting at. the statement "why do you want a bigger front bar? what, your car doesn't push enough already?" annoys me because there is a lot more behind a car that pushes in a turn then just its front sway bar.

nate

allenp

Sorry to jump in here, I hope I'm not out of line...

Is it possible, Nate, that your traction problems while running without the front bar were a result of running out of suspension travel due to body roll? I may be incorrect here, so please tell me if I'm wrong, but I recall that in cases of extreme suspension travel, one can hit the bump stops, which would suddenly, and dramatically, increase the roll stiffness in the front, resulting in the traction loss?

Just a thought...

vwong

Nate, what rate springs do you run? Since I don't know what you have, I'm guessing that your front springs might be a little on the soft side, therefore a bigger front swaybar could've helped.

solo-x

the loss of traction from the inside front was due to body roll. but not hitting the outside bump stop, rather the inside front was in full droop. springs can't control body roll at the same rate that sway bars can. since i drive the car on the street and i race on street tires, i couldn't go really high with the springs to keep the body roll down. by really high i mean somewhere in the 800-900lb range to keep the car anywhere near somewhat flat. even then, my spring rates are far from light. my front springs are 600lbs which does a good job of keeping the front end geometry from doing weird things. the way i see it, sway bars work diagnolly, so the front bar keeps the rear tire down. the rear bar keeps the front tire down. but if the front bar doesn't keep the rear down, the rear can't keep the front down. that's my opinion on car setup, wrong as it may be it's served me well so far. now if only i could get the driver to show up every weekend.......

nate

sfr4dr

I'm running H&R OE sport springs and AGX shocks now. Do you think upgrading to some stiffer and better balanced springs would be a better option? Maybe GC at 350/350. One of the main things I want is better steering responce. That should decrease the roll and increase my steering response. I just got new tires AVS ES100 form the old AVSi's and it feels like I lost some steering response. It does however feel like my overall grip increased. It doesn't seem to make sense but that is how the car feels now.