fatpride111

is there a certain way to figure out how big of a sway bar is recommened on a certain set up?

i have a 93 hatch, with 450F/380R GC/koni, and went road racing 2 weeks ago, and had A LOT of body roll, i could just feel the car tip over, and my rear tires kept going out (got one of my spin outs on video )

i was told that the reason my tires lost traction was because i have no weight in the back. i was thinking about just doing a gsr sway bar, or if i can get enough mula, do the asr frame brace w/ ITR sway bar combo, along with adding some strut bars, front and rear.

oh, btw, my tires were DZ101's up front @ 32-35 psi, and FM901's rear also at 32-35 psi

some domestic guys have just told me, the bigger the sway bar, the better...im not too sure it works that way.

any help appreciated

SleeperGSR

more or less the guys you were talking to were right. You want to make the car have a predictable oversteer for what ever you are doing. One of the ways to acomplish this is by a larger sway bar in the rear. Too big tho and you will more of a snap oversteer which is bad.

fatpride111

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by SleeperGSR &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">more or less the guys you were talking to were right. You want to make the car have a predictable oversteer for what ever you are doing. One of the ways to acomplish this is by a larger sway bar in the rear. Too big tho and you will more of a snap oversteer which is bad. </TD></TR></TABLE>
i have BAD under steer atm, and my spring rates arent helping any. i havent read up all that much on suspension, and road coursing, but more or less all ive learned was from forza2 on my xbox; so assuming i get an ITR sway, & asr frame brace, it should help with my massive understeer?

Relic1

for those of us that think metric.
480/380 = 8k/6k


that's a relatively soft setup for the track but far from the softest I've seen or even used.

You didn't mention what front bar you have.... I'm going to guess you have one. If you don't get one it will help with body roll a lot, but at the same time will induce even more understeer.

A larger bar is not always better. You need a balance with the spring/shock rates. But it's difficult to tell what you'd like, everyone's driving style is different.

General speaking a 24mm front bar with a 22mm rear bar with a decent coilover setup will handle very well. If you're running parkinlot events you may want more steering, lower the front bar stiffness till you're happy.

SleeperGSR

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by fatpride111 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
i have BAD under steer atm, and my spring rates arent helping any. i havent read up all that much on suspension, and road coursing, but more or less all ive learned was from forza2 on my xbox; so assuming i get an ITR sway, & asr frame brace, it should help with my massive understeer?</TD></TR></TABLE>

believe it or not forza2 is pretty accurate. You're not going to be able to set up a car with test results from the game, but the principals are the same. You can learn alot. Go to barns and noble and pick up some books on suspension handling, there are tons out there that will help you learn alot. The key to a good set up is to balance the car to your driving style, you have to test and tune. it's expensive but will make a difference.

fatpride111

well, i wanted to set my car up for high speed turning, like for road coursing, and what not, which is why i went super soft in the rear, and mild up front.

would a gsr sway bar up front do me any good if i go with the ITR out back? or what would you recommend up front, since ive never even had the chance to do like a parkinglot autocross cone type of thing.

SleeperGSR

I would recomend starting with nothing up front and itr in the back. You will probably want someting more than the ITR as you get comfortable with rotation. I got a gsr that i do HPDE with, i have the stock bar up front and 24 in the rear. this isn't my first time but i'm not a pro either. I would suggest going to a few auto-x's and getting to know what the car feels like at a low speed when it starts to rotate before going to do it at high speed on a track. It may react different under braking oversteer than lift off oversteer. Main thing is you want to be comfortable that way you can learn and make the car better each time you go out. If you're just spinning in every corner you're not going to learn anything, same is true if you plow through every corner. Balance the car for you. When you go out try to fix things that you notice are wrong, either mechanicaly on the car or with your driving.

fatpride111

awesome, ill buy an asr framebrace, and itr sway bar soon, and see how it feels. theres RARELY any auto x events going on near me, but alot of twisty back roads, and i have little records ive set on each corner i could test this out on.

my main thing, is on some, i plow right through them, and other the rear end just wants to go out on me... more than anything, lack of traction out back, so ill have to experiement... whats stock on EG's anyway?

kommon_sense

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by fatpride111 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
oh, btw, my tires were DZ101's up front @ 32-35 psi, and FM901's rear also at 32-35 psi
</TD></TR></TABLE>

I think the fact that you had a lesser tire in the rear is part of the reason your rear end kept coming around on you.

While I think the ASR rear brace/sway is a good piece, I think it might make your problems with the rear end worse. It just doesn't seem like the right solution to your current problem. Have you had your car aligned? What were the settings?

Would also be interested in seeing the video of you spinning. It may be related to your driving style. Lifting off the throttle in a turn with a light rear end is a good way to get the rear end to come around on you... Or braking hard and turning before the car has settled... etc...

Relic1

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by SleeperGSR &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I would recomend starting with nothing up front and itr in the back.</TD></TR></TABLE>
to clarify, I hope you mean no change in the front (stock bar). Not no bar at all in the front.

No front bar and ITR rear bar, he'll be parting out the car very soon.

fatpride111

I had dz101s all the way around but one grew a boob and one shredded cause I was too low without rolled fenders (fixed). And I had 2 fm901s laying around so I threw them on, but the rear also went out on me when I had 4 matching kumhos, but I agree it can be my driving style, I am inexperienced, but tend to brake hard before a turn, go in coasting, half throttle-ish about 2/3 then full throttle coming out.

I'll have to look for the video, it was actually this guy In a vr4 recording, and I was about 2 cars ahead of him so you can't really see me driving that well, I'll post it up once I get a chance, I can't right now cause I'm Oman iPhone, but if you go on google, type "duTTch at impalafest" it should be the first one, I spin at at about 4:40. ( this was at Texas motorspeedway)