So don't bitch at me about searching, i couldn't find anything.
Anyhow, in my quest to understand sway bars I am asking this.
Is it bigger front sway bar, and smaller rear sway bar or vice versa for improved handling?
How hard is sway bar installation?

 

Define improved.
You probably are not finding anything because your question is too damn vague. Are you trying induce/introduce more oversteer, understeer or obtain a neutral ride? Then you have to ask yourself Will it be suitable for how the car is used? How much oversteer/understeer? Then you need to figure out how big of a bar you will need to get the results you want.

Hard? How skilled are you? Again, a vague question.

 

I'm attempting to obtain a ride that would be rather fun in corners.
Whether this would require oversteer or understeer I'm not sure.
All I know is I want to be able to take this car to a track, and actually be competitive, but still be able to drive it on the streets, and have a little fun on the backroad curves around here too.
And as far as mechanical skills go, I'm mechanically inclined, but I also haven't ever tried anything like that.

 

Then you need to start contemplating the suspension as a whole. Good shocks with adequate spring rates coupled with a decent sized sway bar. It also all depends on your driving style. Some people prefer understeer. Some oversteer. For the track oversteer is preferred in most cases but then your question is HOW MUCH oversteer?

I had a stiff set of springs, no sway bar, and could take some pretty badass curves at speed and never feel like the car was getting away from me. Not many could keep up with me. It's a personal thing.

You have a lot of research to do.

 

Sway bars limit traction at the wheels they're attached to. That's the most important thing to understand. Please re-read that to let it sink in.

So now you're asking "Why limit traction?" Well, if you have a sway bar on the rear of the car in a turn you limit the grip and promote the car to rotate as it very VERY slightly wants to skid. That's limiting traction. The same goes for the front.

Thinking in those terms you would NOT want such a huge front bar because that would limit the traction on your drive wheels which are also your turning wheels. You'll experience more understeer than you currently have.

Most people prefer to balance their FWD car out a little by adding a large rear sway bar to counter the tendency to understeer from the factory.

 

just fyi, most fwd cars come from the factory with understeer built in. understeer is when the front wheels want to slide, this is the safest setup because in an emergency, you can just let off the gas and steer, and the front wheels will regain grip. they typically have a front sway, and either no rear or a small rear sway. front springs will be softer than rear springs usually. this improves ride comfort. typically fwd feel better in handling terms if they are neutral or have some oversteer. neutral means when the car begins to slide, all 4 wheels slide more or less at the same time. oversteer means that the rear wheels slide first. this is better for handling but also can be dangerous. when you lose the back end of the car, it is very hard to recover. it basically makes the cars balance more like a rwd.

I have a stock front sway bar, 22mm i think, and a type r rear, also 22mm, with the ASR subframe brace to prevent tearout. a thick rear sway can tear the subframe on our cars because they are pretty thin and werent meant to handle a big sway bar. Also this setup is fairly neutral but will definitely kick the back out under certain condition. I have come close to losing it a couple times.

 

I love it when answers on here are actually useful :D Thanks guys
Now that being said,
My car will probably never actually see a track, as much as I want it too, and the only high handling situations around here it will see will be backroad curves that I love to play in.
Now most of my friends are telling me, lower it with strut bars, and it'll be just fine.
But I wanna step it up, to see if sway bars make that huge of a difference. I don't have a problem using stock sway bars off something else, (gsr, or itr or what have you), and I also don't have a problem picking up a subframe brace to prevent tearing as you said.
As far as my driving style, I like to get the gas in the curves, and stay in the same lane without drifting to far in either direction.
It usually goes: Approach curve, punch in, get gas in curve, come out faster on other side. Never leaving the lane that I started in.

 

Skip the sway bars and get the best tires you can afford. They will give you more of a benefit with the driving you described.

 

So strut bars, lowering, and good tires it is.
I'm also probably gonna put a Beaks lower tie bar on there, I don't know if it helps any, but I think they're sex lol
I also gotta go find a x brace that goes behind the seats

 

this. without good rubber, the rest of this stuff is useless

skip the beaks and the x brace, use the money on tires.

agree

 

And if you really want to be competitive in autocross you'll run stock class and do 0 mods to your car outside of some good tires. I think stock class allows upgraded shocks. Swaybars/springs etc puts you in ST in a jiffy and you're running with much faster cars and more experienced drivers.

 

why not drive without "sway" bars? and make changes or "tune" the suspension from that baseline. i ran without bars last year and didn't have one complaint. also with various other people riding with me, i didn't have anyone say "this needs a bar." i did about 5 track events last year and around the same amount of autocrosses.

i added a rear bar(14mm) this year due to budgeting and buying rear springs used that weren't the "weight" i wanted. i already had the bar so it felt into the budget of "roll stiffness".

 

I can understand that sway bars may be unnecessary on track-focused cars, but for daily drivers they add roll stiffness and can be used to tune understeer without compromising ride quality. I think a swaybar is a great upgrade for 99% of people.

 

Swaybars really only become unnecessary on track cars when you're getting really high rates like 600F/800R

 

look at almost all "true" race cars. tell me how many of them run without bar/s.

also "tuning understeer" on your daily driver makes no sense to me. if you are "understeering" in your daily then you might want to get off the gas a little more. or you could trail brake since you are "pushing the limits" on the street.

 

true race cars you're right. The higher the spring rate I can only imagine you need to keep upping the size of the swaybar to get the appropriate effect. I should recall my statement and change from "unnecessary" to "less impactful."

a 22mm rear swaybar will do more for 350 rear rates than it will for 800 rear rates. You would need to upgrade the diameter of the bar to get the same effect.

 

correct. but springs and bars control different "weights" on a car. i'll let that one fester for awhile.

 

Change "tuning understeer" to "tuning oversteer" or "tuning out understeer," as they all mean the same thing in the context of my sentence, and understand my point fully.

BTW, you aren't using "understeering" in an unusual context, so it's not necessary to set it off in quotes. Also, nobody in this thread said "pushing the limits" so I'm not sure who you're quoting there. Did you just find the quotation mark key on your keyboard and decide to practice with it? Or did you think it would help you to make your "point" more rudely?

 

i don't like using the terms oversteering or understeering, that is the reason for quotations. i would rather use the term rotation because to me over/understeer is a matter of opinion.

and if you are "understeering" through a turn on the street i am assuming you are "pushing the limits" or just flat out not paying attention.

 

Why would strut bars be a waste of money?
And I honestly couldn't tell you which I prefer on the streets to comment on the whole understeer, oversteer thing. Cause I'm not too sure i know what they are.
So noooo opinion on that one.

 

And I'm not skipping out on them, because being a ricer, I do like the way they look.
Sue me for that comment, but hey its my car.
I'm just attempting to find out whether or not I should run a sway bar or not

 

Sway bar? yes. They're generally a great bang/buck handling increase.

If you don't have good tires, buy those first.

 

In my opinion, since you are still a beginner, I would start off with some Hankook RS3 tires and stock suspension...to get the hang of it.

Nex t part1: I would upgrade the coilovers, with something you can adjust camber with as well.

part2: you MUST get a corner balance alginment done. This will adjust your coils so they actually are adjusted to your cars weight. Along with the corner balance alignment includes a custom camber/caster/toe adjustment. I would aim for a bit of negative camber in the front -1.0 - -1.5, and a little less in the back.

After that, I would invest in some sway bars. Size I am unsure of, like everyone says, once you get some seat time, you'll know what sway size to go with. The bigger the front, the less understeer you'll have.

Good luck!

 

And why is adjusting camber so important? A coilover with adjustable camber is either A: a cheap piece of Taiwanese junk, or B: An overpriced, overkilling quality suspension component.

Lowering the car along will give you the approximate camber you're speaking of.

I'm lowered about 2.5" front 2.0" rear and I've got 1.6 front camber and 1.4 rear camber. No camber kit.

 

depends on what car op has. because he hasn't stated what car he does have.

and i don't think it's a waste of money. as long as you get one that is mounted to a area where you would see some flexing. say for all civics 88-00. instead of mounting the front tower bar on the top of the strut/shock, mount it on to the upper control arm bolts. since you dont really see any real flexing coming from the top of the strut/shock because it kinda just floats there, no real stress to the frame because the strut/shock/spring is already taking out the stress. now the mounting point where the upper control arm sits, that's a different story. sure the strut/shock/spring would take out most of the brunt force, but lower the car and increase spring weight, pretty sure it puts a lot of stress on those two points of the upper control arm.

shouldn't really need one for the lower front subframe, but if a integra comes with one, there must be a point.

for the rear, the upper rear control arm gets pushed and pulled. gets worse when you lower the car. only thing is that the way it's mounted in most honda's, it doesn't really help. if you could mount it lower, closer to the upper rear control arms, i can see it being worth it.

rear lower tie bar, not needed imop. it's solid, and flat. what's gonna flex down there? sub frame brace like a ASR is just to prevent tear out, for the subframe.

op, it would help to know what car you have, but in my opinion get a good size front bar, and a small rear. for a street car, always go for a car that understeers. it's safer that way. just lift off the throttle and you'll be safe. if you have a car that oversteers, once it oversteers, and you're beyond the point of recovery, you're going for a ride. at least with understeer, you're going in a straight line.