Hi all,
I posted a similar thread in the suspension forum but maybe this is a better crowd for my question

If I want more rotation out of my car, is there a difference in if I achieve it with stiffer rear springs or a bigger rear sway bar?

current setup
93 eg hatch. Canyon and track use.

Tein Basic Coilovers 10k front 6k Rear
Front sway 1 1/8
Rear sway ITR 23? mm
205-50-15 square setup

My options are to
1- increase the rear spring rate and send the shocks in for revalving
pros: ?? educate me
cons: would make the ride super harsh. I would never get my money back out of them if I ever parted the car out

2- get the ASR 32mm rear sway bar. I don't know what wall thickness to choose. I saw a thread where the thinnest wall on the stiffest setting yields 850lb/inch of spring rate and my shady math tells me the thickest wall would yield around 1850lb/inch
pros: I get spring rate adjustability by adjusting the position of the sway bar if I add aero or if I just want fine tuning. I can sell the parts if I part the car out.
cons: ?? educate me

3- disconnect or downgrade front sway
pros: more mechanical grip
cons: less response and probably more likely to spin at higher speeds


Long shot, but has anyone calculated their actual wheel rates with springs and sways combined, and compared them to proven setups.

Also I would like to stay with a square tire setup if possible, unless someone absolutely tells me I should get bigger fronts. I'll have to cut my pretty fenders

 

Stiffer springs instead of bigger sway: better response, keeps wheels more independent (good for mid-corner bumps), less comfortable on the street, harder to tune (vs adjustable sway bar).
Reverse for bigger sway instead of stiffer springs.

 

majority of the guys i race with run less spring and more bar and no front bar. when i bought my car it had 1200 pound rear springs 1000 pound front and stock sway bars, even with appropriately valved shocks it was terrible. removing the front bar really doesnt change anything if you set the rear up correctly, i gained significant front grip.

 

Can you please clarify what was terrible about it? Thanks.

 

If you use only the rear spring rate to balance the car, you are more likely to get an undesirable mismatch in the heave frequencies front and rear. So choose your spring rates about where you want for heave and then use the rear bar to balance the weight transfer.

In my 2400 lb-with-driver EM1, I am using 650 lb/in front springs, 700 lb/in rear springs, and the ASR hollow 32 mm, 0.120" wall rear bar with a 22 mm (EX) front bar.

 

So you have a longer wheelbase and more rear weight bias. But with that in mind, how's the balance of your car at low and high speed? Do you have aero? Are you running square tire sizes?

Thanks for the input

 

No aero, square tires 205/50-15. R888R or NT-01. Balance is pretty good. It improved when I changed the front bar from 25 or 26 mm to 22 mm. I'm considering stiffening the rear bar a little. It was at full soft last time I drove the car (last fall). I have a track day next Friday so I'll see what I think then. (Over the winter I put in an MFactory LSD and 4.9 final drive.)

 

Oh hell ya. I'll settle for a b16 trans and torsen

 

 

That sounds very aggressive . What wall thickness?

 

i would just go with a bigger/stiffer rear sway bar and drop the front sway bar. it will be alot cheaper and it wont **** up your ride quality and easier to install.

i dont track my ep3 civic but i am running an rsx type s rear sway bar with no front sway and the turn in improved dramatically and it cost me about a 100 bucks due to having to buy new endlinks in addition to the new bar.

changing the springs sounds like a P.I.T.A

 

sorry, thought i replied. with the massive rear springs even a relatively smooth track felt like it was all potholes. it sort of turned in, but it never came close to feeling like it had any lateral grip, skipping across the track and ready to snap at any second...the over a curb characteristics were so bad i bent a shock shaft. my setup now is:

koni race shocks
1000lb front spring
700lb rear spring
no front bar
ASR 32mm rear bar (0.120 wall) - ranging from medium to full stiff
-2.8 front camber with zero toe
-1.8 rear camber with zero toe

car is very neutral and very controllable, goes where i point it and doesnt kill the tires over a 30 minute sprint race.

 

before buying stuff try introducing a little tow out in the rear. i run a ej1 with 10kg in the front and 8kg in the rear, i use a 97 ek sedan front sway and no rear sway bar. -3 degrees of front camber and -2 in the rear. i run .28degrees of toe out in the front and .20 degrees of toe in the rear on 225/45/15 bfg rivals. i can ALWAYS get the rear to rotate anytime i want, especially trail braking. when i want to get more rotation ill change the rear toe to be more toe out. this is the first time ive hear of a hatch having rotation issues.

 

Changing rear sway would put me out of the class I want to be in so stiffer springs for me. Otherwise, id go bar.

 

Thanks for the feedback! I'll be trying a 900 lb/in front, 785 lb/in rear combo this Summer. Let's see how it works out and whether I can play with the sway bars to make it work.

 

Holy crap that sound really loose. Must be a thrilling ride.

 

Is this the setup for your gsr? May have to try something like this out.

 

yes, thats what is currently on the car. i just had the rear shocks revalved, for the back half of last season i was running valving for double the spring rate that was on there so things should be even better this year. first event is coming up next weekend so ill have a real impression soon.

I do also carry 800lb springs in the trailer, i will probably test them at some smoother tracks this year just to see what it does. however i really do like the way it has slight roll and you can feel it grip up as weight transfers.

 

On a related note, I was just reading the Narita dogfight and found it interesting to learn that the Tsukuba record holder Civics do not run any sway bars. It's all spring. Not saying that's the way to go (don't know enough to say one way or the other), but it's interesting for sure.

 

 

 

All the Japan-built EK hatches have the stamped steel arms. Maybe a JDM importer could get you a front sway bar from an EK3, which is 22 mm. I could ship you one from Europe, but the cost may be prohibitive.

 

 

I'm not sure that they're that sophisticated. The Garage Works Civic set the Tsukuba NA FWD record using older Tein HTs, which are based on the (decent but older) Tein monotube from the late 90's. They don't have the new pistons, the shimmed bypass valves, or the hydraulic bump stops that they have in their newer sets. You could probably reproduce the same characteristics with one of the decent street/track monotubes that are out there (e.g. Fortune Auto 500s) for under $1500.

My guess is that they just did a whole lot of on-track testing and that setup just happened to be what worked. I have seen cases where cars worked best without them. For example our endurance racing CRX originally came with 325 lb-f/in springs front and rear with no sway bars and our drivers loved it. I thought it was weird to have no antisway so I added a small rear. They all hated it and the car went slower, even with our most experienced drivers behind the wheel. We run DMS coilovers on it with much stiffer springs now but to this day, no anti-sways.

 

Regarding the dampers, the article says: "they work very closely with Tein and have developed their own Work SPL, external reservoir coilover based off of the RS, that is proprietary to the shop."

The article is here: https://thenaritadogfight.com/2018/0...anguard-of-ff/