GSteg

iTrader: (15)

Michelin Pilot Sport A/S tires are compromising. They're good all around tires but I would not want them if performance is the main focus. Adding sways will not help. Sway bars work by taking away traction from the end that it's on. If your rear end is breaking loose and it's not a tire problem, then you'll want to decrease the spring rate of the rear sway. If it's still not enough, then you'll want to explore with a larger front sway bar. Still, it's your tires that are probably holding you back.

huch

I just replaced my stock shocks which were on stock springs (sports package). The left shock was done like dinner! The right one was still okay. I replaced them at about 75,000 km or 46,560 miles. Now I'm using Tokico HP blues for the front pair. I suspect most stock Tokico's should last longer than this....potholes in my city are a problem to say the least.

Finally my car is back to normal.

RocketGuy3

iTrader: (1)

Yeah, I definitely agree that my tires are the main problem (which is why I brought them up), but I still don't have a super high level of confidence in the feel of my car when taking a hard turn. It feels like it's twisting all over the place.

Also, if/when I get the sways, I will be installing both ends (front and rear), not just rear. Combined with the lowered ride height and slightly stiffened dampening that I already have, I think that should help compensate at least somewhat for the weaksauce tires.

GSteg

iTrader: (15)

I would hold off on the sways even if you're getting a full set. If the tires you have now are not gripping as much as you like, it's going to be even more finicky at the limits. When you put on stiffer sway bars, you're effectively increasing the total spring rate of your suspension. I much rather have real control (grippy tires) rather than pseudo control (feels-like-it-handles-on-rail).

To put this into perspective, if you're running the quarter mile and you have trouble getting traction off the line, is adding more power the solution? Similarly, if your rear end is breaking loose, increasing the spring rate (via sways) will get you nowhere except maybe more sliding..

RocketGuy3

iTrader: (1)

Well by preventing the chassis from twisting as much, don't sway bars also keep your wheels/tires flatter on the ground when turning? Thereby increasing the contact patch of your tires during steady state cornering? Unless of course you had them so stiff and/or took the turn so hard that you lifted the inside tires or something.

I mean I see the problem with your drag racing scenario, but I guess I don't entirely see the connection here.

my95tsi

iTrader: (2)

Yeah but i'm also not on standard shocks like you are. My car came with the sport suspension so I utilized the factory sport shocks which are Tokico's. Mine will likely last just as long as the F Sport Bilstein shocks. I have 10,000 miles on them so far.

Wunko

I said the same thing as you: nice drop with less wheel gap while being able to survive speed bumps. I ended up going with springs.

GSteg

iTrader: (15)

Sway bars don't prevent your chassis from flexing. They make the suspension act more like a live axle rather than independent.

When you have traction issue, adding more power won't get you off the line faster. If your brakes are locking up on a hard brake, slapping on larger brakes won't stop you any faster. Neither will stiffening up the suspension if you're breaking traction earlier than you'd like. In NASCAR, Formula 1, or any other racing sanctions, it's a common practice to remove the sway bar, at least the rear, whenever it rains to restore some traction. In other words "Rain tires on, sway bars off."


All I'm saying is that you already know the Michelins are holding you back. You don't magically add traction by adding more suspension parts. Coefficient of friction between the tire and the ground is king and must be respected otherwise all other modifications will go down the drain.

RocketGuy3

iTrader: (1)

Oh, I just realized I had anti-sway bars mixed up with strut braces. I think the latter is what fights the twisting of the chassis.

Still, I know you're probably getting frustrated with me by now, heh, but I'm still not sure I follow your analogy. When your tires are losing traction during acceleration or braking, I agree/understand that adding more power or bigger brakes will not help, but that is because those modifications don't have any effect on the car's ability to grip the road. On the other hand, I thought the entire point of most suspension modifications (including anti-sway bars) WAS to improve the car's ability to hold the road. In the case of sway bars, by preventing your car from rolling as much, doesn't that distribute the car's weight and road-holding force more evenly between your left and right tires, giving you more traction and more control?

I never thought there was any "magic" here, but I suppose I may have (and may still) misunderstood exactly how this modification would benefit me...

Patman3

From my understanding, sways make the car feel more stable because - like you mention - they get rid of the body roll and make the suspension less independent. Think of it this way, all those forces that were causing your unwanted body roll are going somewhere, they can't just disappear after all. Instead of being translated into the unpleasant roll motion you can picture the sways as translating all that extra lateral force from your car body directly to your tires.

You are right that most suspension mods are designed to improve the car's ability to hold, but at the end of the day your tires are still the only interface between the road and your car, and as the saying goes: a chain is only as strong as it's weakest link.

Do note that nobody here is saying that you won't experience better "feel" when driving with these (in fact, I think this is probably one of the most noticeable mods from what I read), but GSteg is just reminding you not to forget the biggest suspension "mod" you can do: good sticky tires.

GSteg

iTrader: (15)

Car modding is a big big big gray area. It's not black and white at all because whatever you do to your car for one purpose, it'll affect something else.

When you add sway bars, you're increasing the load on the outside tires while decreasing load on the inside tire. Here is the kicker: Increasing the load on the outside tires will decrease the coefficient of friction. When you fall below a certain level of friction, your tires start to slip. Now imagine putting on a larger sway bar in the rear where you increase load. Your tires are already slipping right now because they're falling below the threshold for grip. If you get tires that grip more, you're essentially raising the curve, allowing you to transfer more load before it gives out.

The 240SX guys have found out how to restore traction in the rear: they removed the rear sway bar. Remember how the earlier generation of Honda S2000 are notorious for snap oversteer? Honda remedied this by going with wider tires and a softer rear spring and sway bar. If you want, you can remove your rear bar and push your car hard around an empty parking lot. See if you noticed anything.


It drives me nuts whenever I see people put on excessively stiff springs, sway bars, and then put on the crappiest tires with ridiculous camber. Actually it doesn't. It's only when they claim their cars handle better because they 'feel' it. In dangerous situations, those cars can be a handful. Anyways, rants are over. Just get better tires if you're looking for more traction. Stiffer rear end is not the way to go.

Graph provided by: http://historicgt.8.forumer.com/a/po...c=1342&start=0

RocketGuy3

iTrader: (1)

Hmmm... now you're making me wonder what benefit stiffer sway bars (or just a stiffer chassis) have at all, haha. If they increase load on the outside tire, and decrease load on the inside tire, that seems incredibly counter productive, and seems to blow what I thought was the whole point of preventing body roll in the first place. So is the only advantage of stiffer bars that it makes the car "feel" more steady and under control? What practical advantage is there?

I know people have reported better results on the skidpad with the F-Sport sway bars installed on the IS, though. Apparently going from .84g to .90g, which is significant, so I'm sure that there's still something I'm not understanding.

... I'm starting to question how I did so well in my physics classes.

GSteg

iTrader: (15)

There are benefits to using stiffer sways, only if your tires are capable of handling the load. When you increase tire grip, you have more headroom to play with.

Remember that you are running aftermarket coilovers where the springs are stiffer than OEM. The coils themselves may be even stiffer than a set of aftermarket sways on an OEM car (w/original springs).

There are a lot of advantages to having sway bars, but you must use them the way they were meant to be, not just to add random stiffness and reduction in body roll.

I will get back to this thread tomorrow.

RocketGuy3

iTrader: (1)

What I mean is that you were saying that stiffer bars will increase the load on the outside tires (which is the opposite effect I thought they would have), which will decrease the coefficient of friction there. So it sounds like from what you're saying, regardless of what tires you have on your car, stiffer bars will cause your tires to lose grip more quickly than they otherwise would. In that sense, stickier tires may grip better, but they would grip better still without stiffer sways.

EDIT: Just so we're clear, none of this is me trying to argue. Just me trying to understand. I don't claim to know enough to try to argue here, heh.