neema110

after having my gs4 for about 6months or so i am not ready to do some real upgrades, and one of the things that i want to fix is the body roll, i would appreciate any input i can get from anyone to see with you all have done to correct the body roll that you experiance on a gs, i have been looking at both strut bars and sway bars, i would appreciate it if anyone could tell me which of those would be better, and if you could also recomend a brand too i would appreciate it, i basically want to have better handling without compromising the smoothness of my car, is that possible, and if so how??
Thank you
Neema

rominl

iTrader: (4)

sway bars, nuff said. it's the single mod that helps body roll and handling most. in the past the trd race sways were pretty much your only choice, but now there is daizen sways too. both are same prices, seems like daizen is better from those who have owned both.

for trd, talk to steve (supratrd) about it
for daizen, click on our sponsors.

Hameed

Hi Rominl,

So the Diazen sways are better than the TRD sways? Have you heard that quite a bit from guys who have owned both? Why is that? Are they stiffer or is it something else?

I am contemplating putting on H&R springs/Bilstein sport shocks on my 99 GS400 rather than the L-tuned setup - for two reasons - the H&R offer a slightly lower drop - 1.4 as opposed to 1 inch and the Bilstein sport shocks are stiffer than the L-tuned ones. What are the pros and cons to that? I am definitely not interested in doing the coil over thing - not brave enough to mess with the stock car to that extent.

Is it worth doing the H&R/Bilstein instead of the L-tuned setup? How much difference does it really make to the handling? If it does not make that much difference to the handling, then maybe it is better to go the L-tuned route. DavesGS4 seems to think it is not worth it, just go the L-tuned route instead. I want to hear opinions of other seasoned GS owners before I commit myself as I do not want to redo anything.

I am not concerned about the warranty or better support from the dealer as the car is no longer under warranty. My warranty ran out on Dec. 4th 2002.

Thanks your insights on this.....

lexforlife

iTrader: (7)

hey hameed

let me take the time to comment on this subject for you.

my friend and i who live across the street from each other who both have gs 400 one 98 and the other 99. we have tried and tested various things for our cars (expensive habit) and found a few things we both could rec.


First we too were concerned about everyday driveability (we live in south florida with very smooth roads) and wanted to balance spirited driving (and i do mean agressive) with maintaining nice smooth ride

we tried H &R spring set up with Bilstein shocks handled out of this world but god forbid there was a penny or pebble in the road had to put on my back brace for the jolting not happy with that set up so took it off on sold it on ebay just last week.

went back to stock springs and new oem shocks (by the oem shocks are made by kyb). what we did next is add Rmm polished front strut bar . Man i tell you made huge diff in front end feel and basically just about got rid of front end body float and really looks outstanding in the engine bay , next we added cusco rear strut bar which really trianglated the whole thing. then we bought from todd at tm engineering just urethene sway bar busings and got rid of the flimsey rubber ones and between the bars front and back and bushings and dont forget to upgrade to staggered tire set up 18x8 front and 18x9 rear with 275/35/18 tires for the rear (nice and beefy) anything above 18in will feel concrete like to us at least, voila its done .


To sum up oem ride is retained with no ride degradation just tigher not firmer but when you point the nose anywhere regardless of speed it goes with no argument. The whole car is planted but well well mannered in every aspect.

lowering the car would of course improve handling even more but then again i am not on the indy track everyday , all we wanted was to truly control those 300+ horses without any song and dance.

heres out 2cents worth about retaining nice lexus like ride and putting susp under manners.

please do remember we are in florida with very smooth roads and still did not like the feel and the lowered spring rate, and i dont care which brand you use its just common sense to say anything with a lower spring rate will degrade ride quality its just that simple.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

Diazen sways apparently have more forgiving urethane bushings than the TRD ones making for a more comfortable ride.

I have the TRD sways and love them. My car handles very flat.

lexforlife

iTrader: (7)

trd sways are very very stiff great for racing applications and do not come with urethene bushings they come with rubber because their bars are stiff enough.

daizons from tm engineering comes with ure bushings and give a more compliant ride but will degrade the ride a bit still but not as much as trds will

rominl

iTrader: (4)

i am in a hurry to work so i can't type a lot. but basically trd is using rubber bushing, so they had to make the bar VERY stiff, so stiff that it's affecting the ride. but daizen uses urethane, much harder than rubber so they can take away from stiffness from the sway itself.

but again, i don't own both, i have trd, so that's the theory and what i heard. no time to do search now but if you do search on daizen, you can see comments by people who own both. i believe there are 2 or so

Hameed

After much agonizing, I have decided that it is best to go the L-tuned route for springs/shocks, TRD sway bars to get the best compromise in handling and ride comfort.

Thanks to all those seasoned GS drivers who have given me their valuable feedback!!

Parts on order now.

GS400_PUSHER

Don't worry you will love the setup!

MrSypher

Yeah the problem that you wanted solved is pretty much solved...