Stiffer front ARB (anti roll bar aka swaybar) will tend to improve steering response, but a few metres into the corner the car will undesteer more than with a softer front ARB. A stiffer front ARB will also cause the inside front wheel to unload more when exiting corners.
I've completely removed the front ARB on my CB7 and much prefer the reduction in understeer. This (removing front ARB) does affect turn in sharpness, but you can sharpen it back up by stiffening up the front Konis (and pumping up the tyres). Removing the front ARB causes a surprisingly small increase in body roll, but a significantly large reduction in understeer.
Typically, for front drive cars it's better to increase rear ARB stiffness as this reduces understeer.
Something worth noting with these Accords (CB7 / CD5), but seems to be esoteric knowledge; the two brackets that hold the rear ARB to the rear subframe are very soft and flex a lot (not the 'D' clamps that hold the 'D' bushes, I mean the two brackets that attach to the subframe with three bolts). This is more of a problem the stiffer the ARB is.
This bracket flex behaves very much like you have very very soft ARB rubber 'D' bushes, and even if you fit harder poly D bushes here you still have this bracket flexure causing the ARB to act (at least in the initial phase of roll where it affects steering and handling response most adversely) as if it were substantially softer than it actually is (even if you've fitted a stiffer aftermarket ARB). The only way to fix this it to take the brackets out and re-inforce them by welding in extra bracing and thickness to the existing brackets.
To make matters even worse, where the rear ARB attaches to the trailing arm is poorly engineered (unless you want to 'dull' steering / handling response, which the designer may have wanted to do considering these aren't intended to be 'sports' cars). This also causes the ARB to act as if it were less stiff than it actually is.
The problem is that the 'stud' on each trailing arm to which the ARB link attaches is not properly braced, and as loads are passed between the trailing arm and the ARB the manner in which the stud is attached to the trailing arm causes the trailing arm to flex (the metal actually twisting to some degree). To fix this requires a brace to be attached to the inner end of the 'stud' and to the bottom edge of the trailing arm (triangulating the inner stud end to the bottom of the trailing arm).
When I stiffened up all these brackets and mounts associated with the rear ARB, there was a very significant improvement in steering / handling response, and in initial body roll, i.e. body roll is significantly less especially at lesser cornering force (i.e. lower lateral acceleration), as well as at higher accelerations (though it's still too much at higher accelerations as it still needs a stiffer rear ARB).
I believe I found this on honda tech or some where and this might explain why the back end of my car is a bit sloppy or it has a small sway when going through a solemn or different kind of corners. I was wondering if anyone agreed or disagreed?
I've completely removed the front ARB on my CB7 and much prefer the reduction in understeer. This (removing front ARB) does affect turn in sharpness, but you can sharpen it back up by stiffening up the front Konis (and pumping up the tyres). Removing the front ARB causes a surprisingly small increase in body roll, but a significantly large reduction in understeer.
Typically, for front drive cars it's better to increase rear ARB stiffness as this reduces understeer.
Something worth noting with these Accords (CB7 / CD5), but seems to be esoteric knowledge; the two brackets that hold the rear ARB to the rear subframe are very soft and flex a lot (not the 'D' clamps that hold the 'D' bushes, I mean the two brackets that attach to the subframe with three bolts). This is more of a problem the stiffer the ARB is.
This bracket flex behaves very much like you have very very soft ARB rubber 'D' bushes, and even if you fit harder poly D bushes here you still have this bracket flexure causing the ARB to act (at least in the initial phase of roll where it affects steering and handling response most adversely) as if it were substantially softer than it actually is (even if you've fitted a stiffer aftermarket ARB). The only way to fix this it to take the brackets out and re-inforce them by welding in extra bracing and thickness to the existing brackets.
To make matters even worse, where the rear ARB attaches to the trailing arm is poorly engineered (unless you want to 'dull' steering / handling response, which the designer may have wanted to do considering these aren't intended to be 'sports' cars). This also causes the ARB to act as if it were less stiff than it actually is.
The problem is that the 'stud' on each trailing arm to which the ARB link attaches is not properly braced, and as loads are passed between the trailing arm and the ARB the manner in which the stud is attached to the trailing arm causes the trailing arm to flex (the metal actually twisting to some degree). To fix this requires a brace to be attached to the inner end of the 'stud' and to the bottom edge of the trailing arm (triangulating the inner stud end to the bottom of the trailing arm).
When I stiffened up all these brackets and mounts associated with the rear ARB, there was a very significant improvement in steering / handling response, and in initial body roll, i.e. body roll is significantly less especially at lesser cornering force (i.e. lower lateral acceleration), as well as at higher accelerations (though it's still too much at higher accelerations as it still needs a stiffer rear ARB).
I believe I found this on honda tech or some where and this might explain why the back end of my car is a bit sloppy or it has a small sway when going through a solemn or different kind of corners. I was wondering if anyone agreed or disagreed?
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