Comparison: OEM Rear Sway Bars

[f22-dohc]

IMO leave the front alone.

just change the bushings.

i did the cheapy vigor sway and i was more than happy cuz it was a 10 dollar mod

[Losiracer2]

hey Jak,

you should make a Sway bar FAQ with all the sway bar info.

FYI:

Suspension Technique Sway bars:

Front: 1 1/16" (27mm)
Rear: 13/16" (21mm)

yeah i found my ST rear sway locally for 40 bucks BRAND NEW too!

[johnl]

IMO leave the front alone.

I know this is an archeologically ancient thread, but thought I might have something of interest to add.

I tend to agree about the front ARB. Front heavy FWD cars are inherent understeerers, increasing front roll stiffness may only make this worse.

There are exceptions, namely cars with Mac strut front ends when body roll causes excessive road relative camber change, i.e. lessening negative camber / increasing positive camber of the outside front wheel (the most important front wheel due to weight transfer). With Mac struts anything that lessens body roll, including increasing front roll stiffness, can improve understeer. It's a matter of 'adding' one thing that has an inherent deleterious effect (increasing front roll stiffness) for the sake of an associated larger secondary benefit (keeping the treads more 'squarely' presented to the road surface).

CB7s and close relatives are different. They have a well designed double wishbone front end, which has a much better 'camber curve' with body roll (than Mac struts inherently can). So, keeping the tyres 'flat' to the road isn't such a big deal, they will tend to remain that way anyway due to the superior suspension geometry. The inherent chassis relative camber change with roll keeps the tyre treads 'flatter' on the road than with a Mac strut, so increasing front roll stiffness may have more adverse affects on understeer than beneficial affects.

The adverse affect of increasing front roll stiffness is that it changes the front / rear distribution of lateral weight transfer, more weight will transfer laterally at the front and less at the rear (a similar effect occurs if the rear roll stiffness were to be reduced). Grip will tend to be lost (at an axle line) whenever lateral weight transfer across that axle line is increased (e.g. transfer from the inside front to the outside front), and the opposite affect if the roll stiffness is decreased (i.e. grip will tend to be gained at the end of the car where the roll stiffness was lessened, with simultaneous increase in grip at the other end).

Note that weight transfer in total is only dictated by the track width, by the CG height, and by the strength of lateral acceleration. With these things as givens, all we can do with changes in ARB and spring stiffness is to change the lateral distribution of the weight transfer at the front end vs the rear end.

We still tend to want less roll to occur, which is why the rear ARB is the best ARB to stiffen up. From the perspective of reducing roll motion, it doesn't matter at which end the roll stiffness is increased, it will control roll motion front and rear (but it still has a direct affect on the distribution of weight transfer).

My car has Koni Sports and uprated front and rear springs. I can't recall which springs I bought, but they are substantially stiffer than stock without being hugely stiff. The % spring stiffness increase is greater at the rear than the front springs, which is largely why I chose the set I chose. This increases rear roll stiffness more than front roll stiffness (roll stiffness being a function of both spring and ARB stiffness). I have a rear ARB just a bit less than 20mm diameter, so not hugely stiff but much stiffer than the rear spaghetti that Honda fitted.

Now, what I' have found with these springs and the stiffer rear ARB is that the car handled significantly better when I disconnected the front ARB. Yes really. The front ARB is now completely removed. Removing the front ARB reduces the front roll stiffness substantially, with a resulting decrease in lateral weight transfer at the front, while simultaneously increasing weight transfer at the rear (even when nothing has been done to the rear end). This results in more front grip and less rear grip, moving the handling balance away from understeer and toward oversteer. It would be possible to go too far with this, but my car handles just fine...

Mileage may vary depending on the detail of the set up (and mine has other mods to the chassis, suspension, and steering geometry), but IMO it's well worth seeing if a particular car may handle better without the front ARB altogether...

PS, my rear ARB started life in the front end of a TR Magna. It's been bent and unbent to suit it's new life in the rear of a CB7. This involved the use of oxy-acetylene and force. The metal hasn't been re-heat treated, but this hasn't been an issue (the ARB has been in there for at least 4 years with no problem). Many factory ARBs aren't heat treated because they don't twist enough to exceed the elastic limits of the un heat treated steel, they get away with this because a good grade of steel is used (you wouldn't get away with this with coil springs though).