Whats up guys? Yeah, ive read the FAQ ive ready many FAQs. Ive been on here for 4 hours scannin this site and the internet trying to find an answer to a pretty basic question. Im new to this modern stuff lol and im wondering, would it be wise to run an Addco rear sway bar without the Addco front? I have a 99 2200 base. I understand somewhat the geometry and handling characteristics of these, but still have been unable to find the answer to this question. What i want is awesome handling where i may autoX but definately runnin some curvys around the mountains where i live. I have 17s and 215/45s, GCs im getting ready to install, looking for Konis, plan on adding at least strut tower bars and a rear tie rod and subframe brace, maybe even A-arms to go with sway bar(s). Im thinkin with the Addco rear sway bar and no front, I would end up with too much oversteer. So im thinkin ill need to get the Addco front to go with this. Looking for your comments. Any help is greatly appreciated.

I root for the underdog...figured I might as well be one

Short answer no.
Driving the mountains out here in PA you do NOT want oversteer.
I would imagine the same where you are.

So for your own safety, dont run the rear bar alone.


Now if you compliment it with a front sway bar, 19mm, 22mm or 25.4mm then you'll be ok.

-M


Remember....syringes go in the RED waste basket.

Here is a response I wrote up in another thread regarding setup and alignment for AutoX and road racing. For a "canyon run" ( which I frown on doing) ..you will probably want to be a little more moderate and lean towards understeer. Here's the basics of setting up good handling suspension in a front engine front wheel drive car. I'm a car builder and hold an FIA racing licence.



Quote:


What spring rates are you using? Are you still using a front swaybar? What kind of dampers? What kind of tires? All this must be taken into account. Front wheel drive cars have an understeer problem, and here is how to solve it.

Also, something to think about. The optimal camber for braking and accelerating is 0 degrees, because it allows the largest foot print. Negative camber is only required to make up for body roll and tire flex. Idealy, you would run 0 to -1 degree of camber, and have the suspension geometry such that the negative camber gained on suspension compression is equal to or slightly greater than the degree of body roll. Unfortunately in strut type suspensions, This camber gain is hard to come by unless you are running super stiff spring rates and the car is at stock ride height or a little bit higher, so that the roll center is as high as possible. If you are lifting the inside rear through corners, body roll is an issue that needs to be solved before you even think about alignment. Your front spring rates need to be high enough to control the body roll of the entire car....without a front sway bar. On my 1900lb car, with 63/37% weight distribution, I use a 700lb spring on the front to accomplish this. You want to remove the front sway bar to keep the front suspension as independent as possible, which will help keep the inside front tire planted better in turns. Weight transfer to the outside front is never a problem, but is usually excessive and overworks that tire, so we try make the other side stick a little too. If your understeer is still too much, add rear sway bar, two if you need it, and increase rear spring rate (and damping) to make the rear of the car slide a bit....or rotate...to the point where you will have a neutral handling car. Then worry about alignment and suspension geometry. You have to look at how the camber changes through the course of the usable suspension travel.

Draw an imaginary line between the front control arm inner pivot axis and the centerline of the ball joint. In the static state (car sitting there), if this line is level, you will gain positive camber as the suspension compresses.....which is exactly the opposite of what you need to happen. Now draw an imaginary vertical line through the inner pivot point of the control arm, and another vertical line through the ball joint centerline...., and measure that distance between these lines with the car in a static state. In order to gain negative camber under suspension compression (which is what we want) the lines must move farther apart as the suspension is compressed. If they move closer together, you are gaining positive camber, which is counterproductive. The ideal situation is to get the lines as close together as possible in the static state, so that they can only move farther apart as the suspension goes through its usuable travel. This usually requires lowering the ball joint in relation to the inner pivot point of the control arm, which can be most easily done by raising the ride height of the car.....which is a tradeoff because you are also raising the CG which will make body roll more difficult to control. Ideally, the knuckle should be modified to lower to ball joint receptical by as much as possible while still allowing everything to fit inside of the wheel. If the geometry can be modified like this, so that you actually gain negative camber on the outside front through a corner, I would set the static camber around -1.5 to -2 degrees.

Caster is generally used to control the steering effort....more caster (strut leaned back) will offer more steering effort, and better automatic return to center coming out of corners, while less camber (strut leaned forward) will make steering less difficult, but much more difficult to return to center. More caster will also offer up more camber gain as the wheels are turned, which is good, but steering effort increases as well...so you have to find a happy medium where steering effort is acceptable....and stop there.

As for Toe......a good starting point is 0 to 1/16" toe out in the front, and 0 in the rear. If you are still having understeer or push, you can toe the rear out a bit..1/16 - 1/8 of an inch to help reduce understeer.

When using R-compound tires, spring rate needs to increase in order to see the full benefit of what the tires can do.



rubbin' is racin'

that's a lot of info. The only problem with it is, you can't run a 700lb spring on our cars and expect it to be a streetable car. For a car you plan on driving on the street, you definitely should get a front sway bar.

gearhead - i have the front 22 and the rear addco. if you lift off the throttle in a corner, the back end comes around. I would go with the addco front for canyon runs, because understeer is a little easier to control and you definitely don't wanna be spinning off a cliff.

Guys, thanks a lot. This is helping. Let me clarify I didn't mean I'm going to be street racing or canyon running. I just want awesome handling at decent speeds. And i probably will autoX, but the problem with caster/camber/toe/etc. is like 97redgt said it is hard to keep it streetable, and yeah, this is my daily. I wanna find the best of both. I dont wanna be wearin out my tires every other month or anything like that. So im thinkin about both Addco bars, rear tie rod, strut tower braces, and struts. Maybe a subframe brace when i decide to make one, and a little bit of a possibility in A-arms if I still have wheel hop. Which i probably wont after struts and all the above mentioned. Another question, will both Addcos take care of oversteer and give me the neutral feel or a little bit of understeer, combined with strut braces? Thanks again.

I root for the underdog...figured I might as well be one

as is right now, my car still understeers a little on the autox track. granted i probably overdrove it, and i didnt play with tire pressures at all, but i only got oversteer on the one sweeping left and at a couple braking points. here is what i plan on doing: addco rear, stock front, h&r springs, dspec shocks, falken azenis rt615's, strut braces, subframe brace. That way, if it is oversteering too much on a certain track, I still can play with tire pressures and shocks to get some oversteer out of it. I wouldn't get the a-arms if i was you, they have a tendency to break on the street.