Anyone know the exact size of the front sway bar on the FE@ equipped 04 sunfire? I just got a eibach 22mm rear sway to go with it i heard its closest to a neutral setup you can get....TIA on any info guys

IIRC the FE2 front on an ECOTEC is like 24mm or bigger (cant remeber the exacts). The FE2 for the older 3rd Gens has a 22mm, and has a bar welded into the rear axle beam, but no Sway bar (again, this is atleast on the older 3rd gens, not sure on the ECOTEC).

95-02 FE1 = 18mm
95-02 FE2 = 22mm
03-05 FE1 = 19mm
03-05 FE2 = 24mm

The eibach 22mm rear will give you a very neutral setup with the 24mm up front.

this is all still fairly new to me so is neutral good? does it affect performance at all?

Um.. That depends really. What you want the car to do, how you drive, if you auto-x, drag race, street race, daily driver; most importantly how good a driver you are.

Understeer causes straight line stability, more so at high speeds. Almost all production cars have understeer because it's "safe". When you're on the freeway it's harder to make a sharp turn than when you're going slowly.
So given that you have turned the wheel 30 degrees (just a random number), at high speed s the car will change direction less than if you were going slow.

With a neutral setup you eliminate all that, the car changes direction approximately equally at both high and low speeds (this is constrained by road conditions, tires, and a few other items, so you still have a small amount of understeer even with perfectly ballanced sway bars).

With an oversteer setup you change direction more the faster you go; AND the longer you hold the wheel at that position. This can be very dangerous at high speeds if you don't know what you're doing.
This is the reason the Ford Explorer had all those tire recalls, when a rear tire blew out the car gained a lot of oversteer, people on freeways (which is where most blow outs happen) lost control of the vehicle because they no longer knew how to drive it, rolled over and killed themselves.

For a daily driver, or totally unskilled driver, understeer is basically a good thing, which is why j-bodies came with understeer. Drag racers also fit in here.
For a more agressive driver (like me and many around here) a more neutral setup (or close to it) give you better control over the car (while driving like an idiot).
For some auto-x and some crazy drivers, oversteer is good.

Oversteer is caused by stronger front swaybars (there is "no" sway bar in the rear stock)
Neutral is cause by approximately equal bars (though the heavier end, the front in our, should have a bit thicker bar, like 10% larger)
Oversteer is caused by stronger rear swaybars (like if you used the stock 18mm, with an addco 25mm(aka 1") rear)

Having no bars at all will give you a mostly neutral setup. But the car will sway so badly that you can't possibly take advantage of the neutralsteer. Strong bars will limit the sway so you can take advanage of over/under/neutralsteer. Of course too strong is also a bad thing because you eventually end up with wheels so linked they act like a solid axle.

Thanks that was really good info

In general, oversteer isn't good for autox (depending on driver's techniques). With a 24mm bar in the front and 22mm bar in the rear I suspect that you will still have terminal understeer, but the car should feel a lot more neutral around typical street corners.

Having no bars at all, a cavalier will still understeer. No swaying, just lots of body roll.

For auto-x, It depends very much on the course. Extremely curvy (like no straight aways at all), but gently curvy (large radius) oversteer would make it easier to navigate.
Many courses a more neutral setup would be best.

With no bars, that's not understeer, that's loss of control. The car simply isn't doing what you're telling it to.

CTS: just an interesting note, I pulled a 19mm off of a 00-02 Cavalier, it was a city vehicle that had been wrecked. your the only other person I have heard that knew about the 19mm vs. the 18mm. ( used a dial caliper on it before i pulled it ( there really isn't allot of choice at the local bone yard)

Eh... I'm not so sure on that list.

My parts list says the following...

Front stabilizer bar
Active ride suspension (FE0?)
98-02 22566683

Soft Ride suspension (FE1?)
95 22587443
96-02 22566683
03-05 22587443

Ride handling suspension (FE2?)
95 22639076
96-02 22566681
03-05 22697262

Make what you will of it.

Lenko, John Lenko wrote:
Make what you will of it.

I got my info from car-part.com. We all know how consistant GM is.... who knows.

Not from GM... it's from one of those Ebay listings for "parts listings carefully removed from a master collision book". But it's been 100% accurate on everything I've looked up.

I have an FE0 suspension on my 2000 cavalier and I'm replacing all my control arm bushings w/ urethane so I figured I'd look into a stock sway bar too. Can I upgrade to the FE2 (22mm performance one?) without any issues? Also, does anyone know where I can get some urethane sway bar bushings right away?
According to John's Part#s above, the FE0 and FE2 are different numbers so are they not compatible with the FE0 suspension setup? JBO FAQ says that it can be done, I'm just curious how hard it is...

J-Body suspension FAQ:
"-18mm stock FE1 bar (stock on 95-99)*
-22mm stock FE2 bar (stock on 2000-2002)*
-24mm stock FE3 bar (stock on 2003-2004)*
****kinda like the 3rd gen is still a 3rd gen from 95-04, but have series 1 (95-99), series 2 (00-02), and series 3 (03-04).... the suspension of "FE2" has a series 1 (00-02) and series 2 (03-04) ....the 2000 - 2002cars still run FE2 style 22mm front bars, the 03+ cars just have a 2mm upgrade.******
Part Numbers for Clamps and misc stuff if you car did not have a front bar stock
list of parts I'll need to install an FE2 bar on my FE0 Cavalier ... Here's the list he gave me:
2 Clamps 22660396 $5/ea
2 Insulators 22619843 $10/ea
4 Bolts 11516328 $1/ea
2 Links 22657718 $12/ea"

John's Numbers:
Front stabilizer bar
Active ride suspension (FE0?)
98-02 22566683
Soft Ride suspension (FE1?)
95 22587443
96-02 22566683
03-05 22587443
Ride handling suspension (FE2?)
95 22639076
96-02 22566681
03-05 22697262

These are the part numbers I have courtesy of BC J-Body Org:
Front Sway Bar Link Insulator (O side rubbers): 6270752
Front Sway Bar Bolt: 11516328
Front Sway Bar D-Clamps: 22660396
FE1 (18mm) Front Sway Bar (Soft Ride Susp): 22566683
White Rubber D-Bushings for FE1 Susp: 22594028
Endlink for FE1 Suspension: 22657717
FE2 (22mm) Front Sway Bar (Perf & Handling Susp): 22566681
Red Rubber D-Bushings for FE2 susp: 22619843
EndLink w/rubber bushings for FE2 Susp: 22657718


http://www.cardomain.com/id/Gerkn

you shouldn't have any problems, just an FYI get the bolts for the D-brackets for you year J, the length changed a couple of times and it will give you a head ache trying to get them in if you don't. (theres a whole discussion on how you have to cut the bolts about this, but no one dug further)


.

CTS your definition of over/under steer does not mesh with the norm. The normal definition of understeer is that the front tires have less grip than the rears and skid more often, neutral front and rears are about the same, and oversteer the rear tires have less grip than the fronts and you can get sideways and rotate the car more easily. Slight oversteer is the fastest way around the track, understeer is the slowest. Understeer is also the most dangerous condition to an experience drive since it is the hardest to correct from and often leaves you traveling into a head on collision rather than a side impact. Oversteer is more dangerous for an inexperience driver (aka most people on the road) because it is less likely to suffer from a catastrophic loss of control and cars that understeer are less likely to be driven to the limit.


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