Driving Frustration Setting In

[integra55]

I thought the rule of thumb to make the cars rotate was, for a FWD you increased the size of the rear bar, and for a RWD, you increased the front bar …. have I been misunderstanding all this time ?

I thought the reason for the change in the Stock/Street rule for sway bars was because the old rule said only the front bar could be changed and that was a disadvantage for FWD cars


edit: missed Brian's post

[John Brown]

rear bars make the rear loose.. no matter the layout

front bar makes them more pushy. and this is all dependent on other changes..ie. springs /alignments... and the trial and error phase goes on and on and on....

[integra55]

ok .. thanks … it always a good day when you learn something new

[jcox07]

You can change one bar and it is your choice to which one you change. On mustangs you need to change the rear. I would think it is probably about the same on the chevy also.

[steverife]

People that run RWD in Street or the old Stock classes tend to change to a bigger front bar.

[jcox07]

Bigger front bar changes on big heavy cars just make them push more, I think Dewitt can also attest to how much the rear adjustable rear bar helped his car. Grant Williams from chatty bought my other adjustable rear bar and on his mustang it made a huge difference in how the car rotated. You can get more out of good shocks/coilovers and not have to change the front bar.

[steverife]

Conventional wisdom is you go bigger with a front bar to minimize roll and keep camber closer to where you want it.

[jcox07]

Wisdom don't make the rear rotate, what u suggest Steve will not work on my car, if he can change both then yeah go bigger in the front, but if he can only change one then he needs to change the rear and that is what strano suggested that I do.... and it worked

[steverife]

...but your car isn't stock, so you can go stiffer springs and more camber.

[jcox07]

Ask grant this Sunday at chatty about the only change he made on his stock mustang which was the rear adjustable sway bar and see what he tells u it made it do.

[ConeEater]

Without going further off topic...

I don't know of any SSR cars that are running a non-stock rear bar instead of front. I think I even asked Sam about that one too.

I think before he starts swapping parts that he needs to decide that this is the car he wants to keep running. Then go from there

[dewittpayne]

The rear bar helped my car put power down. There's a picture somewhere of my car with the inside rear wheel in the air on corner entry with the adjustable rear sway bar set full stiff rather than full soft. However, the Mustang is a live axle car. As I remember, the Gen5 Camaro's have IRS. That might change things.

I can make my car rotate way too much by lowering the rear tire pressure. 34 psi rear makes the car so loose it's hard to drive, for me anyway. I start the rear tires at 36 cold and keep them at 38 hot with the front tires at 42 cold and 44 hot. The Brembo cars have wider wheels and they run 42/36 front/rear.

[EliseAutoXr]

Another thing to consider is seat time ... while you are clearly putting in the time (and will get to where you want faster than some of us), I spent the first year being thrilled if I ended up mid pack. I even recall telling my buddies because I was very excited... Every autocross I looked to see where I ended up on the raw time list and over time it just kept moving up the list. The first time getting in the top 10 I was thought it was over, no chance I could ever go further up. It takes time for things to "slow down" even though you are going faster. Lots of tricks to helping things slow down like looking forward, etc... but experience is a biggie too. Just my thoughts to maybe reduce some of the frustration.

[thrdeye]

...but your car isn't stock, so you can go stiffer springs and more camber.

Yeah what Steve said.

In Street/Stock I can't think of any reason you'd want to remove grip from the rear by putting a big bar on there.

[dewittpayne]

...but your car isn't stock, so you can go stiffer springs and more camber.

Yeah what Steve said.

In Street/Stock I can't think of any reason you'd want to remove grip from the rear by putting a big bar on there.

With my car, I didn't. The replacement bar is less stiff at full soft than the stock bar. In terms of weight transfer, a smaller rear bar shifts weight to the front wheel like a stiffer front bar. But the suspension is more compliant, which, as long as the camber doesn't go wonky from the suspension travel and the dampers are working properly, should give you more total grip. Dick Rasmussen, OTOH, has a Mustang with an automatic transmission. Apparently the spring rates or something are different from the manual transmission car and his car works better with the rear bar set full stiff.