Rear Suspension
Wondering where to go with my rear suspension. I auto cross and am going to get into track racing this summer.
There are no threads that I can find comparing a panhard bar to a stiffer sway bar and I am wondering which direction to take. I want to hear opinions from people that have had experiance with either a panhard bar or a heavier rear sway bar. What does each give you? Idealy I want comments from people that have experimented with both and their pros and cons. Thanks |
panhard > swaybar.
panhard makes the rear so much more predictable it almost is funny. you don't realize how squirrelly the stock watts is either. |
Cool! Thats what I was guessing but had never actually heard it.
Anyone else have an opinion? |
Don't know if you have seen this, but for your reading enjoyment:
https://www.rx7club.com/showthread.p...ear+suspension RXDad |
I'm not sure if I'm misunderstanding you, but I just want to clarify something. A panhard bar replaces the watts link, not sway bar. It locates the rear axel, and has little to do with roll stiffness. Many people think a well designed watts link is better than a panhard bar, but our stock one doesn't deal well with a lowered chassis.
For auto-x, many people like a stiffer rear sway bar to speed up transitions. I've used the stock set up, no rear bar with the stock front, Re-speed tubular front bar with no rear and with stock rear. I prefer the Re-speed bar with the stock rear. Road racing I havn't done, but many people say they take off the rear bar to get predictability in long corners. |
Originally Posted by Viich
(Post 10599380)
I'm not sure if I'm misunderstanding you, but I just want to clarify something. A panhard bar replaces the watts link, not sway bar. It locates the rear axel, and has little to do with roll stiffness. Many people think a well designed watts link is better than a panhard bar, but our stock one doesn't deal well with a lowered chassis.
1. the pivot point or roll center of the stock watts is too high. a panhard is the easy way to lower it. mazda used to have a competition rear axle with a relocated watts too. 2. the stock Watts binds. old hard bushings + multi axis rear axle movement = binding. on paper i agree a watts is better, but its really easy to do a nice panhard. when you run a panhard that's basically horizontal, and it goes from wheel to wheel, the total side movement is really small. i also agree with what you say about the rear bar and transitions. |
I can't complain about the rear setup.. Yet.. I'm running a ST front bar and no rear bar. Stock shocks and RB springs. Rest be stock.
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So the panhard bar helps correct the geometry of the rear end to prevent binding with a lowered car thus giving a more predictable feel to the rear end.
A stiffer rear bar will probably help a bit with understeer and give you better transitions in quick corners. Can you run a rear bar with a panhard? It seems like they would get in the way of eachother just looking at a picture of a panhard.... I have never actually seen one. Thanks for clearing up my confusion. |
Originally Posted by 82FanTC
(Post 10600460)
So the panhard bar helps correct the geometry of the rear end to prevent binding with a lowered car thus giving a more predictable feel to the rear end.
A stiffer rear bar will probably help a bit with understeer and give you better transitions in quick corners. Can you run a rear bar with a panhard? It seems like they would get in the way of eachother just looking at a picture of a panhard.... I have never actually seen one. Thanks for clearing up my confusion. i think you can run a rear bar and panhard, i never tried though... |
Tri-link + panhard = Happy car
Isaac |
Depends on what panhard you run. If you run the Gforce bolt in bar it's next to impossible toi run a sawy bar. On a side not with the drastic change in roll center the car rolls about 1/10th what it did with the watts and a stock sway bar. Best mod ever was ditching the watts and swaybar in favor of the panhard. I'm still running the shitty top links too, I cannot wait to replace those.
WHY ISN'T THIS ARCHIVED? https://www.rx7club.com/showthread.p...ear+suspension |
You ditching the upperlinks for the g-force tri-link?
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Probably not. More likely a custom 4 link
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In my opinion, you can set the car up pretty darned well for autocross without going to a Tri-link/panhard setup. However, for a high speed road course, I think a Tri-link would be necessary.
I had the chance to drive my car (which does great in autocross) at Road Atlanta. The car was far too nervous and twitchy for a road course, and was downright scary at times. You could actually feel the back end shifting around on the downhill esses. After experiencing that, I plan to install my Tri-link this year (been sitting on a shelf in the garage for a few years now). . |
/\ Didn't I tell you that years ago. I said you just weren't driving fast enough to have the bind issues, and you got all offended. LOL!
p.s. some auto x's are pretty highspeed. I had some days where I was hitting 90 through a slalom. |
p.s.s. I wasn't saying you're car was slow, just that I make decent power and my autoX courses in WA were always pretty huge and fast. I was usually just tenths slower than a SCCA National champion in a Nissan GTR on hoosiers.
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Originally Posted by Kentetsu
(Post 10606190)
In my opinion, you can set the car up pretty darned well for autocross without going to a Tri-link/panhard setup. However, for a high speed road course, I think a Tri-link would be necessary.
I had the chance to drive my car (which does great in autocross) at Road Atlanta. The car was far too nervous and twitchy for a road course, and was downright scary at times. You could actually feel the back end shifting around on the downhill esses. After experiencing that, I plan to install my Tri-link this year (been sitting on a shelf in the garage for a few years now). . |
When you say track racing it the car is there a specific class you have planed to run? I run spec 7 in scca and we cant change out the watts linkage. ya it can be a handful at times to drive but i think its that much more fun to drive and will make you a better driver. As i have seen before if you can drive the hell out of a pec7 you can drive anything fast for the most part. And its a great feeling when you out run "faster cars" and you tend to get more respect from those who know how much of a handful these things are.
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has anyone ever tried relocating the stock watts link mount a few inches up? Lowered car + raised watts link mount should be apprximately correct location... or would they be shortened then>? I haven't looked underneath in a while.
I'm running solosprint this year, and my ass end has been all over the map. I didn't want to start chopping the rear end apart, but I dunno. Whats the best results for the least amount of modification? |
Originally Posted by rotaryboy23
(Post 10608773)
has anyone ever tried relocating the stock watts link mount a few inches up? Lowered car + raised watts link mount should be apprximately correct location... or would they be shortened then>? I haven't looked underneath in a while.
I'm running solosprint this year, and my ass end has been all over the map. I didn't want to start chopping the rear end apart, but I dunno. Whats the best results for the least amount of modification? |
Originally Posted by Hyper4mance2k
(Post 10608121)
/\ Didn't I tell you that years ago. I said you just weren't driving fast enough to have the bind issues, and you got all offended. LOL!
p.s. some auto x's are pretty highspeed. I had some days where I was hitting 90 through a slalom. Hey, I'll admit it. The 3,000 mile trip I took to the Mitty was my post-crash shakedown run. Clearly she has a few issues, but now I've got all week to address them before the 1st autocross. :) |
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