I read this one guys page where he took out his rear sway bars. He seemed to be a drifter. Is this good idea to do for road racing? What do they do, take out the rear sway and run stiffer springs than normal? Thanks

 

curious to see what peoples replies are.. hopefully people wont reply "well hes a drifter hes prolly stupid"

 

if im not mistaken, taking out the rear sway would increase understeer... so im not sure how that would help you in auto-x or drifting. I know in fwd cars(my honda accord) if you disconnect the front sway then you have a lot of oversteer, but it would be hard to drive everyday like that. So im not sure if the guy was smart in taking it off. You can disconnect it and drive around for a lil bit to see if you like it... if not bolt it right back up...
just my .02
~TDR

 

He's a drifter, (therefore) he's probably stupid. (spelling, grammer and punctuation corrected.)

And on another little detail, setting a car up for drifting is essentially setting a car up to lose traction isn't it? So, unless you are planning on drifting, why go down this path?

 

Sway bars can lift the inside rear wheel in corners, essentially limiting the amount of power and how early you can accelerate out of a corner.
By removing the rear sway bar and running very stiff springs in the rear you can keep body roll to a minimum and keep both tires planted.

 

Plus if your springs are stiff enough, you probably wouldn't feel the difference with or without one- the only difference would be the weight distribution... I can see how that would help, actually...

 

Here's the lowdown from a road racing (ITS class) perspective from what I've gathered from reading lots of posts about their suspension setups. Some like the feel better and find that it gives them better traction out of the corners. They're running MUCH stiffer than stock, so the loss of roll stiffness from ditching the bar isn't that great, and they'll choose spring rates that'll balance the car with whatever front bar they run. Others don't like the feel, or want more oversteer with their given springs and run one. So there's a whole gambit everywhere from stiffer than stock rear sways to no rear sways. The most common starter setup is 400/275 springs with a stock front and no rear bar. I'm running close to those rates (7/5) and am using an RB front and stock rear bar. With my current alignment it's ever so slightly biased towards understeer, but it'll still oversteer if I overcook it. I guess one advantage of running without is less weight.

So it's partly just personal preference.

YMMV

 

The rear sway bar is much less important than the front, so whatever the answer is I'll bet it's hard to tell. I'm running the same sways as Black91, but only because my mufflers wouldn't come off. Eventually I'll put the rear RB bar in, but I'm in no hurry.

 

Thanks for the informative reply. Ive been driveing my car harder lateley and my car will b sitting on the sidelines for a bit of time. Im trying to think of what to do. Right now i have gc coilovers and kyb agx shocks all around, amybe I will take off my sway and see how I like it. BTW, how much stiffer are they making their rear springs? I gotta check the gc spring rates, u know off hand by any chance?

 

Removing the sway bar sounds like a completely retarded idea for a street car...why increase body roll with stock rate springs? Are you asking for disaster?

 

Well everyone that I've ever heard of doing this was on a RACE car running much higher spring rates, so the total roll stiffness in the rear was still much higher than stock. Yes, on an un-coilovered car it won't be a good idea.

Well the most common is 400/275, I've heard of: 500/375 w/ eibach bars (apparently he gets comments on how it must be hard to drive, too tail happy), 500/375 w/ eibach front, no rear bar (fairly neutral), 450/325 w/ unknown bars (GC track only rates), 400/325 w/ eibach front, no rear bar (STS2 autocross). Then there's me with my ~390/280 (7 and 5 kg/mm) w/ RB front, stock rear bars.

I changed my rear sways with the suspension and exhaust all together. It'd be easier with no muffler, but it's not necessary to remove it. I'm confident that it'll be more tail happy once I fiddle with the alignment and tire pressures a little more. It needs a little less camber in the rear, maybe more in front and some toe changes (I've actually got toe out in the rear now, I want to take it back to zero).

 

Sorry man, I'm really over these replies of ,"He's a drifter and he's retarded ." sort of replies. Ive actually heard of a few different cars that dont keep their sway bars. Black81 makes a great arguement that the dricewheel can come off the ground with too big of a sway bar. I'm almost convinced to go stock here. Do you guys track your cars, or just dailey drive them? I'm not talking about the dragstrip, and if you are, I'll drink a Budweiser to that one.

 

what suspension do u have now? its really a personal opinion on how it feels.. something you got to try and see if you like it.

 

Like Black91n/a, on the track car I'm running 400f/275r springs. But I have the RB swaybar in front and no rear bar. Moderate amount of neg camber in front (~2.5 degrees) and about a degree less in back. I seem to get a touch of push on corner entry and fairly neutral the rest of the way out. This is the previous owners setup (he built the car) and I've seen no reason to significantly change it. Some racers will spring the car even stiffer, but I have KYB-AGX's and they're about at the limit of what they can control. It's stiff enough for me, thankyouverymuch.

I would not recommend this setup for a street car. It's way too stiff. Great for a nice smooth track, lousy for a rough road. Keep the rear bar and go with a more compliant suspension front and rear.

-b

 

One thing to keep in mind when comparing these suspensions is that in a race car most if not all the interior's gone, and I've still got all mine as it's still a street car, so I've likely got a more rearward biased weight distrobution then they do, so my setup's effectively softer in the rear. Keeping the same setup with a completely stripped car would make it much more biased towards oversteer. A roll cage adds a bunch of weight back in, but I've got a roll bar, so that accounts for a bunch of the rear weight of a cage, giving me a weight distrobution of about 49.5%/50.5% IIRC.

When I scaled my car with maybe half a tank of gas, spare, jack, CD's, etc still in it, with my heavy 47lb/ea street wheel and tire combo, a few braces and a relatively heavy RB exhaust it was 2850lbs (it's going on a diet). ITS cars are much lighter. This makes my car ride a little better comparatively. I daily drove it for a few months including some long drives with my coilovers and it's not too bad. Good dampers go a LONG way to making it livable, so it's not jarring, but firm. Still no one's going to mistake it for a Lexus. I wouldn't reccomend it for everyone, but it's not bad, and I had to drive over some very bad roads with tons of frost heaves and potholes.

 

Why quote me? I like drifting I didn't say anything about it.

I still don't understand why people would remove the sway bars, I've never heard of that...infact I'm going to put one into my Monte Carlo stock car...just for the added stability and handling..Then again I've heard of even worse stuff...I mean I'm going to be running no power steering and standard brakes

 

An RX7 guy at thunderhill was having problems with his front end sticking to the track and he had his rear sway removed.

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/question432.htm

 

The previous owner of my car remove the rear sway bar and kept the stock front one. It has much stiffer springs, though. He did track it quite frequently, so I assume this was for some balance reasons. I do know that it has excellent balance and very good track manners, so I don't feel a reason to mess with it.

 

If you make the rear springs stiffer to compensate then it won't make any difference. As you go stiffer and stiffer the sways have less and less effect on the car, so there comes a point where you can easily do without them by just bumping up the rear rates a little. Now not everyone does it or likes how it feels, but it's quite common for road racing FC's. It's mostly just a personal preference thing, but if you can do without it then why the heck not? The GT3 class BMW 2002 I crewed for ran without one for most of its lifetime, and it too has a strut/semi-trailing arm suspension.