Thread: Front/rear sway bar questions
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Old 12-09-2020, 09:37 AM   #14 (permalink)
Brendan
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Join Date: Apr 2013
Location: Colorado
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Drives: Poor man's Porsche
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Originally Posted by Ralphatron View Post
I was just about to post a new thread about this until that second to last sentence caught my eye...

I'm clearly a noob and wanted a very aggressive handling car so I threw a bunch of money at coilovers and both front AND back hotchkis sway bars for my 6 month old '20 sport . Now I wish I was kidding you when I say this, but I've already been through 3 separate coilover kits because I've been on a mission to find the right balance of street drivability and performance. First was the digressive series kit from BC, then the true rear BR series, and finally the divorced spring BR series.

Right now I have the divorced spring style kit, and BOTH hotchkis bars on my car. I'm about to give up and go back to just stock struts and lowering springs because the instability in the car when going over medium bumps is driving me insane, but I'm starting to truly suspect its the sway bars, or at least the rear sway bar (which I have the links going through the middle hole of the 3).

Aside from oversteer/understeer issues with a rear sway, I'm hoping someone can tell me that Im an idiot for not expecting this. I know the sways can act as additional spring stiffness when only one side hits an imperfection, but can it really make the car feel that much stiffer/unstable over bumps? I've got the dampers all set to the softest setting too, and default spring rates as well.

Sorry for the story book post, I'm just trying to figure this out.
There are a lot of variables there to consider. What are the spring rates you went with? What are the alignment settings? What is the ride height? How much down travel do you have? How are the dampers set up? Etc...

I ran into some really weird handling issues with my car when I went to higher rate springs. The car would dart around on bumps so badly that a passenger could feel it. My issue came down to not enough down travel meaning that one or more wheels was constantly struggling to make contact with the ground. What helped me was adding a set of helper springs to the car. This gave me way more down travel and made the car handle bumps a lot better.

I also don't run a rear bar because I found it much easier to get the power down without one. I just increased my spring rates to get the right balance or rotation for my needs.

Here is a link to my short write up from by build thread:
Rear helper springs
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