Stillen Sway Bar Review & Question
 

So, recently I got the set of Stillen sway bars installed. While I have only been able to drive the car 3 times since, I have mixed feelings on the sways.

As far as the front goes, it is def stiffer, and love the front. As far as the rear goes, it is set on soft setting, because I will never be tracking the car, its driven maybe 2-3 times a week for a casual drive. But the rear feels like its losing control sometimes. The best example I can give is when driving over a sewer cap cover, where theres maybe .5 inch of a difference in the road, the rear end feels like its about to give out on me, like a fishtail. And i actually am starting to hate it.

Does anyone else have this problem with their Stillen sway? Any info would be helpful. thanks.

how about you just set it to the middle setting and test drive it again? :confused:

I have my rear set at the middle setting. Nothing like what you're experiencing though. BUT, I do have bigger wheels and tires. My ride is a great improvement over the stock sways. Almost zero body roll.

Maybe your tires (larger sidewall flex) "could" be the issue (?).

Just a thought.

EDIT: Maybe you should try and avoid "sewer cap covers".

sewer cap covers = manhole lids :D

but you shouldn't have to avoid them. i run stillen bars on my G35C and no issue.
basically stillen recommends you start with the middle/middle setting and go from there.

on my G i run front stiff/mid (intermediate using adjustable endlinks) and middle for rear.
they are great pieces imo. im sure the Z ones are just as good or better.

well i do normally try to miss them, but to describe the feeling of the car, that was the best example i could come up with. i'll have to try it on medium instead of soft setting.

Almost sounds like a bad rear toe setting. The rear bump steer is causing you to kick out a little. Is the car lowered at all?

Stiffer bar setting will likely make it worse.

yeah the car is lowered on Swift springs. you think it could be a bad toe setting with the camber arms and toe bolts?

had a difficult time deciding which sway bars to choose from and decided to go with eibachs, what made u decide to choose stillens??

I didn't realize you had that hardware, it is very possible your rear toe is out of whack which could be due to a variety of things such as one of the toe bolts slipping a bit. I have Stillen sway bars at firm in the rear and the car is planted regardless of road conditions.

:iagree:

You need an alignment first, op. Then stiffer shocks. :D

i got an alignment after i did all the work, and still occurring. bringing it back to the shop hopefully next week to get looked at. thanks for everyone's helps.

one thing i learned from these nissan cars' suspension geometry is lowering spring-only setup makes the rear bumpsteer very obvious especially when you go over a bump on one side of the car.

im sure swaybar will help a little, but the best way to fix is whobbly arse feeling is getting stiffer dampers so stroke is controlled and minimized.

I'm about to install my Stillen sway bars soon, I'll post my results.

Since you checked the alignment, did you try stiffening the sway bar?

you having the same wiggly butt issue from your swifts, huh? :icon17:

Nope. Mine have been perfect. I don't have aftermarket sways on though.

that'd be great to hear what happens.

nope, not yet. hopefully gonna get back to shop tues or weds of next week, i cant make it tomorrow, and see what they recommend and/or say.

justin- you should get a ramp and a few basic tools and do it yourself... (?) it's real easy to change the settings on those. start to finish, maybe no more than 5-10min.

Yeah, I'm hoping to get a chance to try out the eibachs and stillens. I already ruled out hotchkis.

:iagree:


Super easy to do.

Any updates?
I finally got to test my Z with Stillen sways, F/R set to softest settings. The Z definitely feels more stable with less of that rebound over bumpy hwy on/off ramps.
I can't wait for my BC coilovers to get here.

Out of curiosity, why did you rule out Hotchkis..??

Severe understeer.

The understeer can be corrected but you have to be willing to live with increased front camber and increased tire wear that may result. It works out pretty well for a track setup as you want the increased camber anyway, but for a street setup the Stillen is the better compromise.

yeah, not worth it for the street. I've heard they're fantastic for a track car though.

Stillen sway bars are a really good choice for the street.

finally got my car checked out. ended up being the camber on the rear. almost like a pigeon toe, gave the car an 'on ice' feel to it. got it fixed, so much better. gotta give props where props are deserved. Performance Motorsports, thank you yet again.

Pigeon toe would be toe in, not camber... but either way, glad you got it worked out!

Breathing new life into this thread. I just got my Stillen sways today and Im wondering what settings to use. Opinions from Stillen sway owners please! I have the newer style with a 3 setting front, 2 rear. I was thinking stiffest setting in the rear and middle setting in front. Any help will be much appreciated.

I'm thinking of picking up the Stillens during the sale on sunday. What did you end up setting it at Alchemy?

Id love to be able to tell you but I actually havent installed them yet. Gonna wait till spring since my Z goes off the road for winter. I will tell you this though, I will be setting it to the stiffest setting in the rear and softest setting in the front to help battle understeer. Im actually about to order the Stillen front lip from the sale right now:tup:

Suspension is one of my personal favorites when it comes to tuning vehicles. Whether it's offroad trucks, race cars, motorcycles (both street and dirt) I love fiddling with the suspension to make a vehicle handle better and go faster. Sway bars are a very important aspect of suspension tuning and handling.

You need to take a lot of things into consideration but the most important thing to consider is grip. If you have a lot of tire (meaning slick or something like an R888 or NT05) you can take advantage of a more aggressive bar. Also, if you have good traction (weather dependent) you will inherently have more grip in your tire which will also allow you to "run more bar."

At the end of the day, sway bars need to remain balanced. You might find that your front end is pushing too much so you give it more rear bar to compensate. What this does is actually prevent the car from rolling and actually force it to give up sooner. By forcing the rear of the car to give up you are allowing it to rotate through the turn. Now with that being said, you can go too far and cause the rear to give up too quickly...Again, it's all about finding the balance between front and rear.

We always recommend that people start with the middle setting. This will give you a good feeling of how the bars are going to work and from there you can make your adjustments. If you find the front end pushing too much, you have two options, set the bar back to the softest setting or put more rear into it. If you find the rear is too loose, you can put the front bar to the stiffest setting or drop the rear bar back to the softer setting.

Basically, with the STILLEN bars you have a lot of adjustability.

And yes, our bars are optimized for street and track cars, we do not make our bars for track only cars. With that being said, we still run our bars on our track cars. I am in the process of working with NISSAN on a project that you will see in the next few months and it will be built using off the shelf parts and it will be using our bars...This will be a track ONLY car.

I have the same feel as the OP. I installed the front first at mid setting and it was greaat, the car felt much better. Then went to the rear sway and installed it with soft and feels weird. Not just stiff but as is the camber arms are xhocked. at stock height and alignment is perfect. I have a friend who had the same feel and went to the middle setting and it got alot better. This is at the street and track. Ill try the same

the rear imo does not need extra stiffening on stock suspension.

no one said you HAD to replace both front and rear. just do the front for starts and use stock rear bar. :)

well my reasoning after being to the track with my tire set up and stock susp is that tad of understeer that I didnt mind on this track.... But I wanted to stiffen up the front and rear by the same proportion just to have less roll with the same balance. I spoke to stillen and the front at middle and the rear at soft should be the closest thing to what I want. Im gonna leave it like that and see what it feels like next track day. Dont take me wrong the car feels much much better I just wasnt expecting the rear to be this stiff when being at the softest setting.

sounds good. worst case, just use the stock rear bar. :)

If I may make a suggestion...take some tools with you to the track. Changing the sway bar end link mounting position is one of the easiest things to adjust while at the truck. Honestly, it's almost as easy as adjusting tire pressure. You don't need to pull the wheels off or anything.

Simply jack the car up, climb under and adjust the link. When you adjust the link, make sure you have both side of the car off the ground. Meaning, don't lift the left side, then the right. You need to have both tires off the ground.

Anyone have Stillen front/rear sways just for daily driving? And what setup did you use? Haven't ordered them yet, but leaning towards them as I've read Stillen Sways are the way to go for street driving. Probably going to start off with the middle settings front/rear, as what Stillen recommends. Just wondering if someone had a good setup already for daily driving. Any suggestions would help.

What ever happened with this?