Thought I would see if anyone has or knows of anyone who has run without a FSB?

I did for a time with my Golf at the suggestion of the chassis guy who worked with our rally team and found the results to be damn impressive.

He was of the mind that the RSBs that folks were putting on MK4 chassis to improve rear rotation were in fact decreasing rear grip which as a result hurt ultimate ability. By getting rid of the FSB you would add grip to the front which gave the same dynamic with better end result.

The car did tilt a bit on turn in but the front grip was very very impressive with a feeling that the car actually wanted to get to the inside of the turn. If you have much experience with the Mk4s then you know how impressive this is.

As the EVO retains some of the same attributes of the VW with almost none of the shortcomings I was pondering if this may warrant investigation or testing.

 

Sounds feasable...I agree that the stiffer rear sway is basically reducing traction to get the car to rotate. It works so long as you are ready to "catch" it.

The main drawback I see with losing the front (or any swaybar) is loss of control in quick transitions due to the excessive body roll. It'll probably tripod a lot easier though!

 

This was honestly my big fear when I took off the bar. I was afraid that I would end up so mushy in the front that the car would just wander off the side of the road and kill me in a burning wreck of twisted metal.

What I got however was a car that felt as if there was a split second of hesitation on turn in followed by relentless bite and very good feel. It took about a week to get used to but the benefits were apparent.

The next step with the car was going to be custom dampers to help kill a bit of that initial roll but the car was sold as the sins of the rear geometry could never be fixed. The car was however much improved from stock and only pushed when you got to the limit. The lack of adequate damping however did make for an odd transition if one was to do anything like hitting the brake while coming into a turn. The stock car was very stable (as most stockers are designed to be) but by increasing the overall ability the stability of the Golf was compromised a bit in certain situations. This is not however in my eyes a huge drawback but simply a fact whenever you mod your geometry in the interest of doing a few things better.

I would hope that the EVO would not have as many drawbacks in that the geometry is superior to start. As such you would not have the horrible rear end (as seen on the golf) causing problems.

In a perfect world I would love to have a system not unlike the one outlawed by WRC that ties the RF to LR and LF to RR as a method of dealing with roll and as such have the best of all worlds.

 

getting a bigger rear bar and it should be comprimise with the evo.

 

The evo platform is stability and control I don't see how taking off the sway bar can improve the handling of the car I mean maybe it suits you driving style better but of 10 people maybe 2 may like it .
What year is your car 05-06 also have ACD with the G sensors and wheel sensors (abs) to detect wheel spin ,tire slip and body roll. I also think the more traction you get in a corner the harder you can take it so iI think if anything you want grip to slip not slip to grip right ?

 

Ultimately going swaybar-less will net you the most grip. Like the Noble M12 your car CAN handle VERY well without swaybars IF you are willing to run uber-high spring rates. The challenge is testing to get the right spring rates to control the roll AND make it drivable. It can be done if you have the proper testing tools, money and time.

 

As this came from a bunch of rally guys, the goal was to go with less spring and some very smart dampers. In short the goal was to give as much dynamic control and ability as possible without hitting bump stops.

I do think that you can control the initial turn in and roll with dampers pretty easily and don't care as much about slower progressive movement as it seems that the quick dynamic changes are the ones that most unsettle the car and cause problems. For track days and areas where sustained higher g loading is an issue, larger springs would seem to make more sense as they would tend to mitigate some of the issues that would be harder to address with damping alone. This is also where the outlawed WRC damper connection would come into play as well but thats another post all together.

 

like dave mac said, you will need to get higher and the right SRs.

 

I think that ultimately your spring rates will be so high to control the front end you will only hurt front grip.

Remember the Evo is camber challenged. Anything you do that doesn't help the front end remain flat will a) reduce front grip b/c of dynamic camber change in roll and unloading of the inside front and b) cause the inside rear to lose contact with the ground, again reducing ultimate grip and the ability to get back on the gas early.

Just MHO of course.

 

kekek-

Swaybars ARE springs. They're just linked to the other side. It can be done with springs (F1). There is an equation around the net somewhere that calculates the spring rate of a given swaybar based on diameter (of course) and how far outboard it is mounted.

Technically it can be done with great effectiveness, practically I agree with your observation in that it isn't practical for us grassroots guys to mess with because of the amount of testing you'd need to get it right.

The rates on the front are not an issue, the issue is adequate damping for those spring rates. Since a swaybar "is" a spring and you put heavier springs on your car when you install coilovers why not remove the swaybar and replace them with increased independant spring on each side of the car? You have to dampen the swaybar as well as the spring so why not just have ALL spring and no sway? I'm not picking on you I'm just trying to find some more in-depth explanation for your theory.

It'd be cool to ask Daddio about the swaybar vs more spring theory.

 

Dave,
On a high grip car like in SP/SM we are already running pretty high rates with the stock bar. I hate to see what would really be necessary without a swaybar. Yes I understand that swaybars are springs (albeit torsional and not coil). Problem comes in with compliance. As you know, when you hit bumps the ARB's (anti-roll bars) aren't affected and only the coil springs are absorbing the bump. I'd also like to point out that the front of the evo, travel wise, is just fine with the stock swaybar and inside front lift isn't very common.

I understand you can run without them, I did in an old SM Civic I had. I just think the evo is far too large and has such a front weight bias that it's not practical.

In reference to F1. Those guys have bigger budgets for lunch on a race weekend then we probably spend all year. Seriously though, they have the ability to design their suspension around only using coil springs. They can design it such that the there is a rising wheel rate through bump travel. Thus keeping it softer and getting progressively stiffer.

You may also want to search for some of John Tak's (or Andy Lieber, not totally sure) on here. "mov ovr" is his SN. At one point he made mention to adding more front bar and roll stiffness, while mentioning the space contraints for the ARB.

I do think it's possible, but I don't think the tradeoffs are warranted unless the car is only driven on very smooth surfaces. I'm also thinking about this from a main standpoint of sticky 285 r-compounds and a little of 245 street tires (where I still wouldn't remove it).

 

This is really not something that is all that huge a deal in my mind. Heck, I did it on a Mk4 VW for goodness sake with front spring rates of around 200lbs or so. There was a bit of a lull with turn in but the grip was so much higher that the return was well worth the trade off.

This is also a car that I tracked. Not just auto-x or off road or street driving... I tracked it and beat up on Mini Copper S's. They did turn better but I held my own well enough that I could cut consistently faster lap times and before you say it was due to having so much more power, the car was a diesel.

I would also point out that the Cyber Evo has no front bar. I found this out by chance a short time ago and as a result I will at some point be removing the bar on my 05 RS to see what the car does.

What I full expect to find is a car that will have a similar feel to one with a stiffer rear bar but with far better overall grip. I have plans to adjust geometry to raise the front roll center to get it closer to the true CG which should help get ride of any negative side effects.

It's gonna happen... just a matter of how much I like it and how many others care to give it a try after I prove how darn fast it's gonna be. =-)

 

Now you got me thinking. Current SP/SM cars don't roll too much as it is and sway bars only work when there is a differential in height between the 2 corners of the car. So the proper springs rates may not be too high, but will def be on the stiff side (14kg/mm or about 780 lbs/in +).

 

Its always worth looking into---however, your vw was frt wheel drive and has issues around that...hence the removal of the sway bar worked well...actually adding a rear bar would have done the same thing...for sway bars, you work with the bar at the opposite end of your problem...so if you car drives or plows in the front end --you add a rear bar or stiffen the one you have(rear bar)...if you want the rear end to come around add a bigger front bar...or in your case you wanted the rear to come around and instead of adding the rear bar--you subtracted the front bar (same diff)..for the evo--adding the rear bar took a lot of body roll out for me--I guess if you were looking to have the rear come around more and could deal with the body roll involved-- removing the front bar would work...my guess is it would be like driving a '60 caddy... a big pig... Good luck...

 

Yes, the VW and the Evo are not the same. The good news is that the numbers would indicate that it would work BETTER on the Evo as it needs less correction from the FSB in the first place.

Why in the world should we just assume that the way to correct the push in the front is to take away traction in the rear?! We all spend untold amounts of money to get MORE GRIP but then give it away to tune the attitude of the car and then spend more money to correct the problem that we make worse, not better.

I do understand that this is far away from the current standard mode of thought but "big pig" is honestly the last thing that I think the car will be. The Cyber Evo seems to do pretty well as do a few other examples of cars that do away with this traction limiting device.

One point of note, there is the statement above that lifting the front inside is rare but on my first track day out in my Evo I have a photo of me doing just that. It's minor and I had no idea it happened until I saw the photo but it's real...



It's not easy to tell at this size but it was actually pointed out to me by the photographer who took the picture in the "photoshack" at BeaveRun. He clicked on it and zoomed in like crazy to show light coming through the grooves in the tread. I admit, the tire may be hanging on by a thread but this if nothing else shows how much traction is lost in a rather innocent turn while on street tires at non competitive pace.

I for one would like to have as much tire on the pavement gripping and sending me in the direction I care to go at this moment in time. I am also willing to adjust my own perception of what the car should feel like if it means that I'm faster in the end.

Of course... I could be cracked. I may be tilting at windmills and it could unsettle the car a great deal. If that happens I will come right back here and say so as I feel the goal we should all should share is learning and using our collective input to help one another. To those ends I'll think outside the box but also be willing to eat crow if the end result dictates.