What do you guys think about removing the sway bars all together on a car with fairly stiff coilovers?

I'm running 10k/12k springs (F/R respectively) with stock sway bars. The car has very little roll and the balance is just about perfect for my taste. It never understeers and the back will step out nicely under power or trail braking.

I'm pretty interested in removing weight though and I am wondering what kind of impact I would see removing the stock bars?

 

Swaybars are still working there. I would not remove them.

If the car is setup to your liking; I'd leave the car as-is and rock it out.

What have you done to cut weight?

 

I would look elsewhere for weight to remove. Swaybars are close to the ground and inline with the tires, probably the best place for a car to carry weight.

It might be a fun experiment though. Removing the sways is a valid option, but I've never heard of an evo being setup that way.

 

My thought is that I may change to other coil overs and I'm wondering if maybe going up to 12K/14K springs would elimiante the need for swaybars all together. To me, a small loss in steering performance to drop like 40 pounds would probably be worth it in the overall picture. If the bars are going to have a signifigant impact, then it wouldn't be worth it though.

My other thought is maybe just eliminating the rear bar, and get a hallow front bar that is farily soft and stepping up the rear spring rate a bit?



As for weight loss, the usual "if it's not needed to drive, it's probably not on the car" setup. I haven't really spent much on lightweight parts at this point though.

No A/C, Bumper supports, EVAP, rear seat belts, sound deadening, trunk trim/carpet, airbags

Lighter (unbacked) carpet
Half width radiator
Light weight battery
AMS Moustache Eliminator
Aluminum exhaust
Aluminum steering wheel

The car is 350-400 pounds lighter then stock, and it's an '03 with no sunroof.

 

You can measure and calculate the stiffness of the stock swaybars, and then with the motion ratio of the swaybars figure out exactly how much they are contributing if you want to add spring stiffness to compensate.

An adjustable rear bar is nice though to make quick adjustments.

- Andrew

 

GTworx, if I were to go to 1 bar, in your opinion what would you say is the better one to keep?

Initially I thought the rear bar as it will allow more adjsutment to how the car "rotates" but thinking about the weight distribution, controlling the weight up front might be more benefical?

From my limited experience, a big rear bar makes the car rotate easier, but it also seems to cause snap oversteer if you use trail braking at all. I really like to induce controlled rotation with trail braking. With a big bar, it goes from controlled to uncontrolled pretty quickly. Would adjusting a front bar actually provide a more predictable car?

 

Couldnt you just unbolt them from the endlinks and test it out, on a track I hope, to see if you like the way it behaves? This way if you dont like the results it wouldnt be as time consuming to re install the front bar at least.

 

That was what I was planning on but I wanted to see what others thoughts were too. Maybe others have already tried it.

 

IIRC, the Ohlins setup that Paul Gerrard put together for Evos a couple of years ago was designed to use the stock sway bars and used spring rates anywhere from 8/10k to 12/14k. I think if you wanted to eliminate the sway bars altogether, you'd probably be looking at having to use even higher spring rates than that.

Personally, I've decided to go the route of stiffer sway bars combined with softer springs (Swift Spec-R springs are ~6K) to keep my car streetable. To me sway bars are a great tool to make adjustments at the track and would be very low on my list of things to try to eliminate in order to save weight. Even the Sierra-Sierra Evo has sway bars ... albeit in-cockpit adjustable ones.

l8r)

 

Sierra Sierra is a strong case for them as are most race cars, but then again, I have to wonder if the Japanese tuners use them as they seem much more focused on being lightweight. They seem to do pretty well in time attack too...

 

are you fat?

 

I could lose 20lbs

But unbolting sway bars is much easier.

 

Look into Tanabe bars, they're hollow chromoly steel so they're lighter than stock. It won't be as light as removing them all together but it will save a few pounds each.

 

I wouldn't recommend removing the swaybars as their main purpose is to fight body roll. Even with stiff springs, it is still a good idea to use them because it will keep the car more planted. Changing their sizes however is a good way to change overall the handling of the car. I would look into what sscottttt said about chromoly bars if you want a change. You yourself said that you like the way your car currently handles though, so I would just leave them as they are as removing them WILL change your handling. Also, even Formula 1 cars use anti-sway bars with their unlimited budgets, so I'd say if their engineers still think they're necessary, they probably are.

 

Comparing F1 sway bars to what we have is a joke though. The sway bar setup on an F1 car probably weighs 2 pounds or less and consumes almost no space. If they had to choose between a 30 pound bar and nothing, it would be interesting to see which way they went.

A sway bar doesn't really "keep the car planted." The weight still transfers, even if body roll is reduced. The difference is minimal on weight transfer.

Increasing roll stiffness will POTENTIALLY improve dynamic suspension geometry though, helping prevent positive camber mid-turn. They also improve transient response.

Sway bars also help lift weight off the inside tire though, reducing available traction on corner exit.

I see the potential for this to go either way, and I think testing is going to be the only way to get a real answer.