Opinion on sway bars
 

I was thinking about getting front and rear sway bars for my 06 gti...not really sure if itd be worth it any feed back would be apperciated

i think sway bars/strut bars were one of the best mods i have ever done on a car as far as suspension. ive noticed a huge difference after installing them on my integra. corners are FUN now lol.

i got my car modded with sway and strut bars from my older brother. so, i can't really say what kind of handling my car had before it had the sway bars and strut bars on it. but, what i can say is that the handling of my car is amazing.

This should be posted the Tech section

yea my car has completly stock suspension and im really trying to do warrenty friendly mods for now atleast...

What sort of thickness bars are other FWD guys using? I'm pondering this mod as well. :)

Do you have any other suspension done to your car?

i installed a larger rear sway bar with end links and bushings after struts/coilovers/rims/front&rearstrutbars and it was very noticeable.

Eibach pro-kit springs and Bilstein HD's, not the stiffest setup ever but comfortable and sporty. :)

What thickness bars do you have? I know it won't mean much to my car, but humor me. :)

I've heard nothing but good things on sways. I personally want to upgrade my sways as well

Alright well here's a little technical info on sway bars.

Sway bars a good mod for a daily car. They allow the roll rate of the car to increase without making the ride harsh. So you could have a car that would be bearable to drive every day but in turns it would be stiffer than with just the springs. While this is all nice and good for a daily, it's not the same for a race car.

Sway bars increase lateral load transfer to the outside wheel and an increase in lateral load transfer can decrease the road holding ability of the car. A car that is evenly loaded at the wheels will be able to produce more lateral force than a car with all of its weight on one wheel. This is because of the load sensitivity of the tires. As the weight on the tires increase, the coefficient of friction of the tires decreases.

Another thing about sway bars is they can destabilize the car in a one-wheel bump situation. This is like hitting a pothole. When one wheel goes up, the other will want to go up too.

A quick note on the thickness of a sway bar. I personally hate how companies describe their sway bars. The OD of the bar tells you nothing. You would need to know the ID to even get close to having an idea of what the bar does. In order to accurately size a good sway bar from your car you would need to know the OD and ID as well as the length of the sway bar in torsion, the length of the moment arm and the installation ratio of the bar.

Just based on observations, it seems that most cars will have way too stiff of a front sway bar compared to the rear. This makes sense because pretty much all cars are biased towards understeer for stability reasons.

Another thing to consider is the method your sway bar is attached to your suspension. Solid endlinks will do much more than you would think. You have to think of it like a spring in series. With those soft, sloppy end link bushings, you are only getting full performance from the bar when and if those things bottom out. Solid endlinks would help the sway bar do it's job correctly. Poly bushings help out with this, but no where near as much as they should.

Alright, I think that's enough. So for a daily that won't see any limit driving, sway bars could help. Be careful if you're only getting a front or only getting a rear because it will affect the lateral load transfer distribution. A stiffer rear bar will move the car close to oversteer behavior. And a stiffer front bar will make it want to understeer more.

So Wiisass would you defintly suggest getting both the front and rear sway bars?

This is very interesting to me, cause I'm looking at 22mm rear bar for my car which sounds like a big step from the 17mm that's there, but according to you it might not be so huge. I'm thinking that bar and a 21 mm (factory upgrade to a later spec for my car, I have a 20mm) up front with poly bushings.

Yeah, I would say go for it, but also look into getting new solid endlinks. If no one sells them, then look into making them, they aren't hard. It' just 2 rod ends with a piece in the middle that connects them and allows you to adjust the overall length. Actually if you could find these for the car first or make them or whatever, I would suggest getting these before the bars and see how much that helps out. It'll end up saving you money.

Where would you get the bushing material for said end links, or would that have to be made as well?

The rod ends would be the bushings.

For the ones I made for my brother's supra, we used 2 decent 3-piece rod ends, a 4130 piece in the middle and grade 8 bolts. We used 2024 Aluminum as spacer material.

http://www.theoryinpracticeengineeri...2/DSC00243.JPG

Well then I'd need rod ends for my rear ARB. The end links on the front of my car actually seem pretty tight.

Raven i have a 25mm rear sway i think possibly same goes for the front also

22mm solid rear w/ energy suspension bushings and new end links. the escort sedan comes with a puny OEM one. the wagon model has a 21mm version but its hollow and the GT gets a 20mm solid. 22mm is the limit for our cars, after that you just have a rear that won't move.

I have H&R 24mm adjustable rear on the back of my 06 GTI and I have H&R sport springs waiting to go on. The difference is night and day. A lot better turn in and I'm able make small adjustments in the turns with the throttle more than I could on the standard setup. I know a bunch of people over at http://www.golfmkv.com/forums/ are running the H&R 24mm. Some are running Neuspeed's 25mm and a few the Autotech bar as well.