Stiffer sway bars on stock suspension

Z

ZetaTre

Active member
 San Diego County
I've been trying to talk my wife into lowering the Z4 with a Eibach/Koni setting, but she has talked me into the "the car is already low enough". So I would guess for now that is out of the table.

The thing that I actually would like to improve is the body roll & some understeer... What would you guys think about installing stiffer sway bars on a stock suspension (non-sport) setup?

I'm thinking Hotchkis or H&R.
 
It's a bit unorthodox as uprated sway bars are generally a finishing touch to fully modified suspension and you could dial out the understeer by changing the geometry or better still accelerating harder through the corners! The sway bars will certainly reduce body roll but it remains to be seen whether it has a positive or negative effect on the handling.

H&R's have 5 levels of adjustment at the front and 3 at the rear and are excellent quality. I use H&R M3 CSL bars, full soft rear and medium or medium/firm on the front depending on the situation. I havn't had much to do with Hotchkis parts so I can't comment.
 
Go with the eibach/koni set up. It will definately improve the handling and body roll issue. Besides it's not too much of drop compared to lowering with H & R on stock shocks! Who knows, your wife may not even notice its dropped :thumbsup:
 
Curtis, educate him about front camber, the corner speed is scaring me to death mate, can't wait for the other bits.... :evil:
 
1. Open the bonnet/hood and jack up the front of the car.
2. Look at the top mounting points of the strut, there are 3 nuts and a dowel. The dowel is fitted at the factory to align the camber in the zero degree position.
3. Remove the dowel and keep it safe in case you want to set things to standard later.
4. Slacken off the 3 nuts.
5. You will notice the top of the struts are mounted through elongated holes in the strut turret, this is what gives you adjustment.
6. Push the top strut mountings as far inboard as you can, I would estimate you'll get about 6 or 7mm from the neutral position.
7. Hold the strut as far in as it will go and tighten up the three nuts.
8. Do the same on the other side.

You should now have about 1.5 degrees of negative camber and dramatically better cornering. :wink:
 
BlackSapphireZ said:
that trick doesn't work very well...

i need a front sway bar on my stock setup to improve understeer...
Click to expand...

Have you tried it??, i would say not, I've adjusted it on my car and the improvement in front end bite and grip is night and day.

A trick that works very well...:driving:
 
Curtis said:
You should now have about 1.5 degrees of negative camber and dramatically better cornering. :wink:
Click to expand...
Increased front negative camber (up to a point) will improve cornering and reduce understeer. One of the downsides can be increased tire wear on the inside edge. For those who have adjusted their camber to 1.5 degrees negative, have you seen any noticeable increase in tire wear?
 
I havn't had any issues with excessive tyre wear using 1.5 degrees neg, it becomes noticeable when I use 3 degrees neg at the track and can't be bothered to readjust it for a while! If however you have 1.5 degrees neg and you drive like a Pansy all the time eventually you will notice wear on the inner edge of the tyre because you havn't been using the benefit you've created for hard cornering and the majority of wear will be towards the inside of the tread because that area takes the most abuse while driving in a straight line. It's all about balance and creating the best setup for your driving style.

BlackSapphireZ

I don't understand why you can't feel the difference with 1.5 neg camber, it's one of the fundamental rules for increasing cornering grip. Did you allow enough time for the tyres to rescrub?

Fitting a stiffer front sway bar will probably INCREASE understeer by the way. It's worth having a read of the link below, especially the section called " The Effect Of Anti-Sway Bars Upon TLLTD "

Have you tried adjusting your geometry settings to dial out the understeer?


http://www.teamscr.com/sway.htm
 
I had the camber adjustment done at a HPDE last year. The difference is remarkable. I also had to "relearn" brake points etc for a few laps. I changed them back to the stock position after the event.
 
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