Swapped to smaller rear bar, Will it Help

[eddiec]

the other day i swapped my hicas 21mm rear bar for a stocker 15mm bar. and i'm looking for opinions/ suggestions if this is the right direction.

the car is 91 hatch with ksport 7/5 (set 3/4 hard front, 1/4 hard rear), poly bushings, azenis on stock alloys.

the problem involves loss of grip on uneven surfaces causing rapid oversteer.

my reasoning for trying this is to try and lower the effective spring rate at each corner.

will this help much? should i also look for the other smaller stock front bar, as i have the bigger hicas bar to help balance it out a little more?

[AZhitman]

You're off to a good start.

Spend some time perusing the "You're invited..." thread in this same forum.

[crzycav86]

Well, did you play around with the dampening in the front and the rear first? What about spring preload?

I would exhaust the easy possible solutions first before going out and switching sway bars. You may have already done this though.

[gogg]

Wouldn't more negative rear camber help? And lower tire pressure, but I'm sure you've covered that. Also why not go to a wider tire in just the rear?

If you ever upgrade the front sway put back the HICAS rear.

I personally can't see how you like understeer so much, but then again I drift...
Modified by gogg at 8:35 PM 5/2/2005

[eddiec]

i ran rear tire psi down to 26 (fronts set to ~48 psi on dry). helped some, but the problem was still there.

i run -2 camber at all 4 corners. we couldn't get much more out of the rear with the stock arms.

the spring have zero preload. when installing the collars were finger tightened and then given an extra turn to account for sag.

as far as damper settings..... i originally had them set at 3/4 hard all around. initial drives around the n'hood showed the rear to be tight. eventually i settled on where i'm at now. if i go any softer then i get noticable bounce over stutter bumps. the front settings i "played" with a few weekends ago. i adjusted them incrementally harder 1/6th of a turn at a time without much improvement in apparent handling.

i'll find out in a few weeks if this helps any. for the small price of the used bar and the hour or so it took to swap it, it may be informative to see how the car responds to such a change.

any other ideas/suggestions/thoughts welcome.

[Q45tech]

Never tested the 240 rear bars but on a Q the AT WHEEL/TIRE differences between the 15.9mm and 20 mm rear bar as installed with oem bushings is 12 lb/in vs. 41 pounds per inch of body twist because of the center lower rear arm mounting points.

Springs are oem? As long as the bars are less than half total rear stiffness:

41 + ~~120= ~~160 thus 41/160= ~~0.25 so 20mm bar is only 25% of total rear stiffness........not real a lot but more than the 9% the smaller bar provides.

[gogg]

eddie, what were your thoughts on the wider rear tire size?

[S13 Charlie]

Eddie C - way off-topic, but are you interested in selling that hicas sway bar? If yes, email me at [email protected]

[eddiec]

i'm all for a little more footprint. i just haven't gotten around to it yet. and azenis only come in selected sizing.