Thoughts on adj. rear sway bars?

[spectre186]

I’m coming from WRX and STi that really benefitted from stiffer rear sway bars to help with off throttle rotation.

I’m curious to hear if anyone has feedback regarding adjustable rear sway bars and how they affect the driving dynamics of the car.

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[Modular Cal]

So far, I'm 50/50 on it. In an autocross environment, I can see the benefit in some regards. There have been at least a dozen times where I would have liked some more rotation but there are a lot of areas where I wouldn't want any further rotation (I came from a tail happy Mustang). On track, I felt it didn't need one, at least how my car is now. I have gone 90 degrees to the turn a couple times, but that can be (and was) remedied by a driving adjustment. I can see wanting a rear bar with wider and stickier tires, but I want to see what the car presents to me at that point before making that judgement. The good thing is it would be adjustable, as long as it's not a big stiffness jump from stock in it's softest setting, for me at least. However, It could make the car a bit more lively/fun when you don't necessarily care about times!

Currently stock with 200TW 275/35/R18 Continental ECF's on 18x9.5 Apex EC-7's.

 

[yeaitsahonda]

^^^ I'd second that. On track the car feels perfect. Easy to get it to slide into the tighter corners while not loose at all for the faster stuff. At an autocross I would like a little more rotation as it's hard to get it to pivot around a cone. I'm also on 200TW tires.

 

[scuderia_miso]

You can definitely get some understeer in the lower speed corners and certain mid speed corners. There's an off camber mid 3rd gear turn in particular at my local track that would benefit from more rotation. These situations could probably use a bigger rear bar. Going to agree with what others said above though. Most situations the car is quite balanced.

That being said, the alignment on this car needs to be adjusted for track use anyways. Especially if you are running stickier tires. I am planning to start there before swapping out any suspension hardware. I expect more front camber to help quite a bit with the understeer.

 

[sam3r_11]

how does the braking system play into this rotation (using rear brakes to help spin outer wheel faster), I feel like that's an additional factor that we traditionally haven't had to account for.

 

[RacingManiac]

In FK8 a stiffer rear bar definitely helps balance out the car at lower speed autoX type of driving, without as much momentum you definitely can get into understeer easier, especially with stickier tires. As the bars themselves are compatible I am planning to use the same rear bar I used on this car for that purpose.

As far as the brake actuated torque vectoring goes, in FK8 its action is pronounced but less pronounced as the tire gets more aggressive and grip level is higher. In the wet it is really obvious and actually even stock its quite tail happy as the rear brake being actuated to "help" rotation. I've only done 1 event in the FL5 so far and bone-stock, running with or without the rear brake helping(+R ESC off vs pedal dance), it is quite pronounce how much it is helping the car turn on PS4Ss. At higher speed(ie race track) it is probably pretty well balanced with stock tire and stock bar tuning.

 

[tezzasaurusrex]

On higher speed tracks I find the balance on oem bars to be fine - this is with pretty aggressive camber numbers (-3.5F, -2.5R). On the lower speed stuff yes a little more rear roll stiffness would help. But personally I'd prefer to achieve this with spring rate over sway bars.

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