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Location:
Ipswich
Registered:
May 2002
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Swaybar stiffness
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Tue, 04 January 2005 02:15
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Posted this on PF but thought I'd ask here too and see what people thought 
Have been mucking around with the swaybar settings on my car (not really out of necessity, more because I could ), how stiff is "better"? Ideally it would be nice to be able to do timed laps around a track and see how the different settings affect time, but at this point in time I don't have access to that (yet), so it's all seat-of-pants. That, plus off-track it's all just speed-limited "spirited driving" and nothing really quick or dangerous. Oh BTW, only my front swaybar is adjustable.
On the stiffest setting, there's virtually no body roll in the front, and the car appears to turn in more like a go-kart. Feels quicker, but no idea if it is or not.
On the softest setting, car just tips in like it used to. Appears to have more tendency to want to push into corners and want to go sideways out of corners. Strangely, this feels more controllable, although that's probably cause I'm used to it wanting to do that.
Now, reading Fred Puhns book "How to make your car handle" (most of it goes "whoosh" over my head), it appears to me that he recons you should put the stiffest swaybar you can get into the car, until it starts lifting wheels, and then soften it a tad so that it keeps all 4 wheels on the ground. Is this true?
Also a friend of mine who used to race an IntegraR was saying that in the rain he'd disconnect the swaybars to get some body roll to get more grip? So this would mean that no body roll is a bad thing?
How much body roll is "good"?
Also, in regards to camber (and body roll), it appears that a lot of the reasons for having lots of camber is to help counter body roll. Would this mean that with less body roll you'd run less camber? Some of the cars I've seen at Qld Raceway etc run stupidly large amounts of neg camber, I'd imagine this would be detrimental to braking etc, but seems to work for these cars? How much neg camber is "good"?
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| | Subject | Poster | Date |
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Swaybar stiffness
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demuire | Tue, 04 January 2005 02:15 |
