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tobyoste
Occasional Poster


Location:
Sydney
Registered:
February 2004
Re: Corolla swaybar? y/n Thu, 28 April 2005 22:28 Go to previous messageGo to previous message
I have an SX AE93 with a silvertop 20v fitted. Apart from ensuring shocks and bushes, etc. are all ok, the only suspension upgrade is that I have fitted the whiteline 20mm adjustable rear bar as it is a daily driver and needs to be driven on Sydney's often very poor roads.

It did make a huge difference. I have it set on the least stiff setting and to be honest, although I am very happy with it, it is probably still a bit too stiff as it it very close to an oversteerer now. I have standard springs and standard front 14mm (I think) bar and feel I may have been better off getting the 18mm non adjustable rear bar (slightly less oversteerer).

Over/understeer is a quite often misunderstood concept. Lots of people think they need to make their car an oversteerer for it to be better but in fact, this is not really the case. If a car is understeering, the front tyres are loosing their cornering abilities more than the rear tyres and visa versa for oversteer. In the case of understeer, this can occur when the front tyres are using some of their grip for forward or backward traction (ie, braking or driving) or when their total grip(left and right tyres combined) is reduced as they resist the car body wanting to roll. This is why a larger front bar (hence front tyres resists roll more than the rears) gives more understeer and visa versa and why getting on the power with a rear drive car can cause oversteer. If both the front and rear tyres reach their limit in cornering at the same time, you have a neutral steer car (and max cornering ability) but any change in braking or drive will change it to under or oversteer depending whether this effects the front or rear more than the other.

All production (and almost all racecars) are actually setup for steady-state understeer. The test for this is done by car companies in two ways. One way is to drive with very little acceleration around a fixed radius (on a skidpan) and gently increase speed while recording steering wheel angle. If you have to increase the steering wheel angle as speed increases, the car is understeering and oversteering if you need to wind off lock. The key is to increase speed slowly and maintain a constant radius while doing this test. If you have a large roundabout that isn't used much, you can do this test yourself. You don't need to get anyway near the limit as the results should be evident way before you're lifting inside wheels or making large corrections. The other test is similar in that you are recording the steering wheel angle as you drive around the same radius corner at various constant speeds (say 30, 40, 50, 60, etc) but is harder to do unless you have a constant radius line on a road somewhere as its hard to maintain the same radius each time without it and hard to remember exactly what steering wheel angle you had on each run without data acquisition gear.

So much for the theory. Replacing all the bushes will controll the suspension geometry better. The car will "feel" sportier the stiffer it is in roll (and less roll can be a good thing as it reduces camber change that occurs with roll). Putting a stiffer rear bar on will give you this feel and bring the car closer to neutral (where the cornering limit of both the front and rear tyres are similar and max cornering ability is reached). If you are getting stiffer springs as well (either same ride hight or lowered - hence normally stiffer), you will change the roll stiffness as well as the springs contribute to roll stiffness. The amount they contribute depends on the suspension geometry.

My advice is to fit a rear sway bar (18mm for and AE92/3) as it is a very cost effective suspension upgrade with noticeable results (this is assuming the rest of the suspension - especially your shocks - is not worn out).

Toby
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SubjectPosterDate
Read Message   Corolla swaybar? y/n finneyThu, 28 April 2005 09:02
Read Message   Re: Corolla swaybar? y/n HyDrAThu, 28 April 2005 09:57
Read Message   Re: Corolla swaybar? y/n duff_boyThu, 28 April 2005 09:59
Read Message   Re: Corolla swaybar? y/n oldcorollasThu, 28 April 2005 10:07
Read Message   Re: Corolla swaybar? y/n finneyThu, 28 April 2005 10:40
Read Message   Re: Corolla swaybar? y/n  tobyosteThu, 28 April 2005 22:28
Read Message   Re: Corolla swaybar? y/n boofisFri, 29 April 2005 11:11
Read Message   Re: Corolla swaybar? y/n LucidSun, 01 May 2005 22:51
Read Message   Re: Corolla swaybar? y/n tobyosteSun, 01 May 2005 21:40
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