V2Rocket

I just got a 25.5 swaybar for the front of my 944. The spring rates are entirely stock.

Currently I have a 23mm front bar and a 14mm rear bar.

I'm wondering if I should get a larger rear bar as well, if so, what size? I want the rear to be as grippy as possible. TIA

Techno Duck

18mm would be a nice match. I used to run 24mm and 18mm for a few seasons of auto-x before i went with a 26.8 front and 19mm rear. The 24/18 setup made it very easy to get the rear to rotate.

jstand22

I agree with t duck, the 18mm would be a nice match or even the 19mm if you plan on ever upgrading the rest of the suspension.

Mongo

If you want to keep the 25.5mm sway bar in the front, go with the 16mm sway bar for the rear. It is used on all 944 S2s. I have played with numerous sway bars and found that going with a 19mm rear sway bar on anything that is smaller than 26.8mm (S2 front) is asking for abrupt oversteer and unpredictable handling.

V2Rocket

Andy - so with a 16 in the rear and the 25.5 in front, how much do you think the rear grip will be improved over stock?

Mongo

upgrading sway bars is not about grip, but to reduce the amount of body roll through turns. It will help you corner better, but it will not change your gripping abilities. Gripping abilities depend on your tire, treadwear, depth and profile.

If you are wondering if the sway bar will improve your cars handling, yes it will.

J Silverman

Stiffer sway bars do reduce grip on the en of the car that they are put on. Grip and handling are two totally different topics. Sway bars typically reduce the amount of available grip to increase handling.

MAGK944

I always thought that reduced roll keeps more of the tire contact area on the road, therefore increasing roadholding (grip).

alex

It reduces the overall flex of the car, thus not allowing as much give before the force gets to the tires; they must handle more of the load the stiffer your car is. Perfect time to upgrade to 18s! Aside from grip, my car felt more stable on the fat, low profile tires on my 18s than on the stock 16s.

J Silverman

Think about it a little. Lets say you have a car that is understeering. Understeer is when the front loses traction before the rear right? So we want to balance that out we have two options. We can either increase front grip or reduce rear grip. Now Lets say we upgrade the rear sway bar, do you think that is going to add front grip? Or do you think that its going to reduce rear grip? Generally stiffer springs/sway bars reduce the total amount of grip available. Now if the car is so soft that it gets in to the bad part of the camber curve in a corner, stiffening can increase total grip, but thats only because its helping with the suspension geometry.

M758

The two biggest differences between a stiff car and soft car are camber change and response rate.

Soft cars use lots of suspension travel and in general this causes camber change. The actual roll of the car's body takes what may have been 0 camber and makes it 2-3 degress positve. That is whay static negaive camber is important. You want 0 dynamic camber when cornering, but to counter body roll you need to put in static negative. Stiffer springs & sway bars that tend to reduce body tend also to limit camber change and thus impoving the tire's grip to the road. This applys to 99% of all street cars since they are too softly sprung for optimal track use. There is a limit of course and well built cars will 800 lbs to 1000lbs spring rates run up on that limit. In those cases too stiff can mean not enough contact witht the road.

The other thing stiffeness gets you is faster response rate. When you turn in a softly sprung car it take a second or to load the suspension. It also take time to translate the driver's input to the chassis as the body moves around. Weight transfer is the key to cornering and more time it takes to transfer the weight the more difficult it is to be precise about it. Of course the trick is that very stiffly sprung cars respond very very fast and often times too fast for the driver to respond. That is why a stiff race car be hard to handle. You sneeze and the car shoots off track.

Now the issue with sway bars is a little more complex that just springs. Springs work in all directions. Sway bars have different impact depending on the input. Sway bars do nothing to control squat and dive from acceleration or braking. They do tend to limit roll on cornering. However they do so by reacting to the wheel on the other end of the car. This in general means that for racers sway bars are used differently than springs. For most street cars bigger sways are a way to reduce cornering roll, but still maintain a soft ride in a straight line.

ausgeflippt951

An 18mm turbo rear bar would fit nicely w/ the bar you just bought. Tell you what -- buy me a 19mm 968 MO30 adjustable rear bar for my car and I'll GIVE you my 18mm bar! I'm telling you, this is the deal of a lifetime.

V2Rocket

ok thanks all for the input

now, ive got the bar sitting outside covered in aircraft remover, stripping the paint and dirt off. ill hit it and the brackets next with a wire wheel just to clean them up.

what color should i paint them? im thinking red because my valve cover, brakes and tranny are already...but i do have that yellow...or just black? lol.