plastex

I was wondering if I can get some Swaybar/droplinks suggestions. The car is a 83 that I just got the Hypercoil springs (600/400). I am ordering the Koni shock's from Carl this week and will install everything this winter. The car will be a DE car and hopefully some racing years from now. While I have the suspension apart I would like to upgrade the Sway bars, whether new bars...droplinks...


Thanks for any suggestions.

Thanks,
Oscar

drnick

im not sure if you can get the ott droplinks anymore and carl dosent have a supplier for sway bars which just leaves specialists. carl does make drop links but they dont stiffen the bar as far as i can tell. you might want to consider running with just the sway bar from the later cars and some poly bushes. the springs will stiffen the ride considerably and reduce roll at the same time.

ive got hypercoils 650/425 and im thinking of slacking off the front specialist bar back to the middle hole from fully stiff after my last track day.

mark kibort

the front sway bar is pretty essential, especially with a heavy car and lightly sprung. (rememember, im at 750 front and 450 rear and run the front swaybar almost at full stiff. (devek )
without the swaybar, i can lift the inside wheel on a tight turn and get massive inside wheel spin!
so, you definitely want a fairly stiff front swaybar. also keep in mind that im at 3000lbs with driver, and you might be 3600 to 3700lbs with driver. this makes your spring set up quite a bit softer.
swaybars take the roll out especially with heavy cars that are dual purpose.

mk

plastex

So, what size front and rears?, and also which MFG. I have had no luck finding any DEVEK web pages to see what they sell.

Thanks,
Oscar

drnick

mark, are you saying that stiffening the front gives you less rear wheel spin? i would have expected the opposite. at least thats one good thing about the replacement bars - they have ajustment so you can play around. what type of rear bar are you using?

dr bob

Stiffen the -front- to keep both rears on the ground. Reducing the roll at the front means possibly lifting a front wheel, while a stock or close to it rear bar keeps the inside rear in contact with the pavement. A little more throttle pedal action and you can steer the car as you push the front around.

mark kibort

Yes, as bob said as well.

one of the thinks that too much front bar can cause is a push in front. (understeer) . that can be adjusted out, or you can tighten the rear bar to match, but often, this can lead to a slide'y car, that some racers like.

its a real science if you start using all of the factors of the suspension. spring rates, swaybars, weight distribution, shock settings, driver inputs, all determine the handling of a race car! Im kind of glad my car handles well , and im out of adjustments (except the fine tuning things) so i dont have to play with anything.
give me a set of motons and i would probably make the car worse!!

mk

drnick

as ive managed to drive faster, the way i have the car setup is changing. at the moment im working the front really hard and under using the rear, evident when i look at tyre temps after pitting. one of my problems is the PSD with bolt arrangement - it dosent seem to work as well as a LSD so im spinning the inside rear wheel, but the other problem i have is understeer, the car dosent want to turn in untill its shifted some weight onto the outside wheels, but then if i try and put down power it either wants to run wide or else it just spins the inside rear.. so im going to loosen the front bar and see how this works out

plastex

So...... which mfg for the bars?

plastex

And what would be the different between the 928 Specialist adj. bars and the ones from 928 Motorsports, if they had them in stock. The ones from 928 Motorsports were larger diameter and lighter, but they were almost $500 more for the set.

Oscar

dr bob

Making the bar tighter is a way of causing the load from one side to be shared by the spring/suspension on the unloaded side. Loosening the front bar may help your understeer by leaving both tires on the ground, but will allow more body roll (all other things being equal) and therefore more inside rear weight will be transferred to the outside, with inside tire spin. Possible solution may be to raise the spring rates some on the front, then unload the front bar a bit as a next step as you tune for rear traction. The higher spring rate may cause other upsets depending on track conditions, as you know.