analogmike

I might have some used aftermarket sway bars too, I am moving and found a bunch of torsion bars (21 front, 27 and 29 rear) in my old garage but have not found the sways yet. Email me if you are looking for a deal.

Chris M.

My front is as soft as it can go, and if I could, I would make it softer. It still understeers like crazy in tight turns. That's what I'm saying; why would I get larger bars when I can't even use the full potential of the smaller bars I already have?

Sean F

might be a stupid question, but have you tried full stiff?

Gary R.

Something sounds off to me too. How about disconnecting the front sway Chris, what does that do?

dbryant61

Chris,

From what I have read, the original 911 race cars did not even have a rear sway bar. As more and more people have raced and tested this platform, the consensus has become that bigger sway bars are needed to keep the body from rolling. This reduces the amount of camber lost under lateral G's. If you moved your rear sway bar to full tight, you would have to tighten your front one to maintain balance. Extrapolate that concept up several notches, and you end up with BF ARBs, nearly zero body roll, nearly zero camber loss, and a faster car through the corners. Again, you have to play with the settings to achieve your preferred balance.

I have my 22s up front at full stiff and rears at about 3/4 tight. I am guessing you hate understeer, and I don't like as much oversteer, even though my rear does come out quite often on acceleration out of a corner.

Jay Gratton

Mike,
PM sent! Thanks. - Jay

Tim

Are you guys talking about torsion bars? or sway bars.. op is asking about sway bars...

Chris M.

Sean, Gary, Don, et al...

I have not tried tightening the front or disconnecting it. One problem may be not enough camber. I don't have camber plates, and have less than -2 in front, no monoballs and
-2.5 in back. NO LSD either, so I don't get the back end out much since I can't get on the power too quick. I've only done one race with the non-original suspension, and I was happy with my lap times considering. I will work it out eventually.

But does my logic still hold true? If you can't use a smaller bar at its tightest setting, you don't need larger bars?

dbryant61

Chris,

Your camber is a piece of critical missing info. I gave -3.0 up front and -2.4 in the rear. I got 3.0 by doing surgery. I have only raced in NASA GTS 2 and I know that what I did is not legal in D-class. I also know that many in D-class have -3.0 up front and -2.7 rear, or there-abouts. My guess is they got it with the Smart Racing camber king and possible off-set ball joints. Several got gigged for it last year at the Glen (rumor - I was not there). I have heard I can get -2.7 in the rear by going to mono-***** for the semi-trailing arm. That is next.

So, back to your situation, I would imagine you would have a very difficult time getting oversteer with over 1/2 degree more camber up front than rear. With that setup, your sway bar settings sound more feasible.

Gary R.

Makes sense, yes. I don't know what size SR sways we run off the top of my head, but our cars are all set up full soft in the rear and 1/2 to 3/4 soft in front. They are fairly large diameter bars...

Chris M.

-1.6 in the front, -2.6 in the rear, that's the most they could get. No "trickery", obviously.

Gary R.

Actually cars got bumped up a Class for bump steer kits and one 72 had SC flares. No mention of offset ball joints or any camber plates.

PedroNole

Chris-

Do you have coil over suspension (sway bars are only one piece of the puzzle)? Your camber definitely needs to be increased. How much toe are you running?

Unless you are on a completely green track or one with REALLY big decreasing radius corners, I can't see why you would need to be running your front bar full soft...

Chris M.

No coilovers, not allowed in stock classes.

23/33 torsion bars, 22/22 Weltmeister sways, custom valved Bilsteins, polygraphite bushings, aligned and corner-balanced. No monoballs, no camber plates, no decambered balljoints (legal?), no fancy bumpsteer kit (also illegal?). I do have the $13 steering rack spacer kit which is legal.

I think my toe is 1/16 IN, but I'd have to check to be sure. AFAIK, the only way to get more front camber is to go illegal...

Bryan Watts

With that little camber in the front, going stiffer on the front bars/springs may actually help with your understeer problem. Actually, I won't even say "may", I'll go ahead and guess that it WILL. You've got to manage the contact patch. If you have too much roll and not enough camber, your grip is going to suck. Going softer to solve the problem is only going to make it worse.

The "stiffer" = more understeer idea that you are taught is based on starting from a near optimal setup on a purpose built race car. You aren't anywhere close to that due to rules, budget, design, etc, etc. Stiffer does not always = less grip. If it did, we would go lower than the factory spring rates rather than much stiffer when going racing.