gbuff

How did the car handle before the new bars? What didn't you like about the way the car handled before? Understeer? Soften the front and/or stiffen the rear. Oversteer? Soften the rear and/or stiffen the front. Rule of thumb is the stiffer end of the car has the least grip, so if you want to stiffen the rear to lose some understeer, be careful. I've seen too many people (especially in fwd cars which obviously doesn't apply here) decide to do the aforementioned to get rid of that damned push--then they take the car out in the wet and loop it (and hopefully not hit anything/anybody). All of this is also assuming you've not changed the springs and/or shocks; as previously stated, all of these things are designed to work in harmony as a system.

Determine what the car is doing, and determine what you like i.e. what you want the car to be doing...I'm assuming you're experienced enough as a driver to know. And, please, don't be one of these people that I see at DEs that are constantly under the car screwing around with their "adjustments"; Porsche gives you an excellent-handling car right out of the box. Get out there and drive it!!

Off the soapbox--
Gary

Smokey the Talon

It seems like your original question may have been missed so let me ask if I'm understanding correctly.

You already know how to find proper balance with your sway bars relative to front/rear but have the ability to find that balance via multiple stiffness levels. As example(I'm simplifying)
-front soft / rear soft - good balance
-front medium / rear medium - good balance
- front stuff / rear stiff - good balance

Each option give good balance, but you're wondering if the stiffer settings give more performance than the softer settings correct?

mjw353

Hey Shawn,

As other guys have already mentioned, the answer to your original question gets pretty complex.
By changing the absolute stiffness of the Anti-roll bars, but maintaining their relative relationship, you're altering the car's Roll Gradient without affecting what Miliken describes in his book as the Total Lateral Load Transfer Distribution.

Knowing the Roll Gradient of a particular set up is useful when other changes in the suspension need to be made, but without disturbing the roll rate of the set up.

A pretty good series of articles that describe the theory and math:

http://www.optimumg.com/technical/technical-papers/

Look under Springs and Dampers: the 2nd paper deals with Roll Gradients and how to calculate them.

I’ve built an excel spreadsheet from the equations listed in the articles for my own Cayman's suspension. It works reasonably well, but won’t take into account chassis flex or tire deformation ( both of which affect the car’s Total Roll Gradient )

HTH,

cheers,

-m

Bill Lehman

Assuming the OP's car is a stock Cayman with anti-roll bars as the only suspension mod, I'd be inclined to reduce roll to the minimum since the struts at each end don't permit enough camber change during roll.