What's been your experience with aftermarket sways and ride quality? Obviously I understand the potential of bump effects in a turn with stiffer bars due the decreased suspension independence, but have you noticed any side-to-side motion, or a major difference in ride quality overall, especially on uneven roads? I am interested particularly as it applies to your 03-04 coupe. Thanks for the replies.

Also, has anyone tried putting the 05-07 bars on an 03-04 coupe?

 

i have hotchkis sways. anything you do to stiffen up the suspension will make the car feel stiffer ie more harsh. depends on your personal preference. i like the road feel. there is also little to no body roll in taking turns. i also had GT spec chassis braces put on at the same time so i dunno what the sways did independently.

 

i also got the hotchkis.. i think the biggest difference is the lack of body roll in your turns.. feels very good that you arent leaning any way in your turns

 

Thanks guys. I understand about the body roll, hence the desire to install them, but I'm wondering about how severe the tradeoff is in terms of ride harshness. This is still my DD.

 

You will not notice any harshness with rear bar, but front will make it ride harsher. Other factors play role too-how crappy roads are in your area? What setting you put on the bar?
I suggest rear only.

 

I haven't bought/installed any bars yet - still researching what to get. Roads are relatively decent in my area, with a few bumpy spots here and there, but nothing too bad until I go downtown.

I was thinking of going med/med as most recommend on the forums to start of with when I eventually do install them.

How do you like the Progress bars?

 

The ride quality is sure to degrade by a degree, but not more than the reduction in body roll you'll have eliminated. It is more road compliant than what you'd get from a stiffer set of springs that reduces the same amount of roll. In other words, it's not a bad deal for what you will get out of it.

I will highly recommend against getting only rear sway bars. Potentially that only alotts you *one* setting that'll suits your driving style. It's a bad idea to change a "single" sway bar setting based on comfort. You will end up with either unwanted understeer or oversteer. The main purpose of the sway bar is to reduce sway (of course) as well as to fine tune understeer/oversteer behavior.

 

^+1

Rear bar only modding is one of many setup variation's that I have tested, I did not care for the resluts. Though working towards the best possible ride quality or reducing the side to side motion you can get on uneven pavement with stiffer bar settings has never factored in.

 

Yup I did that setup once where I had the 350evo rear bar wtih stock front bar. The rear was set to medium. Ran at Buttonwillow and too much oversteer on the tigther corners. THX723 told me to set it down half a notch so it would be soft on one side and medium on the other and that helped. But I was basically stuck at one setting almost with no options for fine tuning.

 

so setting the rear bar to a stiffer position than the front bar gives more oversteer? i have the stillens right now and its set to med/med. the sway bars didn't change the ride quality and if it did i cant notice it. but i do have 20' rims on so i guess the ride quality was already bad

 

Yes Adding more rear bar will increase oversteer, and the point at which oversteer occurs. Too much and you end up with snap oversteer. Having saod that, adding most of the aftermarket bars is increasing the rear rate, even if tehy are set the same. If you look at the rates, on the aftermarket bars, the increas in rear is greater than fron increase.

 

If anyone is interested in the Stillen sways or Hotchkis sways, we can help you out